Explaining a Satipaṭṭhāna Sentence in a Prose Question
A 5-mark prose explanation question in the pre-board paper uses this sentence from the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta: “Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu araññagato vā rukkhamūlagato vā suññāgāragato vā nisīdati pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā ujuṃ kāyaṃ paṇidhāya parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā.” Students must explain the underlined portions in English or Hindi. Two answers are brought to you. Answer 1 renders “parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā” as “having placed mindfulness around the face” and “pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā” as “having folded a mat”. Answer 2 renders them as “establishing mindfulness in front” and “having crossed the legs”. The marking key only says “meaningful explanation”. The teacher fears that Answer 1 is a dictionary-literal answer that misses the idiom, while Answer 2 may be too free. You must decide the standard for 5 marks and give a one-line ruling for each portion.
1. Which rendering of “parimukhaṃ satiṃ upaṭṭhapetvā” should get full marks: “around the face” or “in front”? Explain with reference to the commentarial gloss and the exam level.
Read the worked answer
Full marks should go to the answer that shows both the literal sense and the idiom. Parimukhaṃ is literally “in front” or “at the fore”; in the Satipaṭṭhāna context the commentarial tradition explains it as fixing mindfulness at the tip of the nose or around the mouth for ānāpānasati. “Around the face” is a false literalism: it takes pari- as “around” and mukha as the physical face, and it does not yield a usable instruction. Answer 2 is better, but it should not be treated as the only wording: “establishing mindfulness at the forefront” or “at the nose-tip, according to the commentary” are also full-credit answers. Award 2/5 to “around the face” only if the candidate shows awareness of the commentarial nose-tip explanation; otherwise 1/5 for recognising the words but missing the idiom.
2. Ruling on “pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā”: is “having folded a mat” defensible?
Read the worked answer
Pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā is an idiom: pallaṅka is the cross-legged posture, and ābhujitvā is “having bent/folded” the legs. “Having folded a mat” is a different sentence; pallaṅka can mean a couch or seat in some contexts, but the verb ābhujati with pallaṅkaṃ signals the sitting posture. Award 0/2 for “mat” if the answer gives no other correct explanation; award 1/2 if the candidate says “sat down cross-legged” but cannot explain ābhujitvā. The point of the item is to test whether the student can move from word-for-word glossing to a contextual reading, not to reward a lucky guess.