M: Overview of Kaccāyana

Info

Part of “A Beginner (Non-Linguist) Guide to Learning Pali”

The material in this appendix is mostly drawn from a class called A Short Introduction to the Kaccāyana Pali Grammar: Its Background, Techniques and Terminology taught by Aleix Ruiz-Falqués, Shan State Buddhist University, Taunggyi, Myanmar in 2020.

Genesis of Kaccāyana

There are actually two components of Kaccāyana:

• Kaccāyana-byākaraṇa (circa 6th century CE) and the author is not known (but ascribed to Mahā Kaccāyana Thera) - this contains the concisely stated rules (called sutta) that form the basis of Pāḷi grammar; and
• Kaccāyana-vutti (circa 8th century CE) by Saṅghanandin, which represents a commentary and explanation of the rules together with examples.

Kaccāyana itself draws from multiple earlier sources such as:

• Prātiśākya treatises, Vedic phonetics (various authors)
• Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī (“Eight Lessons”)
• Kātantravyākaraṇa by Śarvavarman

So, Kaccāyana draws and inherits from a long tradition of Sanskrit grammar and technical terms. According to Pind (2012) approximately 215 sutta from Kaccāyana are based on Kātantravyākaraṇa, and approximately 300 sutta are modifications from Pāṇini. However, more than half the sutta in Kaccāyana are not derived from Sanskrit, so the grammar as a whole does not reflect Sanskrit usage and vocabulary.

Kaccāyana structure

mindmap
  Kaccāyana
    I. Sandhi
      i. Definitions
      ii. Vowel sandhi
      iii. Consonant sandhi
      Iiv("iv. niggahīta (ṁ) sandhi")
      v. Miscellanea
    II. Nāma
      i. Definitions, Internal sandhis, Default inflections
      ii. Pronoun inflections, lemmas in -an
      iii. Pronoun inflections continued, mano-gaṇa, lemmas in -an and -tar
      iv. lemmas in -an continued, feminine lemmas, adverbs from pronouns, lemmas in -nta
      v. Adverbial affixes
      vi. KĀRAKA
      vii. SAMĀSA
      viii. TADDHITA
    III. Ākhyāta
      i. Definitions
      ii. Special verb bases, causatives, bhāva, verb classes
      iii. Reduplication, special verb bases
      iv. Special affixes and verb bases
    IV. Kibbidhāna
      i. Definition of kicca and kit affixes
      ii. Use of affixes with tenses, voices, etc.
      iii. niṭṭhā affixes
      iv. Modification of roots in primary derivation
      v. UṆĀDI

Types of rules in Kaccāyana

Several saññā “technical terms”, within an adhikāra “governing rule”, following paribhāsā “metarules”, will be subject to vidhi “operations” in order to derive words or sentences.

How does a vidhi (operation) work

Most vidhi “operational” rules teach paccaya “affixation” or ādesa “replacement” using previous definitions (saññā-s). It is all about adding particles to a base, and then replacing them if/when needed.

To understand vidhi-s, we should keep in mind the following code of inflection forms:

• ⑤ = “after X”
• ⑥ = “instead of X”
• ①, ② = “X”, ādesa (“replacement”)
• ⑦ (1): “before X”
• ⑦ (2): “in the sense of X”

Affixation (paccaya)

timeline
  Left : ⑤
    : After X
  A : ①
    : Affix A is inserted

Replacement (ādesa)

timeline
  Left : ⑤
    : ⑤
    : ⑤
    : After X
  A : ⑥
    : ①
    : ①
    : Replace A
  B : ①
    : ①
    : ②
    : With B
  Right : ⑦
    : ⑦
    : ⑦
    : Before Y
  Marker : ca (and)
    : api (also)
    : vā (or)
    : kvaci (sometimes)
    : na (not)
    : niccam (required)
  Semantic : ⑦
    : "in the sense of ..."

Elision (lopaṁ)

timeline
  Left : ⑤
    : After X
  A : ①
    : Instead of A
  lopaṁ: ②
    : elision
  Right : ⑦
    : Before Y

Structure of a rule (sutta)

stateDiagram-v2
  direction LR
  [*] --> upasagga
  [*] --> dhātu
  upasagga --> upasagga
  upasagga --> dhātu
  dhātu --> paccaya