Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains
Sometimes, however, it is better to look before you leap.
Note this curious philo-lang point: 'he' above, though grammatically classifiable as a pronoun, does not function logically as a pronoun: it has no antecedent. It functions as a sex-neutral universal quantifier, or rather, it functions as an individual variable bound by a universal quantifier. Thus the maxim translates as 'For any x, if x hesitates, then x is lost.'
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Another way to see it is as a relative pronoun, with the indicative pronoun missed out: ‘He who hesitates, he is lost.
The Pali of the Buddhist suttas uses this construction very frequently indeed, but they had the advantage of two different forms for the two pronouns. Here, the first “he” would be yo, and the second one so.
A good example is the famous utterance of the Buddha to his disciple Vakkali, who struggled to rise from his sick-bed to see the Blessed One in person. After chiding him for wanting to see “this rotten body”, the Buddha then says:
Yo kho, vakkali, dhammaṁ passati so maṁ passati;
yo maṁ passati so dhammaṁ passati.
“He who sees the Dhamma sees me;
He who sees me sees the Dhamma.”
Bill,
You remain a balm and a haven in the space you have created here. Your insights, your tough-minded kindness and patience are a model and something to be aspired towards. It is always a blessing to receive your perspective and wisdom, and the affirmation that this sub-lunar journey though sometimes long and winding, has it treasures, advantages and delightful surprises. Thank you.
Very interesting comment.
So you are saying that the first ‘he’ is an indicative pronoun? But how can it be one if it has no antecedent?
My point is that ‘He who hesitates is lost’ translates as ‘For any x, if x hesitates, then x is lost’ and there is no pronoun in the latter expression. What we have is a variable bound by a universal quantifier. That’s what I meant when I said that the ‘he’ in question, while grammatically classifiable as a pronoun, is logically a variable bound by a quantifier.
What strikes me about the Pali verse is how similar it is to John 14: 8-10: He who has seen me has seen the Father.
Dharma/Dhamma means the law or the truth, right? I suppose one could also say that the Dhamma is the Way. Compare Jesus: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Via, veritas, vita. In another place Jesus says that he and the Father are one. So the parallel is very close. To see Buddha is to see the Way, the Truth, the Law. To see Jesus is to see the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the Father.
Cultural rip-off/appropriation via the Ipek Yol, the Silk Road?? I’m just wondering.
I think that in both examples, the second ‘he’ – ‘so’ in the Pali – is the indicative, and the relative precedes it. There’s barely a vagga in the Samyutta Nikaya that lacks this construction.
I hadn’t spotted the similarity with the Gospel reference (I should have done, as my wife is a priest!) but you are spot on.
“Dhamma” has a range of meanings, and in its most general sense means “that which holds or sustains” – it’s actually cognate with the Latin firmus.
The silk road and Greek conquest arguments are very popular among western Buddhist converts (“See! My new boss taught the old boss everything he knew, via the Essenes or somesuch! I knew I was right to convert!”) but it can I think be taken too far. Interestingly, there are several passages in Augustine’s sermons which are quite close to passages in the Pali canon. Augustine apparently knew of the gymnosophists, Indian ascetics who might have been Buddhists, as they were apparently acknowledged by the Manichaeans. But direct influence, or pan-Asian/north African cultural tropes picked up by both parties – who knows?
Simon,
Fascinating. If you have time, please send me the references in Augustine.
Years ago I was struck by the similarities of some arguments I found in Nagarjuna with some arguments in Sextus Empiricus. That Nagarjuna was one sharp dialectician.
Ever read Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of All Religions?
Your wife a priest? In what denomination? if I may ask.
Also: he who is lost, hesitates.
Certainly, I’ll dig out the passages in Augustine within a day or so. Shall I post them here, or is there a more appropriate address?
I’ve never really looked seriously at Nagarjuna, but one day, with some strong coffee…
I’ll check out Schuon. The list of books to read grows in proportion to the dwindling of days left! Is he some kind of perennialist, like Aldous Huxley?
My wife is an Anglican priest – Church of England. She is currently Canon Chancellor at a Cathedral here in the UK. Myself, I have a Theravadan Buddhist practice, but enjoy the music, art, architecture, liturgy and ambience of her place of work. Except the politics and posturing, that is. The C of E, which used to be called “The Conservative Party at Prayer”, has largely been captured by woke progressives.
Simon,
Please post the Augustine references here; they will be of interest to others.
>>Is he some kind of perennialist, like Aldous Huxley?<< Yes. I especially like his *The Fullness of God,* a collection of his essays on Xianity.
Wokery is jokery.
EG,
Thank you for your kind words.
Here are two examples that I managed to locate. The first is from Augustine’s Sermons 77B.7 (Patrologiae Latinae Supplementum, vol. 2, col. 704; tr. Edmund Hill):
Not even slight sins are to be treated lightly. They are nothing very big, of course, but they do pile up, they make a heap; they pile up and make a lump. Don’t shrug than aside because they are tiny, but be apprehensive if they are many. What could be tinier than drops of rain? And in quantity they soak the fields, they fill the rivers. Don’t shrug your slight and tiny sins aside, or they may form a heap and crush you.
It seems very similar to a famous saying in the Dhammapada, v. 121, on Evil.
Think not lightly of evil, saying, “It will not come to me.” Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the fool, gathering it little by little, fills himself with evil.
And this, about upsetting or frustrating a small child in order to avoid a greater evil. This one is from Sermons 114A.6 (Miscellanea Agostiniana, vol. 1, pp. 236-237. There are a couple of other very similar ones, where the question is about handing a pretty gilt knife to a child, or setting him upon a horse.
To get the point I’m making, dearly beloved, set before your eyes two people. There was a careless little boy wanting to sit where they knew there was a snake lurking in the grass. If he sat there, he would be bitten and die. The two people knew this. One said, “Don’t sit there”; the child ignored him; he jolly well will go and sit there, go and perish. The other said, “This kid refuses to listen to us; we must speak severely to him, grab him, drag him away, give him a good slap; we must do whatever we can to avert the destruction of a human being.” The first said, “Leave him alone, don’t hit him, don’t hurt him, don’t harm him.”
Which of these two is really kind? The one who spares him, to die of snake-bite, or the one who’s rough with him, so that a human being is saved?
And this, from the Abhaya Sutta, MN 58:
Now at that time a baby boy was lying face-up on the prince’s lap. So the Blessed One said to the prince, “What do you think, prince: If this young boy, through your own negligence or that of the nurse, were to take a stick or a piece of gravel into its mouth, what would you do?”
“I would take it out, lord. If I couldn’t get it out right away, then holding its head in my left hand and crooking a finger of my right, I would take it out, even if it meant drawing blood. Why is that? Because I have sympathy for the young boy.”
There is another about the sky raining gold coins being insufficient to satisfy human greed, but I can’t locate it in Augustine with a quick search.
Perhaps there is someone more familiar with the history of these times and places who could say whether these were common ideas floating around to be picked up by both traditions; or whether there is likely to be a more direct connection.
Simon,
Thanks! I will bring your latest to the top of the blog later today or tomorrow. It’s that interesting. By the way, do live in or near London?
I live on the South coast, about 70 miles away from London. In American terms, no distance at all. I visit a couple of times per year.
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