Ebook Versions Of Ajahn Sujato's translations?

Will there eventually be eBook collections of Ajahn Sujato’s translations?

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Eventually, yes. But it might take a little while yet :slight_smile:

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I can remember being a student and not being able to afford the Wisdom Pub translations.

I am very excited to think that for the cost of an eBook reader anyone can have their own copy of the suttas, nearly as easily as they can get a copy the Bible.

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We’ll do better than that: we’ll produce printed free-distribution copies.
(but will take a little bit longer still)

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I believe this will be a major turning point and I would of bet wisdom will have to lower heir prices or Bodhi will redo them for free distribution. We won’t need them, but this open source concept is exactly how the Buddha intended the dhamma to be shared.

Thank you Bhante Sujato, Bhante Vimala and the rest of the SC team!

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And that’s very important – at least for some old-timers (like yours-truly) who are used to notating (adding comments etc.) to hard-copy texts.

Actually, that’s a vital part of the tradition of written language – the practice of adding one’s own notes, corrections etc. In the European middle ages, adding side notes (often in red) to manuscripts became the development of “commentaries”

Re the current fixation on the eBook / iPhone etc genre, imagine when, sooner or late, some serious military conflict breaks out (judging from the history of mankind), where the first casualty will very likely be the internet, and possible for quite a while.

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You can add notes to the Kindle Paperwhite. As an extra bonus they are type and in electronic form so you can share them in a variety of places.

If you have wifi, you can see what notes & highlighted passages other readers made.

I doubt it. It is fairly easy to get free Bibles, yet you can also buy very expensive Bibles.

On the other hand, could well be that SuttaCentral’s current endeavors (endeavours for some) stirs the pot up a bit, and inspires adjustments on the part of other authors and vendors. After all, it can be assumed, IMO, that they are well-intentioned.

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Stir it up for whom?

Thanisarro Bhikkhu has always offered his material free of charge. Bhikkhu Bodhi does not profit by his writings, he went with Wisdom because Buddhist teachings in English could not be found in books and he felt they deserved the aura of substantially/legitimacy that books would bring. He also ran the Buddhist Publication Society for years which made Buddhist educational materials available for a pittance.

Other modern translators, I think, are mostly academics writing for academics and it is outside their bailiwick to provide free materials.

Reads like you don’t really believe that. No offense.

I think this is an important point, and one I made in another thread arguing that it would be good if there were some SC translations that “looked like real books”, so that they would be archived in libraries.

I would also add that Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translations are co-published by PTS and Wisdom.

I suspect that if BB had started this translation work after the Internet became important, then he might have structured things differently, and had an arrangement where the material became freely distributable after a suitable period. However, when he started he was probably concerned about having it published by a stable, reputable, publisher (which PTS certainly is…).

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That’s clearly a violation of protocol on this forum – imputing (“Reads like”) and ad hominem (“you don’t really believe”). Plus passive-agressive tacking-on “No offense”. Kindly cease and desist.

I could be wrong. I assumed because the Bodhi books are published by Wisdom that they aren’t not all available on Access To Insight.

Either way, putting out all the Nikita’s is a blessing for all of us.

That might have been true in the past, around the 1990s when ATI was under active development and BB was creating his translations. I’m glad that in 2018 that license exists for BB’s translations to be published here.

SC ?

What is the upshot of that?

Well put. In the 90s when BB & TB were creating their translations the Internet was still a sketchy thing to most people.

That’s awesome. So we really do have fe best of everyines efforts by here arbor SUtta Central.

FYI:

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