Lack of footnotes

[Stephen18]

I like everything about SuttaCentral – literally!

I would just like to see footnotes to the suttas (as there are on Access to Insight, or the printed Nikāya translations). Sometimes notes and footnotes shed light on some tricky passages or terminology, without which one might get confused or simply not understand or misunderstand the said passage or term. They also often include excerpts from the commentaries.

I myself have the four Nikāyas with all the footnotes, but other people might benefit immensely if the suttas on SuttaCentral also had footnotes.

Just a suggestion to improve the site!

[Timothy]

There have been posts related to this topic, hopefully someone has the link, but they are currently trying to figure out how to add footnotes effectively. Much of this discussion involved programmer jargon, which exists outside of my knowledge base, but the gist of it is that they are working on it! I think they were leaving towards access through the side bar. Enter the word “footnotes” in the search bar, and it will give you the links to all topics related to that subject.

With metta,
:anjal:

[sujato]

Why SuttaCentral doesn’t have footnotes

Note: I wrote this some time ago as part of another discussion. It’s a question that comes up from time to time, so I thought I’d make it more visible by making it it’s own thread. I have made a few changes to the original. In the original discussion, Ven Brahmali recommended adding footnotes to my translation, arguing that: Good. A translator’s work should be invisible. One of the biggest problems with footnotes is that you end up listening to the translator’s voice instead of the Buddha’s. …