Run-of-the-mill

by **BlackBird** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:19 am

Sometimes we see this phrase appear in the Suttas, for example MN 26: Ariyapariyesana Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html)

What is the Pali word for Run-of-the-mill? Is it ever translated into english in another way?

:anjali:

and thank you in advance
Jack

by **retrofuturist** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:44 am

Greetings,

Can't seem to see run-of-the-mill there but I'm tipping it's puthujjana, a.k.a. worldling.

Metta,
Retro.

by **tiltbillings** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:45 am

Where in that discourse is it used? I could not find it using the IE "find" option nor with MS "find" option.

by **tiltbillings** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:46 am

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/search.p ... alm=suttas

by **tiltbillings** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:53 am

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,

Can't seem to see run-of-the-mill there but I'm tipping it's puthujjana, a.k.a. worldling.

Metta,
Retro.

Give that man a cookie. It is puthujjana.

Puthujjana [*prthag -- jana, thus puthu 1+jana, but from the point of Pali identical in form and meaning with puthu 2, as shown by use of puthu in similar cpds. and by C. explns. One may even say that puthu 1=pṛthak is not felt at all in the P. word. Trenckner (Notes 76) already hinted at this by saying "puthujjana, partly confounded with puthu"; a connection which also underlies its expln as "one -- of -- the -- many -- folk" at Kvu trsln 807 & 2913. It is felt to belong to puthu 2 in the same sense as Ger. "die breite Masse," or Gr. oi( polloi/. The expln at Nd1 308=328 is puthu -- nānā -- janā. A long and detailed etym. -- speculation expln of the term is found at DA i.59, trsld at Dhs trsln 258. The BSk. form is pṛthagjana Divy 133 etc.] an ordinary, average person (4 classes of ordinary people are discussed at Cpd. 49, 50), a common worldling, a man of the people, an ordinary man M i.1, 7, 135, 239, 323; iii.64, 227; S i.148; ii.94 sq. (assutạvā), 151 (id.); iii.46, 108, 162; iv.157, 196, 201 (assutavā), 206 sq.; v.362 (opp. to sotāpanna); A i.27, 147 (maraṇa -- dhammin), 178, 267; ii.129, 163; iii.54; iv.68, 97, 157, 372; Sn 351, 455, 706, 816, 859; Dh 59, 272; Vv 826 (=anariya VvA 321,+anavabodha); Nd1 146, 248; Ps i.61 sq., 143, 156; ii.27; Dhs 1003 (cp. DhsA 248 sq.); Vism 311 (=anariya); VbhA 133 (avijj' âbhikhūta, bhava -- taṇh' âbhibhūta), 186 (ummat<-> taka, opposed to upabrūhita -- ñāṇa -- purisa, exemplifying upādāna and kamma); DhA i.5 (opp. ariyasāvaka), 445; Sdhp 363.
-- kalyāṇaka (cp. BSk. pṛthagjana -- kalyāṇaka Divy 419, 429) an ordinary man striving after his spiritual good Nd1 477; Ps i.176; ii.190, 193. -- bhikkhu a bh. of the common sort DA i.269; VbhA 383. -- sukha ordinary happiness M i.454.

by **BlackBird** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:27 am

Hi there Retro, Tilt

Thanks for your responses.

I am sorry, I was reading a piece out of a book and got the citations mixed up.
What I was in fact reading was

Sukhamala Sutta: Refinement (AN 3.38)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

"Even though I was endowed with such fortune, such total refinement, the thought occurred to me: 'When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, himself subject to death, not beyond death, sees another who is dead, he is horrified, humiliated, & disgusted, oblivious to himself that he too is subject to death, not beyond death. And if I — who am subject to death, not beyond death — were to be horrified, humiliated, & disgusted on seeing another person who is dead, that would not be fitting for me.' As I noticed this, the living person's intoxication with life entirely dropped away.

Jack

by **tiltbillings** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:29 am

You are welcome. It is fun tracking down stuff like that, but then I am easily amused.

by **Sanghamitta** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:26 pm

I am now wandering down a side path wondering what the origin of run-of-the-mill is...A mill run is of course the stream that worked the water mill to grind the wheat or barley.....

by **pink_trike** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:18 pm

Sanghamitta wrote:I am now wandering down a side path wondering what the origin of run-of-the-mill is...A mill run is of course the stream that worked the water mill to grind the wheat or barley.....

The concept of a "mill" was used by nearly all premodern people to refer to the cyclical astronomical process of precession that takes place over a period of approx. 26,000 years...a process that was understood to cause periodic terrestrial changes. "Run of the mill" in this case would be used to refer to ignorant ordinary (worldly) people who are endlessly subject to the (grinding, repetitive) effects of the general cyclical events of life.

I recommend this book:

Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechen

...for a comprehensive look at how all premodern cultures described and related to the endless cycles of cycles that all living beings are subject to.

by **cooran** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:59 pm

Hello all,

Origin of meaning of Run-of-the-mill:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.p ... e=20010508

metta
Chris

by **Sanghamitta** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:24 pm

Interesting thank you.

:anjali:

Run-of-the-mill

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