jhāna in plural form?

[David N. Snyder]

Okay, so my Pali studies and participation in this sub-forum has really slacked off lately; been too busy.

Does anyone know how you write jhāna in the plural form, in Pali?

Writing it as jhanas with the "s" at the end is just Palinglish (Pali-English made-up hybrid) as far as I know.

[daverupa]

I think, for example, that jhāyatha is in the second person plural.

[piotr]

Hi David,

According to Pāli Lookup nom. pl. of jhāna is jhānāmi. But it seems that it is only a theoretical form, because it's not found in any Pāli text as far as I can tell.

And since English langauge "doesn't have cases" isn't it meaningless to use this kind of form?

Jhāyatha is indeed in second person plural, but it's a verb 'to meditate', not a noun.

[David N. Snyder]

Thanks Dave and Piotr!

[Sylvester]

I've located 2 inflected forms of the plural.

From DN 33's listing of fours, we have "cattāri jhānāni" - 4 jhanas. Since all the other members of the listing of fours are in the nominative case, it appears that jhānāni is the nominative plural for jhāna.

Elsewhere, in AN 4.35, we have "catunnaṃ jhānānaṃ". The case of jhānānaṃ might be either the dative or genitive plural.

[David N. Snyder]

From DN 33's listing of fours, we have "cattāri jhānāni" - 4 jhanas.

That sounds like this could be it (for most cases) to refer to all the jhanas. It's sort of funny how we mix languages in common usage and forget about the proper way to refer to a plural noun. It has been so common for multiple jhāna to be referred to as jhānas that you cannot even find it (or not very easily) in the proper plural form; apparently, jhānāni.

[Sylvester]

Hi David

I think jhanas or even jhānas would be an acceptable Anglisization. Even in academic writing, most untranslated Pali terms are expressed and written only in stem form, since the case relations to other nouns would be provided in the English. If we insist on every Pali noun being properly inflected, even in an English document, we will end up with, eg -

jhāna (the lemma), jhānaṁ (nom sg), jhānāni (nom pl), jhānena (inst sg), jhānehi (inst pl, abl pl), jhānā (abl pl), jhānassa (dat sg, gen sg), jhānānaṁ (dat pl, gen pl), jhāne (loc sg), jhānesu (loc pl).

I'm sure some (if not most) of these forms do not even occur in the Canon, since I simply generated them using a declension table.

We really do not need to populate an English document with these forms, since we can simply use English prepositions or English syntax to handle most of the Pali grammatical cases.

[piotr]

Oooops, sorry for the typo, it's indeed jhānāni. And there are few instances of this form in Pāli Tipiṭaka.

[David N. Snyder]

Oooops, sorry for the typo, it's indeed jhānāni. And there are few instances of this form in Pāli Tipiṭaka.

Okay, thanks for letting me know that was a typo; then it definitely appears to be jhānāni.

[theY]

Namo Buddhassa


2 type of plurals-- noun, and verb. Noun plural type relate to your question.

1, ālapana(callig word), and 2 vidhatti same "citta" word. 3-7 vibhatti same "purisa" word.

Blod words are plural. Sorted by vibhatti.

1. Cittaṃ, Cittāni.
ā. Cittā, he citta, he cittā, he cittāni, he cittā.
2. cittaṃ, cittāni, citte.

Theory from Niruttidīpanī 107 : http://www.tipitaka.org/romn/cscd/e0201 ... ml#para107

3. Purisena, Purisehi, purisebhi.
4. Purisassa, Purisānaṃ.
5. purisasmā, purisamhā, Purisā, purisehi, purisebhi.
6. purisassa, purisānaṃ.
7. purisasmiṃ, purisamhi, purise, purisesu.

Theory from Niruttidīpanī 195 : http://www.tipitaka.org/romn/cscd/e0201 ... ml#para195

Example :

(Bold lines are pural.)

Dutiyo paricchedo.

Atha akārantapuṃsakaliṅgo cittasaddo vuccate.

1.

Cittaṃ attano santānaṃ vijānāti

Cittāni attano sattānaṃ vijānanti

Calling.

Bho citta attano santānaṃ vijānāhi

Bho cittāni attano santānaṃ vijānātha

2.

Cittaṃ saññamessanti ye keci janā

Cittāni saññamessanti ye keci

3. Subject of sentence type.

Cittena sabbopi jano nīyyate

Cittehi sabbopi jano nīyyate

3. itself type.

Cittena saṃkilissati mānavo

Cittehi visujjhati kocimānavo

4.

Cittassa ovādaṃ deti koci jano

Cittānaṃ ovādaṃ denti keci janā

5.

Cittasmā ārammaṇaṃ uppajjati

Cittehi ārammaṇāni uppajjanti

6.

Cittassa aniccadhammassa vasamanvagū

Cittānaṃ parivitakko udapādi

7.

Citte arakkhite kāyakammaṃ arakkhitaṃ

Cittesu guttesu kāyakammaṃ rakkhitaṃ.



Iti paṭhamo pāṭho.


http://www.tipitaka.org/romn/cscd/e1211 ... ml#V0.0014

PS. If your question refer to verb type, it should be like "jhā", "jhāyati", "jhāyanti", etc.