Sadhu again for the translations, Bhante @sujato. They are marvelous, especially your Dhammapada and other verse translations. And also thanks for replying in detail last time, venerable. I learned some things.
Here are some more possible errors and inconsistencies, all minor. All from e-books, not the “live” website, so some may already be resolved, sorry about that. I decided to include other suggestions which are not errors or mistakes per se. I was mostly reading verses, so because of that some of my points will be obscure and definitely not beyond dispute.
(Although it would be greatly appreciated especially on the more difficult grammar, I don’t expect you to reply again, feel free to just take my post for what it is!)
KN:
- Dhp385: Yassa pāraṁ apāraṁ vā, pārāpāraṁ na vijjati; Vītaddaraṁ visaṁyuttaṁ, tamahaṁ brūmi brāhmaṇaṁ. “When one does not recognize the near shore, the far shore, or both; stress-free, detached, that’s who I call a brahmin.” This sounds off, as ‘far shore’ usually means nibbāna, and the brahmin knows nibbāna. I think the meaning of pāraṁ here is paro loko, as Snp1.1: So bhikkhu jahāti orapāraṁ where you do translate it as ‘the next world’. The apāraṁ then is equivalent to ora, ‘this world’, meaning no rebirth in this world. The intended meaning of vijjati then is ‘exist’, not ‘recognize’, as for the brahmin there exists no rebirth in this world and others. That makes intuitive sense with the genitive/dative yassa, “for whom it does not exist”, i.e. who does not have, like common similar constructions with atthi.
- Ud3.4: “Now, at that time a certain mendicant was sitting not far from the Buddha[,] cross-legged, with his body straight.” Same for following texts. Also, since this is “a certain mendicant”, you could consider his > their.
- Ud3.10: Evametaṁ yathābhūtaṁ, Sammappaññāya passato; Bhavataṇhā pahīyati. “In this way one seeing with right wisdom in accord with truth, gives up craving for continued existence,” Bit more clunky than I’m used to from you!
Evaṁ technically could refer to pahīyati like it does in your tl but it’s standard in the phrase evametaṁ yathābhūtaṁ sammappaññāya (insert ‘to see’ verb) so I suppose it should just go with passato instead. So “One seeing in this way …” - Snp1.11: kāyamhā sedajallikā, “And from the body, sweat and dirt.” > “sweat and waste” because I suppose jallikā is a euphemism for excrement and/or urine, like ‘waste’ is in English.
- Snp1.11: “And if, on account of this body” > “on account of such a body” (etādisena kāyena).
- Snp2.10: sallaviddhāna = “arrow strike”, but 3 verses later abbahe sallam… = “draw out the dart”, which made me miss the connection initially.
- Snp3.4: pronoun switches from ‘they’ to ‘he’ and back in “They’ve escaped their chains, they’re chained no more, among those caught in conceit he is [they are] free of conceit;”
- Snp3.7: Switches from past tense to present: “He saw all of them except for two, which he has [had] doubts about: whether the private parts are [were] covered in a foreskin, and the largeness of the tongue.”
- Snp3.9: “They have no hope in this world and the next.” Seems to me this means hoping for this world and beyond.
- Snp3.9: Yomaṃ palipathaṃ duggaṃ, They’ve got past this grueling swamp Saṃsāraṃ mohamaccagā; of delusion, transmigration. Tiṇṇo pāraṅgato jhāyī [!], They’ve crossed over to the far shore, Anejo akathaṅkathī; stilled and free of indecision. Anupādāya nibbuto, They’re extinguished by not grasping: Tamahaṃ brūmi brāhmaṇaṃ. that’s who I call a brahmin. – Unless different manuscript was used, I’m missing a translation of jhāyī. Maybe the same in MN98.
- Snp3.9: “they’ve ended desire to be reborn” for nandībhavaparikkhīṇaṃ, but that is not how tappurisas usually work. If that would be the meaning why would it not be bhavanandī-? Since metrically there is no problem with that. Hence nandībhava more likely is a dvanda, as Bodhi translates it. So “ended desire and continued existence”.
- Snp3.10: “For more than two quinquadecillion years, and another five quattuordecillion years,”
And another supercalifragilisticexpialidocious years! - Snp3.11: “Train in a lonely seat, attending closely to ascetics; solitude is sagacity, they say.” Hmm… could it be a pun in this case? Maybe it means attending to asceticism, or just generally honoring ascetics. Because attending to ascetics is in a sense the opposite of solitude.
- Snp3.12: “All the suffering that originates is caused by ignorance [> choices]. With the cessation of choices, there is no origination of suffering.”
- Snp3.12: “and stopped making karmic choices,” Why ‘karmic’ here but not elsewhere?
- Snp4.2: “having completely understand [understood] contact, free of greed,”
- Snp4.2: “I see the world’s population flounder … Base men wail in the jaws of death. … like fish in puddles of a dried-up stream”
- Snp5.5, viññāṇaṃ bhave na tiṭṭhe, an awkward one, but here’s my take. In “don’t plant consciousness in a new life,” although I’m a fan of the ‘plant’, you translate tiṭṭhe as a causative but I don’t think it is. Since tiṭṭhati is intransitive afaik, it must have viññāṇaṃ as subject, not object. A bit of a strange use of bhave but “consciousness does not continue in existence”, or alike, akin to Ven. Bodhi, is what I suppose it means. Or “does not continue in a new life”.
- Snp5.11: “the island of no return”. No return of what? If you mean no return of old age and death, then we think the same, but it is not clear from the translation. I think it means no more old age and death, because Kappa asks yathā idaṃ nāparaṃ siyā (where this old age and death will not happen again), to which the Buddha answers, etaṃ dīpaṃ anāparaṃ. I translate “the island where that [old age and death] happens no more”.
- Snp5.11: lackies > lackeys. Had to look the word up. Then the dictionary said ‘lackeys’ is the modern plural form, ‘lackies’ being archaic. (My spellchecker also fails to recognize it atm.) Then I realized it’s just Dutch ‘lakij’. (Bonus geek fact: we spell the vowel ‘y’ as ‘ij’. About 2 centuries ago people started putting dots above the ‘y’ in cursive writing out of habit of writing i and j with dots… So now the letter Y is worth many points in Scrabble!)
- Snp5.13: Yaṁ yañhi lokasmimupādiyanti, Teneva māro anveti jantuṁ. “For Māra pursues a person using whatever they grasp in the world.” I take tena as adverbial, like in yena … tena upasankami. So: “For whatever they grasp in the world, Māra pursues a person there.” Because Death (Māra) follows wherever one takes up (or grasps) a new existence, and maccu is mentioned in the next verse. Also because anveti is a verb implying motion, like others which use tena as adv. object, such as upasankamati and avasarati. While I’m at these verses, ādānataṇhaṁ (“acquisitive craving”) I take as a dvanda.
- Thag6.8: Visamūlaṁ “root of poison” is perhaps a kammadhāraya, i.e. “root which is poison” > poisonous root. Also slaughter-house > slaughterhouse.
- Thag10.5: Bhavamūlaṁ vamitvāna, parinibbissanti anāsavāti “and realize quenching free of defilements” anāsavā is the subject here it seems, so “the undefiled ones realize quenching”, or better “the undefiled will be full quenched”, since there is no verb “realize” in the Pali. Same at AN7.64 and probably elsewhere.
- Thag10.6: pronoun switches from ‘they’ to ‘he’ and back.
SN:
- SN12.65: “When rebirth exists there’s old age and death.” OK… Let’s go there… As you translate it (and as most others do), it reflects a sufficient condition, while it should reflect a necessary condition (aka vital condition, as you have translated upanisa). Necessity is what dependency is all about, I think you’ll agree—not sufficiency. Fill in feeling and craving as the links and you’ll see why sufficiency doesn’t work: When feeling exists there’s craving… means no escape from craving is possible! Or think of the mutual condition between nāmarūpa and viññāṇa, and sufficiency would mean there is no way out: the two would sustain one another regardless of avijja. But necessity would mean they just depend on one another, still also depending on avijja. This mutual dependency is of course exactly the point of the simile with the bundles of reeds. Now, regarding translation, see Wijesekera’s Syntax on the Pali Cases under locative absolute, saying that it can indicate either indicate “a condition that exists or should exist”, i.e. sufficiency or necessity. The problem can be fixed by adding a single word: “Only when rebirth exists, there’s old age and death.” Same with the more general “When this exists, that is,” which should be, “only when this exists, that is”. For the difference that ‘only’ makes see The Logic of "If" vs. "Only if" (article) | Khan Academy. “When this doesn’t exist, that is not” is OK though, because this does reflect necessity. To add “only” there, would be a mistake. (Because there can be no craving but still feelings, for example. But when there are no feelings, then there is naturally no craving.) Alright, hope that made sense… and I hope you’ll change it! Here are my current translations, fwiw:
There will be this, only if there is that. This arises, because that arises.
If there wouldn’t be that, there won’t be this. If that ceases, this will cease.
In other words, “this depends on that”.
- SN23.3: “attachment to rebirth”, bhavanetti, translated by Venerable Bodhi as ‘the conduit of existence’, but I suggest ‘irrigation of existence’. A netti seems to be an irrigation canal, which “leads” (neti) the water. See Dhp80, which says irrigators (nettikā) lead the water. Also compare with German ‘Leitung’, meaning both ‘leader’ and ‘water pipe’, similar to the English ‘conductor’. Irrigation canals would have made for a strong visual metaphor. Craving is often compared to water, and the word ‘moisture’ (sneha) also stands for desire or affection. I belief bhavanetti is another such watery metaphor. That Radha asks for an explanation here and that it is mostly used in verse also suggest a metaphor over a technical term. When craving ends, the figurative irrigation of existence is cut off—existence is no longer “watered” by craving.
- SN35.39: itthetepi dhammā calā ceva byathā ca, “So these things [too] are tottering and toppling”
AN:
- AN4.10: pāpakehi akusalehi dhammehi sankilesikehi “unskillful qualities—defilements that lead to”: sankilesikehi is technically an adjective not a noun. So I’d use “defiling qualities” or “qualities that defile”.
- AN6.23: In the verses the transition from verse 1 to 2 is a bit more abrupt than for example in Bodhi’s translation. As a result it sounds like the puthujanas are liberated.
- AN6.61 “The sage” for mantā (as nom. of mantar). In Snp5.3 “by reflection”.
- AN10.216: “their destiny and rebirth is crooked” > “are crooked” ?
MN:
- MN22: “When a mendicant’s mind is freed like this, the gods together with Indra, Brahmā, and Pajāpati, search as they may, will not find anything that such a Realized One’s consciousness depends on.” Evaṁ vimuttacittaṁ kho, bhikkhave, bhikkhuṁ saindā devā sabrahmakā sapajāpatikā anvesaṁ nādhigacchanti: ‘idaṁ nissitaṁ tathāgatassa viññāṇan’ti. I have come to think that the quoted part is effectively a question that the devas ask, not their conclusion, even though it does not have an interrogative pronoun. Compare to SN4.23 where after Godhika’s death Mara searches for his consciousness: viññāṇaṃ samanvesati: ‘kattha godhikassa kulaputtassa viññāṇaṃ patiṭṭhita?’nti. The verb is basically the same as anvesaṃ, and the question also being in essence the same. And Mara of course also being a deva, could well have added in the earlier list. So the gods are looking for a bhikkhu’s consciousness after death, which is confirmed when the Buddha says there was no realized one even while he was alive: Diṭṭhevāhaṃ, bhikkhave, dhamme tathāgataṃ ananuvijjoti vadāmi, let alone after death. This of course being the anatta teaching in the Yamaka Sutta (SN22.85), which states effectively the same thing and then also connects it directly to death: diṭṭheva dhamme saccato thetato tathāgate anupalabbhiyamāne, kallaṃ nu te taṃ veyyākaraṇaṃ: … khīṇāsavo bhikkhu kāyassa bhedā ucchijjati vinassati. After this MN22 continues with denying annihilation, again, being about post-death. So in short: The gods seek for a liberated bhikkhu after his death, can’t find him. The Buddha effectively confirms he’s nowhere by saying there was no-one to begin with, but when he does, he is accused of being an annihilationist. So perhaps something like: “The gods together with Indra, Brahmā, and Pajāpati will not find a mendicant who had such a freed mind, search as they may, wondering what such a Realized One’s consciousness depends on.” To top it all off, this long rant which in hindsight would have benefited from some paragraph breaks… in MN143 Sariputta speaks to Anāthapiṇḍika on his deathbed with the same words nissitaṁ viññāṇaṁ bhavissati. Notice the future tense, rather unusual in such teachings. Sariputta is telling him what to do (or rather not do) after death! Which is especially clear in na ca me paraloka-nissitaṁ viññāṇaṁ bhavissati. PS. in MN22 “even in the present life the Realized One is undiscoverable” does not portray well what it means, because it sounds like a Realized One does exist, is just not findable. I suggest something like “even while alive there is no Realized One to be found”. Sorry if I have suggested this last thing already before.
- MN143: “The winds piercing [slicing] my belly are so severe, it feels like a deft butcher or their apprentice is slicing my belly open with a meat cleaver.” Also, it says ‘cow’s belly’ but I suppose you left that out intentionally.