Dear Tim, > is there any unambiguous attestation of such a doublet sutta > with the meaning sūkta/suvutta, e.g., in a context not referring > to scripture?
I would not necessarily expect to find it, since the nature of linguistic doublets is semantic specialization (or division of an originally broader semantic range). A classic example from English is wine (the drink) vs. vine (the plant), both borrowed from Latin vinum at different times. In our (hypothetical) example, OIA sūkta would then early on have become sutta “canonical text” and have acquired an opaque specialized meaning, and su-vutta “well-spoken” would be a later, clarifying formation (in parallel with replacement by subhāsita), since due to the phonetic change sutta could no longer convey that meaning clearly. But again, there is no positive evidence for P sutta < OIA sūkta. Some of us (myself included) find it tempting semantically and for the historical connection it would provide with Vedic terminology, but Philipp’s first-century-CE example for a meaning “[corpus of authoritative] knowledge” from the Carakasaṃhitā suggests that the meaning “canonical Buddhist text” (or similar) could be derived in purely semantic terms from OIA sūtra (taken as “guideline” rather than Ñāṇamoli’s “thread of argument”). All best, Stefan -- Stefan Baums, Ph.D. Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München _______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list [email protected] https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
