Saddanīti –

Introduction

There are three volumes in Saddanīti
1. padamālā – explains the inflection – conjugation, declension
2.Dhātumālā- explains roots
3.Suttamālā –explains sandhi, nāma.

Saddanīti is more complete and more modernize than other grammar books like Kaccāyana, padarūpasidhi.  Some words that are not explained in these books are explained in the Saddanīti. Each books has 2 volumes, one volume has about 400 pages. So, there are more than 2500 pages. This book is written by Aggavaṃsa. In some records like Sāsāna Laṅkāra said that Agga Paṇḍita had written the books.
At that time, there were three persons well-known in the knowledge in the Tipiṭaka. 1. Mahā Aggapaṇḍita, 2) Aggapaṇḍita  3) Aggapaṇḍita. The third one was the nephew to the second one and he was the one that had written the book.

The Bagan dynasty started with king Anoratha who lived from 1044AD to 1077AD. After 100 years later, at 1154AD (1697 Buddhist era), this book Saddanīti was written. The king at that time was Alaungsithu. He was the third king after King Anoratha and Kyansittha. The development in the Pāḷi literature and pāḷi grammar was so great that they could produce a book of such quality.

Rūpasidhi was written in the 1300 Buddhist era, while 300 years later, Saddanīti was written by Aggavaṃsa. When this book was shown to the visiting Sri Lanka monks, they praised this book for its analysis and coverage on Pāḷi grammar. Since then, this book was famous in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, in Myanmar, this book is not well-studied by many. One of the reasons maybe because of its thick volumes.

When this book was written in Bagan by Aggavaṃsa, the Sri Lanka king was Parakkamabāhu. He was contemporary to the King Alaung Sithu. The Buddha Sāsāna was already 1000 years. It started to decline at this king era. There are many corrupted monks. The king started a Buddhist council to remove false monks and some were forced to disrobe.

At that same time in Bagan, the Buddhism was in its peak. Many lay people also studied the Dhamma and memorised Abhidhamma etc. Thus, when the Sāsāna declined in one place i.e. Sri Lanka, it was prosperous in Bagan.
Here, to show that Saddanīti was more comprehensive than other grammar books, few examples will be given.

Example 1:Kaccāyana: Aṃ iti niggahitaṃ  (“ṃ is niggahitaṃ”)
Saddanīti : Aṃ, iṃ, umti yaṃ sarato paraṃ suyyati, taṃ niggahitaṃ
“Niggahita comes after 3 vowels (‘a’, ‘i’, ‘u’)”)

Example 2:Kaccāyana: Aññe dīghā (“other vowels are long”)
Saddanīti: Aññe dvimattā dīghā (“other vowels which are two matta are called long”)

Saddanīti gives more information on what is long vowel (dīgha). Matta is the dureation of voice or time measurement). One matta is  the duration of a snap of finger or a  blink of eye. The other vowels (“ā”, “ī”,“ū”,“e”,“o”) are two mattas.

Example 3:Kaccāyana: Vamodudantānaṃ
Saddanīti:  ka, kha, ta, tha, da, na, ya, sa, hānaṃ vodudantānaṃ
According to Kaccāyana, the ‘o’ and ‘u’ which are at the end of vowel are changed into “v”.
According to Saddanīti, the ‘o’ and ‘u’ which are at the end of vowel and also are linked to ‘k’, ‘kh’, ‘t’, ‘th’, ‘d’, ‘n’, ‘y’, ‘s’, ‘s’ to  changed into “v”.
Example : yāvatako + assa > yāvatakvassa
                 bahu + ābādho > bahvābādho   (u > o >v)

Example 4:Kaccāyana: ya,va,ma,da,na,ta,ra,lācāgama
Saddanīti: ya,va,ma,da,na,ta,ra,la,hā vā
Kaccāyana mentions sometimes there are insertion of ‘y’, ‘v’, ‘m’, ‘d’, ‘n’, ‘t’, ‘r’, ‘l’. For example: na + imassa  > nayimassa
Saddanīti mentions extra vowel =‘h’ is also inserted. For example: su + uju > suhuju