The Pali commentary on Dhammapada 252 takes the word 'kitavaa' as an instrumental singular of a feminine stem kitavaa- which it takes to mean "a camouflage of leaves". This paper attempts to show that it is the nominative singular of a... more
The Pali commentary on Dhammapada 252 takes the word 'kitavaa' as an instrumental singular of a feminine stem kitavaa- which it takes to mean "a camouflage of leaves". This paper attempts to show that it is the nominative singular of a masculine kitavant(u)- of which the Sanskrit equivalent would be *krtavant-, meaning "a winning gambler", derived from 'krta': the winning die + the suffix .vant. The paper also points out several other glaring misinterpretations of words in the commentary on this word and attempts to unravel the process that led to these misinterpretations.
