Thanks so much, Tom! Every bit of feedback is very welcome, especially the positive part! Good to see that you are still around. Much metta from Serpie.
Bhante @Sujato will have to sort out the index page. In fact many of the entries on the index page need to be changed. They are residue from I. B. Horner.
You have replaced the “wanderers who follow other paths” by “wanderers of other religions”, but I saw still some “other paths” (partly in chapter titles) in SN 45.41, SN 45.42-47, SN 45.48, SN 54.11, SN 54.12, and AN 8.13.
Well, the opposite of pointless is “meaningful” or “significant”. But atthasamhita has the sense “connected with the goal”, i.e. “having a point”, so it is about the spiritual context rather than a simple absence of meaning, hence “beneficial”.
(FYI, one of the reasons I’m updating these is that it seems to me that the villages of Vajji are consistently named after the economic activity of the place. The larger places are named for clans (Bhoga, Natika), but the small places remind me of the policy followed in Thailand and elsewhere, where one village is expected to have a single main product. I suspect this tells us something about the nature of the Vajjian Republic, i.e. it is organized in terms of economic rationalism. The more you go into it, the more names in Pali are clearly meaningful in a way that modern names are not.)
That’s a really subtle one, well spotted. I’ll use “That’s how …”
I’ll change the text file, but keep the names file as-is.
My renderings of anapana are a bit of a mess! I’ll try to sort it out this morning.
I’ve fixed all the cases in this post.
Hmm, probably impossible to say, but it’s singular, so I think virtue fits better here.
I think I have chased down all similar cases.
Thanks, fixed. It literally means “wood” but in DN 16 it is identified as a mango grove. Her name means “Mango-ward”, which means she is named after her career as an orchadist!
I think I’ve fixed all the other cases here.
Sure, but I think I’ll leave it for the sake of consistency.
Curiously enough, however, it is not found among the collected discourses on the path found in the last book of the Saṁyutta.
Probably, connected discourses is what is meant?
In DN 16 (and elsewhere), the “traditional Vajjian principles” have been changed to “ancient Vajjian traditions”, except for segment 1.4.11. There’s also one left at AN 7.21 and at AN 7.22.
Try to render sandiss- as “exhibit” where possible. It unfortunatley doesn’t really work in the most common case, sanditthika. There, standardize on “apparent” rather than “visible”.
That seems like a major oversight! Yet until now no-one has noticed it.
I’ve fixed this one.
Let me know when you translation is stable, we’ll unify them as much as possible. But as a general rule, the titles on the suttaplex list and those in a translation need not match (because there can be many translations and only one index). In some cases it may be preferable to vary them. Eg., if you want to use “First Defeat” as the title for pj1, probably keeping something like “Sexual Intercourse” would be more meaningful in the UI.
This is a tricky passage, and there appears to be textual corruption. The lines up till: Ito bahiddhā samaṇopi natthi. are in verse. The following lines are sometimes rendered in verse (per Walshe, see his footnote) and sometimes in prose, as in the Mahasangiti edition which we follow.
It seems that the Mahasangiti is correct:
Anandajoti does not format as verse (he is one of the few people who really understands Pali verse!)
The later lines are not metrical, or at least not the same metre.
The Sanskrit version stops at the same place.
the Sanskrit also does not treat the “first … second … third … fourth ascetic” passage as verse.
The Sanskrit passage also adds two lines that are not found in the Pali. The Pali has six lines rather than the normal eight, and it is really hard to make sense of the translation where the lines are missing. So I think the Sanskrit here is correct and the Pali has dropped two lines by mistake.
Ethics, immersion, conduct, and knowledge,
and unification of mind have been developed by me,
teacher of the references for the noble teaching.
Outside of here there is no true ascetic.
The Pali padesavattī is difficult, and again I think the Sanskrit is correct here: pradeśavaktā, i.e. “speaker of the padesa”, where padesa is a callback to the four mahāpadesa.
I think I have caught them all now.
But then, “relevant” simply means “pertaining to the topic at hand”, which is not quite right.
No, it’s just an informal phrase, not a title.
Thanks, fixed.
Thanks. Also, I have renamed him throughout to “the Jain ascetic of the Ñātika clan” on first occurrence, and “the Jain Ñātika” subsequently.
(Just reread yesterday an old essay arguing that he was not, in fact, Mahavira, one of the reasons being the different name in Buddhist and Jain sources. The whole article seemed unaware that his name was in fact indicating his clan, which is the same as that in Jain sources.)
See above answer, but I will translate these segments. The whole thing deserves a separate post.
bhūtaṁ tacchaṁ atthasaṁhitaṁ is translated “true, correct, and beneficial” in MN 139, and “true, substantive, and beneficial” in MN 58 and DN 29.
(You see I am still on that one, looking what I am going to make out of it in German.)
Thank you, I am doing the same in German.
Addition:
AN8.12:6.4: Kiṁ hime karissanti nigaṇṭhā apalokitā vā anapalokitā vā?
What can these Jains do to me, whether I take leave of them or not? AN8.12:6.5: Yannūnāhaṁ anapaloketvāva nigaṇṭhe taṁ bhagavantaṁ dassanāya upasaṅkameyyaṁ arahantaṁ sammāsambuddhan”ti.
Why don’t I, without consulting them, go to see that Blessed One, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha!”
I just notice that the general Siha, after considering to see the Buddha without taking leave of the Jains, then decides to go there without consulting them.
End addition.
… except for DN 16:5.27.14. Intentionally?
Thanks once again for a great body of wonderful translations that serve as a basis to give something similar to German speaking people!
Sorry for an off-topic divergence, but I just wanted to express gratitude as well to all here who help contribute to the site.
One of the reasons I appreciate, trust, and recommend SuttaCentral so much is because I know how much consideration and constant re-evaluation goes into the translations. It gives a sense of confidence that the rendering has been thoroughly considered, not just in-and-of itself but also in comparison to the rest of the canon, other respected renditions, and after having received lots of feedback from other very knowledgeable translators or readers here. I feel that SuttaCentral has truly stood on the shoulders of giants to produce the most current, up-to-date translations of the sutta pitaka.
Mindfulness of breathing:
In AN 10.60, “they practice breathing in …” has in most cases been changed to “they practice like this: ‘I’ll breathe in …”, but there are still a few of the old patterns left. The same in MN 10 and DN 22. The SN Suttas seem to be all consistent, though.
I am not quite clear about the change you made in AN 10.89, segments 4.2-3. Before, there were boils erupting the size of mustard seeds and then grew to the size of mung beans. Now they erupt the size of mustard seeds and then grow to the size of mustard seeds.
Blurb to SN 55.20:
Moggallāna visits the gods of the Thirty-Three and encourages them in the four factors of stream-entry.
In this case it’s the Buddha who visits the gods.
AN6.29:8.1: Seyyathāpi vā pana passeyya sarīraṁ sīvathikāya chaṭṭitaṁ kākehi vā khajjamānaṁ kulalehi vā khajjamānaṁ gijjhehi vā khajjamānaṁ sunakhehi vā khajjamānaṁ siṅgālehi vā khajjamānaṁ vividhehi vā pāṇakajātehi khajjamānaṁ.
Or suppose they were to see a corpse thrown in a charnel ground being devoured by crows, hawks, vultures, herons, dogs, tigers, leopards, jackals, and many kinds of little creatures.
SN55.26:5.4: Tañca pana te buddhe aveccappasādaṁ attani samanupassato ṭhānaso vedanā paṭippassambheyya.
Seeing in yourself that experiential confidence in the teaching, that pain may die down on the spot.
SN55.27:12.9: “Lābhā te, gahapati, suladdhaṁ te, gahapati.
“You’re fortunate, householder, so very fortunate, SN55.27:12.10: Sotāpattiphalaṁ tayā, gahapati, byākatan”ti.
You have declared the fruit of stream-entry.”
Either replace the comma at the end of the first segment with a period, or start the second segment with a lowercase letter.
In the Acknowledgements section of the Editions (I’ve only looked at Ud and Iti) it says:
Throughout the process of translation, I have frequently sought feedback and suggestions from the community on the SuttaCentral community on our forum, “Discuss and Discover”.
That seems like too many community’s for one sentence.
I’d also question putting quote marks around Discuss and Discover. Unless there is some standard of putting names of websites in quotation marks. If it’s a name, then putting it in caps is clear. IMHO.
