Maybe We Don't Translate Bhagavā?

[BethL]

I just reviewed this paper and wonder whether bhagavā should go untranslated:

Visigalli, Paolo. ‘Not a Name Given by Mother’: The Buddha’s Epithet Bhagavat, Journal of Indian Philosophy (2024) 52:219–243.

This paper includes, it seems, every existing theory about what the epithet means and why. That’s not the main purpose of the paper, but that’s what it does. Interestingly – not surprisingly! – most all of these are cited in the handful of D&D threads on this topic:

Translating Bhagavān (2020)
Translation of Bhagavat (2021)
Bagavā – what and who is bhagavā (2024)

None of those threads are very long, so a cursory review of them is reasonable. When I looked at the comments, I didn’t see a single theory or proposition that isn’t mentioned in Visigalli’s paper as a viable way of interpreting bhagavā, depending on a variety of things – notably the target language, which commentaries we’re talking about, and

Indic and Indic-derived linguistic analyses [that] inform the formulation of general translation strategies in China and Tibet…To make it their own, Buddhists had to invest bhagavat with a new ethical and philosophical sense consistent with Buddhist values. To do so, they resorted to the analytical techniques provided by two sophisticated South Asian indigenous linguistic disciplines, vyākaraṇa ‘grammar’ and nirvacana ‘etymology’…

One widely attested etymology derives the lemma bhagavat from the gloss bhagnavat, a past active participle meaning ‘one who has demolished (√bhañj) [the defilements, etc.]’.

All this helps put in context Dhammanando Bhikkhu’s comment:

@Dhammanando

Ideally the task is to select words in the target language that when encountered by a native speaker of that language will give rise to the same thought that was in the minds of the speakers of the source language when they spoke the words that you’re now translating. But what those thoughts are likely to have been will depend on the genre and age of the text you’re translating.

It helps me understand Bhante Sujato’s reasoning:

@sujato

It’s the most common way of referring to the Buddha in the EBTs, so I just take it as a conventional title and use the most common word we use in English to refer to the same person, namely “Buddha”.

In cases of ambiguity, I use “Blessed One”, but without any great commitment to it.

I use “Holy One” for Sugata, hoping to hint at the “divine” sounding name (sugati is “Heaven”).

It’s really hard to get all these right, there are so many nuances of background and culture and expectation.

But if we are to get literal with bhagavā, may I suggest “shareholder”?

Although, honestly, I don’t understand the “shareholder” reference. The paper mentions an additional, potentially obscure meaning in some Chinese commentaries that betray Visigalli’s slightly irreverent paper title. Bhante’s reference may be some other potentially obscure meaning that I’m missing.

Anyway, in AN 10.58 Bhante translates Bhagavā as “the Buddha” which seems reasonable, all things considered. By comparison Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation choice is “the Blessed One” – the more familiar one. For more comparison, see “le Bienheureux” in Môhan Wijayaratna’s French translations.

So, is this one of the rare occasions we don’t try to translate a term (in this case, an epithet)? I’m thinking yes.

[Adutiya]

This discussion may add to the conversation:

Translating Bhagavān

What is the decision making process in translating Bhagavān or variant in the suttas? What does it mean in EBTs compared with other religion’s usage? I read on Wikipedia: “Bhagwan itself is an acronym of the combination of the 5 elements of nature. Bha means Bhoomi (Earth), Ga means gaggan (Space/Sky), Va means Vayu (Air), A means Agni (Fire) and finally, N means Neer (Water)” Is this really “an acronym”? And how would this usage apply to the Buddha?

EDIT: I read but didn’t notice that you’d already quoted from that thread!

[axax]

@BethL

So, is this one of the rare occasions we don’t try to translate a term (in this case, an epithet)? I’m thinking yes.

From a phonetic point of view, Bhagavā has no match whatsoever, and any English word falls short.

Since Buddha is an epithet and it is not translated, and Bhagavā occurs way more than Buddha through the cannon… I’d say yes, too.

[Adutiya]

I think @cdpatton usually, if not always, leaves it untranslated.

[BethL]

@Adutiya

leaves it untranslated.

What I learned from the article is that this is a precedent from early Chinese commentaries.

[Sphairos]

Hi Beth,

Thanks for your considerations. I know Visigalli’s paper as well.

bhagavat is someone who has bhaga.

Bhaga is wealth, prosperity, share, luck, happiness etc.

I think the secret to translating this term, if one wants to translate it at all, lies in the vocabulary of the Baltic-Slavic group of Indo-European languages, which retains a lot of of very old IE-words with their meanings and connotations (Lithuanian is considered to be the closest to Sanskrit among modern languages).

For instance, Russian word for God is Бог (Bog) – derivate of the same root.

Moreover, the word for Good (noun, synonyms are boon, blessing, weal) is Благо (Blago) – again, derivate of the same root.

This very neatly summarizes the various meanings of bhaga. So Bhagavat is the Possessor of Good, One who has attained/possesses Good.

In Plato’s system, the ultimate Idea is the Idea of the One, which is at the same time τὸ ἀγαθόν, which is translated as Good/the Good (τὸ ἀγαθόν is translated into Russian as Благо).

So that is what the Buddha attained / what he has – the Ultimate Good.

The translations with “fortunate” etc. seem to me to be misleading – they imply that the Buddha was somehow lucky.

[stephen]

All great points.
I’ve always explained that ‘bhaga’ means ‘good fortune’, but it’s a good point that it is not bestowed or random luck.
I don’t think “buddha” is a drop in replacement.

[cdpatton]

Chinese translators did translate bhagavat in that literal way as “having the good or virtue” on rare occasions, showing that the word did read that way to them on its face. I think they usually opted for what they thought was the functional meaning, rendering it as equivalent to the title of a god (“honored by the world”).

Thinking about it just now, I realized that in American English we have the idiom “have the goods on x,” which usually means someone investigating a crime or similar thing has the skill or information needed to succeed in prosecuting a case or discovering the truth of the matter. It’s similar to the reading of bhagavat as being skilled in discerning the teachings.

It’s this sort of thing that makes a translation pale in comparison to the source language. It’s like taking a plant or animal to another continent and releasing it there. Sure, it can make a new life there, but it’s in a completely different context. More and more, I think of words as living things. They live in an ecosystem of culture and language with a shared evolutionary history that’s intertwined. Separating them out is like dissecting a corpse.

[Element]

Sometimes bhagava translated as 天中天 which means heaven over all heavens (God over all gods ) .