That' the point. And it is just a question of probability.
I have already said that the graal is to have a meaning that went across Buddha's time. A meaning that was the same in pre-Buddhist and pos-Buddhist texts. However, in the event that it is not the case, one has to rely on the most probable meaning.
Statistically wise, it is far more probable that a meaning found in pre-Buddhist "texts", through oral transmission - when no books were available and memory was strong and tradition exact - had arrived unchanged at the time of Buddha.
Different significances among the different texts; among different Rishis - but yet unchanged up to Buddha's time.
"... he is a repeater (of the sacred words), knowing the mystic verses by heart, one who has mastered the Three Vedas, with the indices, the ritual, the phonology, and the exegesis (as a fourth), and the traditional accounts of former events (heroic history) as fifth. ... know philology and grammar, ...
Bhavañhi ajjhāyako mantadharo tiṇṇaṁ vedānaṁ pāragū sanighaṇḍukeṭubhānaṁ sākkharappabhedānaṁ itihāsapañcamānaṁ padako veyyākaraṇo
DN 4
.
Secondly, there was a major change when the Brahmins tried to recover their influence, lost through Buddhism and Jainism.
The gods of the Rg Veda, started to lose their characters in the Atharva veda. This latter text was the pivotal moment of the even greater changes in meanings, that one can find later on, in the Puranic literature.
Note:
In any case, you could easily decimate (decimare) a centuria, a cohort, or a legion. Ten percent is a lot, regardless of the unit's number.
That's "killing in large number" — the same than today's meaning, minus the "how".
I am pretty sure that the Roman common guy, let alone the soldier, must have considered that a massacre. Enough to inspire awe, anyway.
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Sam Vara wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:50 pm...
Buddha brought the karma of the sacrifices (as intention through action), towards the karma of the sacrifices as mere intention. This was generally the Araṇyaka/Śramaṇa philosophy - that is to say to bring in the forest, an "internal" personal sacrifice.
But the intention was the same.
Karma in Veda is also intention/desire/wish, and deed.
One instance is in BrArUp 1.4.17.
√kṛ-man
with √kṛ having in this instance, both the pre-Buddhist meanings of "to wish to make or do, intend to do, to wish to sacrifice" - as well as "to direct the thoughts, the mind".
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I agree.
.
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