[Buddha-l] Query on Non-Local Consciousness

[Dan Lusthaus]

Dear Stephen,

Thanks for the further clarification of er as an enclitic topic marker. Your
meaning is much clearer now. It is not a function that I have noticed, and
would not have suspected it here without your prodding.

> But, out of interest, how would you interpret the 而 in the whole phrase ?

In its normal usage as a conjunction it usually means something like "and"
or "and yet" -- so taking the 有 as a noun (we agree here), and 不吐 as a
verbal phrase [an 而 can link such things], it would be something like:
"aama and yet doesn't vomit," or, in a more readable form: "[a person has
the type of] aama [in which he] doesn't vomit." As I've suggested
previously, based on the Caraka-samhita, a "non-vomiting form of aama" would
suggest a specific type of fatal aama. Not all forms of aama are fatal, and
thus would not be causes of untimely death, some are curable; one of the
fatal kinds is marked symptomatically by the inability to vomit. All forms
of aama, on the other hand, involve some degree of retension of undigested
food, though at certain critical stages, may result in vomiting and other
means of expelling the buildup. Without being able to examine the medical
text (or oral text) that Asanga was drawing on, it is hard to say for
certain. Or he may have simply been repeating the formula from a sutra (he
attributes this to the Buddha), in which case perhaps a Sanskrit version of
that sutra passage, or subsequent discussion -- either in the sutra or
commentarial -- might shed some additional light. Since Numata doesn't
encourage such exploring, I may or may not find the time to hunt that down.

How would you propose to translate a topic marker? "Aama in which there is
no vomiting"? "Aama: non-expelling/vomiting."

Doesn't that -- in English -- semantically more or less come out to the same
thing?

In the meantime, this discussion has been very illuminating and helpful (at
least for me). The YBh translation I posted was a rough draft, with numerous
passages earmarked (mostly marked by including the Ch characters) for
further investigation which I had not gotten around to. This forced me to do
that for at least one of the questionable phrases, and I think we now all
have a better sense of the range of possible readings (in three languages).
Sorry that Stephen found me so obstinate, deaf or wearying.

best wishes,
Dan Lusthaus