[Buddha-l] bodhi

[Franz Metcalf]

Dan and Artur,

I appreciate Dan's careful work and I can't say that I've found  
anything online to support my visceral feeling here, but I do feel a  
difference between "attain" and "obtain." So I fall on the side of the  
OPED. Clearly each verb reaches (literally) back to the French "tenir"  
for the main action. But whatever the etymological difference or lack  
of it between between "at" and "ob," my nuanced contemporary take on  
the difference in meaning between "attain" and "obtain" is that the  
former merely refers to something one gets from one's effort. It may  
or may not be deeded to one by an external source. But the latter  
*must* be deeded over to the actor who obtains it. To bring this back  
to Buddhism--if such a thing is permissible--enthusiasts of schools  
advocating  the "Buddha Nature" might prefer "attain," while followers  
of schools, such as the Theravada, advocating the achievement of  
"states' and "fruits" might prefer the latter.

But to repeat, this is all based on something I cannot support  
linguistically, let alone prove. It is simply a sense I have as an  
educated and experienced English speaker and writer, that one might  
"attain" something without a donor, but one must "obtain" something  
from an external source.

Dan's example from the philosophical literature goes against my  
argument. What can I say? To paraphrase Walt Whitman, English  
contradicts itself. Very well, it is large; it contains multitudes.

Franz