I’ve been wanting to do an essay on the concept of janapadanirutti, which we find in MN 139:3.9. There’s a related Vinaya passage which in Pali is in Kd 15.
There are parallels in most Vinayas, and I can access the Chinese. But I’d like to round out the study with the Tibetan Mulasarvastivada Vinaya, which I only presume exists. I don’t think this passage is found in the incomplete Sanskrit of the same Vinaya.
I’ve asked several scholars to help but with no luck so far.
What I’m looking for is ideally:
reference
literal translation
analysis of certain specific terms , especially their likely Indic equivalents
Interestingly enough (to me), Jan Nattier references that story in a lecture she gives about translation and to give an example of the Buddha’s own policy on translation. I don’t think she specifies which Vinaya she takes it from, but she does say that the story is common to most Vinayas.
Unfortunately, it’s not translated by 84000 yet. I searched the headings of existing translation and didn’t find it. I guess it is in “toh3 Detailed Explanations of Discipline” or “toh6 The Chapter on Minor Matters of Monastic Discipline”. With the trend that they release one or two per year and they begin from the top, I think we need to wait long time before it will published.
The source text is available in image format, but it seems has not been digitized as text anywhere. I am not sure if this is the right section, but the title supposed to be that one…?
janapadanirutti mentioned in some commentaries
It is quoted in:
Vasubandhu: Abhidharmakosa-bhasya
[031|15-031|16]
uktaṃ hi bhagavatā "janapadaniruktiṃ nābhiniviśeta saṃjñāṃ ca lokasya nābhidhāvedi"ti /
Rest is up to someone with Tibetan to translate. But I’m told that it’s a violation to recite Buddha’s words in meter or sequence, but regional dialects should not incur an offense.
Yes, the second sentence says more specifically “[…]words bound to villages, words bound to dialects and words bound to provinces incur no offenses[…]”
For the most part, she gives the standard explanation, and my research is precisely to discern whether this is correct.
Great, handy, I’ll check these out.
Oh okay wow, that’s incredible! I’ll be able to get a translation of this, I think.
Huh, okay, so in that detail the Tibetan relies on something like the Pali janapadanirutti. The interesting bit is that this is not found in the relevant Vinaya passage in Pali, only in the Suttas. There’s clearly been some confusion between the two, again, which is what I’m trying to sort out.
