[Buddha-l] Sanskrit puzzle

[Richard Nance]

>That would fit the context. I wonder if you could break down the word tryadhvikānāṃ for me. I see tri- becoming try- by sandhi, and the >genitive plural ending -āṃ. Adhvan would be "time" but how do we get to adhvikān?

The relevant (compounded) stem form here is, I think, "adhva". If so,
then the issue becomes how to get from adhvānāṃ to adhvikānāṃ. My
first guess is that this is an atypical taddhita transformation
involving -ika. But, as you may already know, the taddhita -ika suffix
usually requires that the first syllable of the prakṛti undergo vṛddhi
 (so, for example, dharma becomes dhārmika). Clearly this is not the
case here. Perhaps adhvika is a taddhita transformation involving -ka
(rather than -ika) affixed to a stem whose antecedent vowel just
happens to have transformed from -a to -i (stranger things have
happened in the world of dhāraṇī). But this doesn't really answer your
question, does it? On the peculiarities of this particular form, then,
I fear that I must defer to the wisdom of my Sanskrit elders --
several of whom abide on this list. This may have a case of a textual
corruption, or an oddity of Buddhist Sanskrit, or it may be a
perfectly acceptable Pāṇinian form (i.e., it may be an acknowledged
exception to a more generally applicable rule). Or, of course, my
hunches regarding derivation may be completely misguided.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to look more deeply into this issue
at the moment; perhaps Ashok Aklujkar or Tim Cahill would like to
weigh in.

Best wishes,

R. Nance
Indiana