Italian "Dhammapada" Issue

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This is a public post to inform Bhante @sujato and the SuttaCentral team about a potential issue with a text being hosted on the website. I had sent a private message, but it’s been a while so maybe the best way is to make a post here. Some corrected info here as well.

I’d like to open this by saying that I respect Ajahn Munindo, an elder in the Saṅgha, for the good work he has done and does, and for being a senior example in robes. This post is not meant to be disrespectful or harmful, and I apologize in advance for any poor wording on my part that may be inconsiderate. :folded_hands:

SuttaCentral is currently hosting what is presented as an Italian translation of the Dhammapada by Chandra Candiani. However, this is an Italian translation of Ajahn Munindo’s ‘A Dhammapada for Contemplation.’ This work is not a translation of the Dhammapada; it is inspired poetry based off of contemplating the Dhammapada. It is sometimes quite close to the Dhammapada, re-organized or summarized in new words. And it can sometimes present quite different ideas.

The introduction to the text seems quite vague about what exactly it is. It’s hard to figure out. It’s called a ‘version’ of the Dhammapada which is a ‘free rendering’ unencumbered by the ‘formal exactness.’ It says it is to be considered an ‘invitation’ rather than a ‘definitive translation.’

At the end, there is a note by a professor (not the author strangely?) which describes the process for arriving at the work. Here’s an excerpt:

His method was this: using several respected translations, he ascertained what to his mind was the spirit or essence of each saying. This he did with the aid of the traditional story associated with each verse, which gives an account of the occasion and significance of its utterance. Having thus ascertained the spirit of each verse, he sought an expression in contemporary language, which might transmit effectively its spiritual impulse. Being an ancient Indian text, the Dhammapada abounds in references to monsoons, elephants, jungles, villages, brahmins and so on. While this is wonderfully evocative of life in the Buddha’s time, it distracts our attention from the point of the sayings; and therefore Ajahn Munindo’s version is, on the whole, rendered into a contemporary idiom relevant to the modern worldview. …
Most references to rebirth, and to the hell and heaven realms of Buddhist cosmology, have been replaced by psychological renderings of more relevance today. The references to the wandering mendicant lifestyle of the Buddhist monastic sangha, dependent as it was and is on a village based agrarian culture, have been modified.

Emphasis mine. (Link to the work with this note; the fifth edition.)

So to be clear, the vague introduction is clarified in an end-note which specifies that this is based off of other translations of the Dhammapada (presumably in English). The aim is to capture the “spiritual impulse” of the works as ascertained in the mind of the author, modifying this to fit a “modern worldview” which includes changing many references to rebirth and wandering monastics into things “of more relevance today.”

When I click on the info button for the Italian version of this on SuttaCentral, it says:

Libera traduzione in inglese di Ajahn Munindo. Traduzione in italiano di Chandra Candiani.

This says that Ajahn Munindo’s is a “free translation in English.” I don’t really see how this can be called a “translation.” It seems misleading to call it such. Even the introduction to the work says it is “not a line-by-line translation but a free rendering.”

Generally, to translate a text in this context means to go from one language to another. But this is not based off of the Pali. Only the Italian version is a translation of Ajahn Munindo’s work.

I also noticed that some renderings have been changed in Italian even further from the English. The above link leads to the fifth edition of the work. The Italian version by Chandra Candiani seems based on an earlier edition. For example, the fourth edition of the book translates the first line of Chapter 2 (Appamādavagga) as:

Appreciative awareness leads to life

The Italian renders this as something like “receptive mindfulness leads to life.” I’m not sure if that is based on an edition earlier than the fourth, or if the Italian translator has changed the English even further. The fifth edition now has a more traditional rendering, using ‘heedfulness’ and ‘Deathless,’ but the Italian remains as is.

Perhaps there is a policy for these things I’m unaware of. Perhaps this also slipped by unnoticed because it is in Italian. However, I do feel that there should at least be more explicit notice that this is a translation in Italian of inspired contemplations from the author based on the Dhammapada.

I think it is quite misleading that this be presented as a translation of the Dhammapada on SuttaCentral, which to my mind at least would ideally offer a kind of safe refuge for genuine translations of the Buddha’s words. It dilutes what the site has to offer in contrast to the jungle of fake Buddha quotes and the like by presenting such works as translations.

Thank you for the attention! :folded_hands:

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Thank you for posting this. I downloaded the Italian translations for language learning purposes and am glad to have read this before I started studying the available copies. :folded_hands:

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I can’t speak for Bhante @sujato nor do I know where the exact boundaries are, but there’s some references I can point to in the interim.

There is a wiki page titled “Criteria for new translations”. This seems to be meant for new Bilara translations though, so I don’t know if/how it applies to legacy texts. There’s a piece of it that’s relevant here though:

Examples of a translation project that could be useful in our context might be:

  • […]
  • a translation that rejects formal equivalence in favor of idiomaticness

This seems to match up with the process note you quoted:

So it might be allowed.

A different “type” of translation may warrant some disambiguation in parts of the UI. For example, not just “legacy”, but also “idiomatic”. (and maybe ‘translation-of-translation’ or something)

I agree that the info could be more descriptive and explicit.

I couldn’t tell from a quick look at the commit history. It seems to have been part of this large commit from 2018 of Dhammapada translations, but there might be more history to it.

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Hi and thank you! :slight_smile: I appreciate the help here and clarifications from the wiki! This gives something more specific to interact with.

From the Wiki page, I’m not sure there’s much reason to fit Candiani’s translation on the site apart from it being the only one in Italian. Here’s some reasoning for anyone on the team who might want to decide to leave this up or not.

From the Wiki link (all emphases mine):

Our translations should be accurate, readable, and meaningful, and once we have such a translation there is little reason to add another.

I have made a case that Ajahn Munindo’s work is not a translation. However, even if it is a translation, I would question if it is accurate. The introduction and end-note essentially say it is not supposed to be an accurate translation. In addition, it is not translating from Pali to English nor is it even a translation from another language translation of the Dhammapada. It is based off of reading translations of the Dhammapada, then contemplating them to capture the “spiritual impulse” of the verses, then modifying them to be more amenable to a certain modern worldview, according to the text itself.

There’s a big difference between rendering a translation in idiomatic language, and actively changing the meaning of a text. For example, changing “heaven” to “feeling groovy” is different from choosing to render “feeling groovy” rather than “experiencing positive hedonic sensations.” (The above are not real examples).

I think we should consider what this would be like with another text.

Imagine that I read the Gospel of Mark in the Bible in a handful of English translations. Then, I contemplated what the spiritual impulse behind the verses of the text felt like to me, and then I modified them to fit secular American culture. Then, say someone took my text and rendered it into Spanish. Would that pass for a translation of the Gospel of Mark on a site studying early Christianity? I highly doubt it would even be entertained.

The above is very different from the many translations of the New Testament which are meant to be accessible, idiomatic, and easy to read. For example, in Italian, there is a common Bible translation called the CEI. There’s another one called the Traduzione Interconfessionale in Lingua Corrente. The latter is specifically made in a more accessible, common language and was produced ecumenically with Catholics and Protestants. But it is still an actual and proper translation specifically meant to convey what the ancient text meant to convey but in a way that a modern reader would easily comprehend—very different from my above hypothetical example.

Now, if we wanted to make a case for the Italian translation of Ajahn Munindo’s work, I do think that there are two criteria on the page that one could present. One was already mentioned, and I’d add another:

  • a translation that rejects formal equivalence in favor of idiomaticness …

  • a translation that attempts to render the text as understood by the commentator

If by ‘commentator’ they mean any commentator on the text and not just the Pali commentaries, that could be a case here. However, both of these bullet points start by saying “a translation…” I would again raise the question: is the original actually a translation? If it is deemed one, then we could begin considering those points.

Hope this doesn’t come across negatively. Just trying to present a clear case so an informed decision can be made :folded_hands:

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I definitely don’t think that the Ajahn Munindo ‘Dhammapada’ would be thought of as suitable for SC so I doubt an Italian version is. Thanks for bringing this up.

Hopefully Bhante @sujato will see this. Otherwise I will try and follow this up with him.

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There are over a dozen Italian translations besides Candiani’s. The gold-standard would be the one contained in the first volume of the anthology La Rivelazione del Buddha - i testi antichi (Milan, 2001), edited by Raniero Gnoli, a Sanskritist and student of Giuseppe Tucci.

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Some others:

Vincenzo Talamo. Canone buddhistico - Testi brevi. Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1961.

Pio Filippani-Ronconi. Canone Buddhista - discorsi brevi. UTET, 1968.

M. Piantelli. Aforismi e discorsi del Buddha. TEA - Tascabili degli Editori Associati, Milan, 1988.

Pio Filippani Ronconi. Buddha - aforismi e discorsi. Tascabili Economici Newton, Rome, 1994.

Genevienne Pecunia. Dhammapada - La via del Buddha. Feltrinelli Editore, Milan, 2006.

Anthony Elenjimittam, Vita e dottrina di Buddha: Il Dhammapada, Mursia 2019.

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Thanks! Yes, I worded that unclearly. Candiani’s is the only one on SuttaCentral currently.

There are several actual translations of the Dhammapada, and I think you’re probably right that La Rivelazione del Buddha is probably the best. I have access to that book and it’s quite good, though I’ve been told it’s out of print! I also have Talamo’s right by me, and it is honestly just perplexingly bad sometimes. But it is at least an attempt at an actual translation, even of many commentarial glosses after the Dhammapada itself.

EDIT: Looks like it might be back in print as of 2026 this year, available in mid May!

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I was just reading about the publishers, I Meridiani. Apparently they make it a point of pride that, Nessun «blu» è mai andato fuori catalogo (“None of our ‘blues’ has ever gone out of print”). Luckily Gnoli’s two volumes are both included in the blue series.

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Hello all. Just to say, I wrote the ‘Note on the Text’ at the end of Ajahn Munindo’s rendering of the Dhammapada. I also offered him advice on his rendering as he composed it in 1999. It was definitely never envisaged as a ‘translation’, but rather as conveying Ajahn Munindo’s own sense of the meaning of the Dhammapada in contemporary language. You might be interested to know that Ajahn Munindo was and is sensitive to the limits imposed by a proper appreciation of the Pāli text – he didn’t want his rendering to give an unwary reader the wrong impression. But this raises a lot of more philosophical questions about the nature of ‘translation’. So all of these same issues would certainly carry over to Chandra Candiani’s Italian translation of Ajahn Munindo’s rendering.

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Thanks Dhivan Thomas for the contribution to the thread! Appreciate your clarifications, and glad to hear that there was concern for transparency in the work. Ajahn Munindo also frequently recommends reading various Dhammapada works in addition to his in the introductions, so it’s nice there’s also that encouragement to look to proper translations to get perspective.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing your own poetry as response to ancient texts so long as it is very clear what is going on and there is no motivation to gain profit from a more marketable word (and I don’t think Ajahn had any interest in profit from his work). However I do think it can create confusion when people unfamiliar with Pāḷi try and read multiple translations to find out what seems to be correct to them. When a work like this is used to compare other ‘translations,’ it could be altering an accurate perception of the original. This is where transparency is important. However the fact that the note describes that the work was based off of other translations and is Ajahn’s own thoughts on them helps clarify where that might go wrong.

Thanks again! :slight_smile:

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