2. Nāmakaṇḍa (Noun section)

Note

Where Kaccāyana orders his noun rules by operation, Buddhappiya orders them by lemma: the masculine lemmas ending in a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, o, each with its inflections (padamālā, lit. “garland of words”) and the derivations of every inflection form; then the feminine and neuter lemmas, the pronouns (sabbanāma), the genderless words (numerals), the suffixes that take the place of an inflection (to, tra, dā …), the prefixes and the particles. Kaccāyana’s rules are quoted where each form needs them, so a rule may appear more than once; the inflections are set out as inflection tables.

Reading Rachiwong

This section is one of the three that Phramaha Sriporn Rachiwong translated in her Pune thesis Rūpasiddhi: A Study of Some Aspects (1995), reproduced on this site as Rachiwong: Rūpasiddhi (1995). Her rules are headed (K-N), K the Kaccāyana sutta and N the rule’s number in the Thai edition of the Padarūpasiddhi (Bangkok 1984), her base text; her N is the number used on this page. Her notes compare that Thai edition (Rūp T.) with the Burmese Buddhasāsanasamiti edition (B., the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana text these pages print) and the Sinhalese Mahārūpasiddhi (S.). The footnotes below record where this translation’s text or construal differs from hers, and nothing more; her own translation and notes are on her page.

Buddhappiya’s order of the nouns

The Nāmakaṇḍa proceeds by gender and by the ending of the lemma, giving each model noun its set of inflections; the ranges are Rūpasiddhi numbers.

flowchart LR
  N(["Nāmakaṇḍa 60–282"]) --> M["Pulliṅga 60–175"]
  N --> F["Itthiliṅga 176–194"]
  N --> Nt["Napuṃsakaliṅga 195–199"]
  N --> P["Sabbanāma 200–231<br/>the pronouns in three genders"]
  N --> A["Aliṅganāma 232–259<br/>the numerals"]
  N --> Vb["Vibhattippaccayavidhāna 260–281<br/>to, tra, tha, dhi, dā, dāni, rahi …"]
  N --> Op["Opasaggikapada 282 and Nepātikapada<br/>prefixes and particles"]
  M --> M1["a: purisa 60–143, with mana, guṇavantu, gacchanta,<br/>bhavanta, rāja, brahma, atta, sakha, puma"]
  M --> M2["ā: sā 144 · i: aggi 145–149 · ī: daṇḍī 150–154<br/>u: bhikkhu, satthu, pitu 155–168 · ū: sabbaññū · o: go 169–175"]
  F --> F1["ā: kaññā 176–181 · i: ratti 182–186<br/>ī: itthī, nadī 187–194 · u, ū: yāgu, vadhū, mātu"]
  Nt --> Nt1["a: citta 195–198<br/>aṭṭhi, sukhakārī, āyu, gotrabhū 199"]

Atha nāmikavibhatyāvatāro vuccate.

And now we go through stating the nominal inflections (nāmikavibhatti).

Atthābhimukhaṃ namanato, attani catthassa nāmanato nāmaṃ, dabbābhidhānaṃ.

A noun is called nāma because it bends (namati) towards a meaning, and because it makes a meaning bend towards itself: it is the naming of a substance (dabba).

Taṃ pana duvidhaṃ anvattharuḷhīvasena, tividhaṃ pumitthinapuṃsakaliṅgavasena. Yathā – rukkho, mālā, dhanaṃ.

Now it is of two kinds, as:

• meaningful (anvattha) and
• artificial (ruḷhī);

and of three kinds by gender:

• masculine,
• feminine and
• neuter,

for example:

• rukkho (a tree),
• mālā (a garland),
• dhanaṃ (wealth).

Catubbidhaṃ sāmaññaguṇakriyāyadicchāvasena, yathā – rukkho, nīlo, pācako, sirivaḍḍhotiādi.

It is of four kinds, by way of

• a genus (sāmañña),
• a quality (guṇa),
• an action (kriyā) or
• an arbitrary wish (yadicchā),

for example:

• rukkho (a tree),
• nīlo (blue),
• pācako (a cook),
• Sirivaḍḍho (a personal name),
• and so on.

Aṭṭhavidhaṃ avaṇṇivaṇṇuvaṇṇokāraniggahītantapakatibhedena.

It is of eight kinds by the division of its lemmas (pakati), which end in

• the a-sounds (a, ā),
• the i-sounds (i, ī),
• the u-sounds (u, ū),
• the o-sounds (o),
• and the niggahīta.

Sections

• Pulliṅga (Masculine nouns) (60–175)
• Itthiliṅga (Feminine nouns) (176–194)
• Napuṃsakaliṅga (Neuter nouns) (195–199)
• Sabbanāma (Pronouns) (200–231)
• Aliṅganāma (Nouns without gender: numerals) (232–259)
• Vibhattippaccayavidhāna (Suffixes with the sense of an inflection) (260–281)
• Opasaggikapada and Nepātikapada (Prefixes and particles) (282–282)