Yes, I think that would be very interesting.
It seems equivalent to finding a town in Italy where people still spoke Latin! I bet Latin scholars would descend on that place like a stampede.
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This is groundbreaking news if it is indeed the case! I find it strange that decades ( centuries even) of research by Pali and Buddhist scholarship ( not to mention historians, anthropologists and linguists-international and Indian) totally missed this …
Are you sure it isn’t a language like this
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It might be a different one, sounds similar to meitheli, need to find more from people around, in this part. India has many languages, it’s a saying that with every 11 kos language, food and culture changes h
ere
Isn’t there a difference between a school offering study in a language, and a language being spoken in a community?
Plenty of schools offer instruction in ancient Greek and Latin, these languages are no longer spoken outside of classrooms.
Or maybe I am misunderstanding your point?
Yes definitely there is, I am looking further into finding natively spoken community but that needs ground presence and lot of investigation
School offering was just o highlight it’s not dead yet and still taught in schools
Also when we find more information, expectation that those speaking pali will know word of Buddha is not right as they may not have any clue about him or just some hints.
Ah, I see. “Polarization” usually means controversy in English, so I was wondering what you were meaning by it. Most of your points were what I was meaning by “fluency.” When a person is fluent in a language, they understand the informal idioms and the subtle contextual meanings of words, or how one word can be used for a meaning, but a synonym would never be used for it (or people will laugh if they hear a word used that way because it sounds absurd).
Certainly there are many of these kinds of mistakes or literalisms in any translations. Human error is something that happens. Some conventional English translations like “suffering” for dukkha are actually not very good, but we continue to use them because readers have become familiar with them.
On the other hand, there are problems that lie not with the translators but in the ancient texts themselves. There are words that mean different things to different Buddhist traditions (like samudaya or vyākaraṇa). Sometimes two traditions use different words, like Pali padhāna (effort) vs. Skt. prahāṇa (stopping). There’s not much translators can do about this other than explain it to the readers.
I think controversy is a part of it, but to be holistic the perception has to have the culture aspect and understanding with entire paragraph. For e.g. selling meat on cross roads is not a picture very common in western world or is understood properly looking at this translation
1.5. Focusing on the Elements
Furthermore, a mendicant examines their own body, whatever its placement or posture, according to the elements: ‘In this body there is the earth element, the water element, the fire element, and the air element.’
It’s as if a deft butcher or butcher’s apprentice were to kill a cow and sit down at the crossroads with the meat cut into portions.
And so they meditate observing an aspect of the body internally …
That too is how a mendicant meditates by observing an aspect of the body.
This translation misses the point and practice which is well illustrated in this link in details by Ven. Anãlayo
The corresponding simile illustrates the effect of this particular
method of contemplation with a butcher who has slaughtered and
cut up a cow to sell. According to the commentaries, the butcher simile indicates a change of cognition (saññã), since after the slaughter the butcher thinks no longer in terms of “cow”, but only in terms of “meat”. A similar shift of cognition takes place when a meditator dissects the body into its elementary qualities: the body is no longer experienced as “I” or “mine”, but simply as a combination of these four qualities
To experience oneself as a combination of material qualities reveals the qualitative identity of one’s own body with the external environment. In this way, a healthy degree of detachment develops, counteracting the grasping at what is, in the end, merely a combination of material qualities. With sustained contemplation a meditator may come to realize that this apparently so solid and compact material body, and with it the whole material world, is entirely without essence
This is interesting what is real translation of dukkha pls let me know.
Here we can match parallels and commentary and understand situation if finally out of 5 different views we conclude to 2, instead of 1 both should be listed so that reader can understand differences clearly
Okay, but what is the alternative? The passage doesn’t explain itself, so a translator would have to give the reader some background in footnotes to explain what it not being said, I think.
I know that dhatu has been a difficult word to translate to English. “Element” is the common rendering, but I think many translators consider it a placeholder, unsure of what a better word would be. Some have used “sphere” instead.
In my experience, it’s not a word that has a single translation to English because it has multiple uses, and English doesn’t have an equivalent word with the same breadth of meaning, other than maybe “unpleasantness”. But in English “unpleasantness” is commonly used as a euphemism for much worse experiences, so it’s a little awkward to translate dukkha that way. “Pain” is another option, but it’s a bit visceral, though it works for some passages.
“Suffering” has a very severe meaning in ordinary English. I think often non-Buddhists are turned off by “suffering” when they hear Buddhists use the word because it usually means physical torture, such as having migraines or other physical pain constantly for days or weeks, not just general unhappiness. So, they consider Buddhists morbid. Life is rarely “suffering” on that level, so it sounds absurd outside of Buddhist circles.
Sometimes “suffering” is an appropriate translation when dukkha means the overall experience of life that torments people. But it doesn’t fit the more abstract or milder uses of dukkha. There’s just a whole spectrum of mild and severe meanings of dukkha that are captured with a single word in Indic languages, but in English proper translations would use different words given the situation.
I would interested in hearing what a translation of the Pāli that came closer to the ‘point and practice’ would be. That is to say one without a commentarial explanation.
How does one incorporate the ‘culture aspect’ into a translation without giving a commentary?
Or maybe you’re saying a translation of a source text requires a commentary, that a translator really needs to supply a commentary with their translation?
This could be a valid point, but a different one from claiming existing Pāli translations are incorrect or ‘polarized’.
You are right this can be footnotes or something in caption which provides the context.
dhatu is understood by most in India as metal (now a days) very clear, which is kind of element. You can ask a question which dhatu are you made of? so element wins over here
for dukkha - which is opposite of sukkha (happiness) Dukkha: 12 definitions
you are right it can mean
Dukkha is roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.
and I like this line, which comes closer to the meaning and you can see on what is worded above all of these are unhappiness, anything which makes you unhappy is dukkha.
Dukkha: (Sanskrit duhkha; according to grammatical tradition derived from dus kha “uneasy”, but according to Monier Williams more likely a Prakritized form of dus stha “unsteady, disquieted”)
Its also well captured here by Bhante Sujato once, second occurrence should also be same
“Mendicants, a well-known mendicant who has three qualities is acting for the hurt and unhappiness of the people, for the harm, hurt, and suffering of gods and humans.
“Tīhi, bhikkhave, dhammehi samannāgato ñāto bhikkhu bahujanaahitāya paṭipanno hoti bahujanadukkhāya, bahuno janassa anatthāya ahitāya dukkhāya devamanussānaṁ.
This is interesting point to note from this dhamma talk by Ajahn Brahmali skip to 31:45, these commentaries, foot notes or captions were historically as well spelled after the sutta and sometimes became part of sutta translation itself
And there is a limit to the commentary and perception of society and details that go in as if commentary is about something back in 2500 years ago butcher selling meat on cross roads or charnel grounds, this can be commented
- as what was relevant back in history , then current society won’t understand
- As what is relevant now find a simle, then it’s acceptable to current society, though 100-200 years after people won’t get it
So the first option here makes translation timeless, second can be used by interpreters and teachers to explain first point and sutta further
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I wish there was dishappy word coined into English dictionary like disease (we don’t say what kind of disease or what kind of pain is there) vs ease. Probably content and discontent is (somewhere near) but unhappy is more relevant
" I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;"
(spoken by Gloucester)
Yes, and that meaning is common in ancient Buddhist texts, like with the four and six elements. It has other uses that are less obvious, though. Sometimes it means something more like domain (as in the three dhatus, or the dhatu of nibbana), and sometimes it seems to mean factors or components as with the dhatus of escape or the eighteen dhatus. Translating it as “element” sometimes sounds a bit awkward.
Yes. I think the first option isn’t possible over thousands of years. Civilization and the day-to-day lives of people changes enough that old stories, in particular, become alien to them. Who today actually knows what it was like to travel in a caravan across a desert in west India or Central Asia? Not many readers can do more than imagine it a bit, or they remember something from a movie depicting it. But it’s not part of life today.
Well that is true, though given a context we are good in imagining what happened when we were not there, this is what we can picturize in mind if its explained
Other way second option is ever changing, endless task to keep up translations with current generation understanding as Ajahn Brahm says suttas need to be translated and explained to what current audience can understand or know, the similes targeted to current generation.
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It very much seems like what you are speaking about is commentary on texts and translations, not the source texts.
Not really coming back to original point of this discussion here
And there can be captions and footnotes on providing relevant context, just think about how sutras were described it ordinary people before it should be done the same way, without this context and culture aspect translation loose the point.
Few of the examples I would like to share here, I don’t know where this thought struck in my mind and went on details in finding the meanings to understand DO properly, discussed here How to penetrate Dependent Co-arising?
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To understand DO we need a start and the best start should be about world, what is the world, what people do here, why nibbana and what is dhamma / teaching for DO
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Ignorance addressed in much details page 13, and page 14 showing if you switch sides automatically the waterfall will take you to wisdom and nibbana - page 13
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jāti – Rebirth including the Rebirth by choice and realms connection from here till bhava - page 36
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How Thirst leads to Unskillful Activities and Unhappiness, to understand this better lets first set the context, with each eon, universe expands and then contracts in cycles. There comes a time when, after a very long period has passed page 32
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khandhā - a broken piece, section and (5 khandhās are the sections of personality we take up as self)
akhaṇḍa unbroken, entire, whole, in -kārin (sikkhāya) fulfilling or practising the whole of (the commandments)
I see previous one has been used at many places but it looks like later one would have been very clear to someone 2600 years ago in the given context and they mean different, when we look at it this way the meaning changes so something we take it as me or mine(akhanda), is broken into 5 pieces or sections by buddha saying this is not mine. - page 21 -
Sankhāra – in the widest sense the “world of phenomena”, everything (all conditioned things 5 khandhās) which have been made up by pre-existing causes, produces kamma
Pre-context(16 Sanskara - sankhāra - saṃskāra, - sacraments, rites of passage, in a human being’s life) and the process of rituals with karma and ahuti very common in those days and still now page 7,22 -
upādāna - āhuti - oblation, sacrifice, performed with everything I do by mind, speech or body - page 33
There’s a great possiblity. But if you speak more than one language you should notice that there are expressions in probably every language, that cannot be directly translated into another language. Meaning you actually have to understand their underlying culture and context too. That said, also remember that everyone can become an arahat. In a billion years or lifetimes maybe. I’m not saying that the probability for us to become a Buddha is as slim as winning the lottery. Which it probably is. But I’m saying that we in any case should and encouraged to pursue enlightenment on our own. Intellectually or through meditation or first hand experiences.
One more example I recently came across, this is very very sweet and full of wisdom, none of its 6 translations on sutta central are near perfection, the one by S. N. Goenka nails it, having said that I am not at all picking upon one translator is better then others, the languages have evolved and changed over time and so the meaning of words, to get right context of historic languages is not trivial like substituting words
DHP 153
Udānavatthu
Anekajātisaṁsāraṁ,
sandhāvissaṁ anibbisaṁ;
Gahakāraṁ gavesanto, Variant: Gahakāraṁ → gahakārakaṁ (bj, sya-all, pts1ed, pts2ed)
dukkhā jāti punappunaṁ.
Gahakāraka diṭṭhosi,
puna gehaṁ na kāhasi;
Sabbā te phāsukā bhaggā,
gahakūṭaṁ visaṅkhataṁ;
Visaṅkhāragataṁ cittaṁ,
taṇhānaṁ khayamajjhagā.
English Translation on sutta central
Transmigrating through countless rebirths,
I’ve journeyed without reward,
searching for the house-builder;
painful is birth again and again.
I’ve seen you, house-builder!
You won’t build a house again!
Your rafters are all broken,
your roof-peak is demolished.
My mind, set on demolition,
has reached the end of craving.
Translation by S. N. Goenka
Once enlightened Buddha sees divine vision, the countless past lives in this world
I kept on running without stopping towards the death, can't wait at all, without achieving anything
Many lives kept on searching the creator of this house the body and the new body in next life
Kept getting born again and again ending up with more and more suffering
Now the creator(Avijjā) is seen, he can't build new house again (no more rebirth)
I have destroyed all building materials, which are required for creating new house the sankhāra
My mind is now free from all old sankhāra
And the craving is removed from the roots, (due to equanimity it can never arise) destroyed for ever