[Buddha-l] Rain

[Dan Lusthaus]

As some of you may know, Stephen has written a grammar book on Buddhist
Chinese:

_Reading Buddhism Through Chinese: An Introductory Grammar and Reader_

You can see it on Amazon.com at
http://tinyurl.com/34ctgm

and apparently a paperback version is in the works
http://tinyurl.com/2rcqul

I haven't seen it and don't own a copy of what I imagine is a splendid work
(it currently costs $150). Perhaps Stephen might send me a copy to help
improve my poor Chinese.

On the other hand, the three phrases

而不吐
'byin par mi 'byed pa
na aaddharati

do not fit together very well, unless one changes the Skt from aaddharati
(retains food; aat+dharati or aat+harati) to uddharati (vomits), in which
case one could make a case for the different Ch (doesn't vomit) and Tib
(doesn't expel) readings, at which point the Ch would be more accurate than
the Tib. That the Skt is problematic is a point I made previously. OTOH,
sheng, even with Stephen's ingenious "raw" reading, is still puzzling.

And Joanna, it is not unlikely that a similar idea on the direction of
coldness when one dies was shared by the Greeks and Indians, especially
Indians in this period (remember Asanga grew up in Gandhara, the most
hellenized portion of the Indian orbit).

Dan