"twelve-hundred-fifty BhikŒus" (part one)

     The text presented in the last lesson established
the assembly in which the Shorter Amitbha S�tra was
spoken: mahat bhikŒusa-nghena srdham, "together with
a great gathering of BhikŒus." Now the text
continues: ardhatrayoda�abhir bhikŒu�atair,
"twelve-hundred-fifty Bhiksus," further characterizing
the BhikŒusa-ngha by giving the number of BhikŒus that
made it up.  In this lesson we will see something of
the workings of Sanskrit numbers, and be introduced to
two varieties of endings for the now familiar "with"
case, those used in the plural.

     Very literally the phrase breaks down this way:
minus-half-three-tens-with BhikŒu-hundreds-with.
"With" is called for by the preposition srdham which occurred
in the previous phrase and which means "together with."

    -bhir  These are the two possible endings in the
    -air   plural which are translated as "with."
The final -r really represents an -s, and so in their
basic form the endings are:
    -bhis  The final -s however, is pronounced in various
    -ais   ways, depending on the following sound,
and these endings might also show up as:
    -bhi‚    You want to be able to recognize them in the
    -aih     midst of their transformations.
In classical Sanskrit, -bhis is used with all nouns
except those whose stem ends in -a, which take -ais.
However, in popular speech, which Buddhist teachings
reflect, -bhis may be used with any noun, and here it
is added to the word da�a- even though da�a has a stem
in -a.

    Ardha, means "half." In making up the number
1250, you must understand that this "half" is a quantity
to be subtracted.

    Trayas, means "three."  The number three
is tri-, and takes endings like a noun.  Trayas
is plural masculine in the subject function.  The
ending -as, which indicates all this, is itself
pronounced and written -o before the following
sound, as frequently happens to final -as.

     Da�a, means "ten."  Trayoda�a means "three
plus ten," or "thirteen," but ardha, "half," is
subtracted, and so ardhatrayoda�a amounts to "thirteen-
minus-half" or "twelve and one half."  As if this were
not bad enough, the whole compound word is then used to
multiply the following word which is made up of:
BhikŒu, which means a Buddhist monk, and
�ata, which means a "hundred." Multiplying one
hundred by twelve and one half, we come out with twelve-
hundred fifty monks in all.

     These 1250 Bhiksus followed the Buddha wherever he
went, so great was their gratitude to the Buddha for
teaching living beings.  Whenever the Buddha spoke
Dharma they were present to protect the Dharma Assembly,
even though they already understood the teaching.