As announced by @blake, we have finally completed the proofreading for my translations of the four nikayas.
A great thank you to our four indefatigable proof-readers: John Kelly, Lynn Kelly, Derek Sola, and Ayya Pasada. They have patiently and carefully read the entire four nikayas twice over, a process that took several months.
It goes without saying that in a project of this scope, there will be many errors remaining. We have already received many valuable tips from our readers here on D&D. Now we’d like to invite any readers to please submit any mistakes you may see or suspect, no matter how minor. By working together, we can continue to improve the translation for the benefit of all.
Just to note that we will usually correct any mistakes immediately, but they can take some time to show up on the site. We are aiming to update weekly.
This notice is primarily relating to my new English translations of the nikāyas. As always, however, we are happy to learn of any mistakes in any of our translations and will fix them ASAP. When it comes to the original-language texts in Pali, Sanskrit, etc., however, we do not make any changes, as we are not in a position to reliably assess these.
And what is right view?
Katamā ca, bhikkhave, sammādiṭṭhi?
Not knowing about suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering.
Yaṃ kho, bhikkhave, dukkhe ñāṇaṃ, dukkhasamudaye ñāṇaṃ, dukkhanirodhe ñāṇaṃ, dukkhanirodhagāminiyā paṭipadāya ñāṇaṃ—
This is called right view.
ayaṃ vuccati, bhikkhave, sammādiṭṭhi.
So it seems this is an artefact of an unusually complex note on variants. When preparing the text for our site, @Blake pulled the variants from another file and associated them with the correct place. In the source files for this text, the () is there. However, it seems this was meant as a placeholder for a note on a variant, but because of its unusual nature, the variant itself got lost. The text is, however, noted at tipitaka.org (which was the original source for our texts, ie. the source of our source.)
The text says “After this, the following verses are seen in certain editions”. There follows a set of verses summarizing the content of the sutta. It is pretty clear the verse is really a menmonic for the sutta, not a part of the text itself, hence it is left out of the main text.
I don’t know whether this a typo or a variant but in my printed edition SN47.1 has “Ekāyano ayaṃ” (Saṃyutta Nikāya, Theravada Tipitaka Press, 2009, p.654, based on World Tipitaka Edition), same as in MN10.
The SuttaCentral Pāḷi Text of SN47.1#2.1 has “Ekāyanvāyaṃ”.
Yes, these are genuine variant spellings for the same word, not typos. The resolved form is ekāyano ayaṁ, but in some cases the words are compounded to ekāyanvāyaṁ, with the v appearing as a sandhi (“joining”) consonant.
The Pali text on SC is static. It is a very carefully proofed text, and rarely has mistakes in the text itself (as opposed to the punctuation, which is fairly accurate, but not 100%). Since we do not have access to the source files on which the Pali text is based, and are thus not in a position to properly assess any issues, we do not make any changes to the Pali text.
When I said this,Uddaka, son of Rāma, declared the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. (SC 13.3)
—Space lacking before ‘Uddaka’.
So I approachedUddaka, son of Rāma, and said to him: (SC 13.12)
—Space lacking before ‘Uddaka’.
Suppose there was a green, sappy log, and it was lying in water.
Then a person comes along with a drill-stick, thinking
to light a fire and produce heat.
What do you think, Prince?
By drilling the stick against that green, sappy log on dry land far from water, could they light a fire and produce heat?” (SC 16.5)
—Switched to the second example.
‘ThatUddaka, son of Rāma, is astute, competent, clever, and has long had little dust in his eyes. (SC 47.5)
—Space lacking before ‘Uddaka’.
‘Sir,Uddaka, son of Rāma, passed away just last night.’ (SC 47.9)
I think, DN2 at SC 37 needs a clean-up. I highlighted the respective part:
“I can, great king. Well then, I’ll ask you about this in return, and you can answer as you like. What do you think, great king? *BB’s “ever on the lookout to see that you are satisfied” is not correct, see mukhaṃ ullokentī at MN 79, SN 56.39 VAR: kammakāro → kammakaro (bj, s1-3, km, pts1) VAR: mukhullokako → mukhullokiko (s1-3, km, mr)*Suppose you had a person who was a bondservant, a worker. They get up before you and go to bed after you, and are obliging, behaving nicely and speaking politely, and gazing up at your face. They’d think: ‘The outcome and result of good deeds is just so incredible, so amazing! For this King Ajātasattu is a human being, and so am I. Yet he amuses himself, supplied and provided with the five kinds of sensual stimulation as if he were a god. Whereas I’m his bondservant, his worker. I get up before him and go to bed after him, and am obliging, behaving nicely and speaking politely, and gazing up at his face. I should do good deeds. Why don’t I shave off my hair and beard, dress in ocher robes, and go forth from the lay life to homelessness?’
Dear Ven. Sujato – regarding your translation of M 18 The Honey-Cake, paragraph 7, near the end:
"You are capable of explaining in detail the meaning of this brief passage for recitation given by the Buddha. Please explain this, if it’s no trouble.”
The Pāli you translate ‘if it’s no trouble’ is agaruṃ katvā. This means (translating word-for-word), ‘making [it] non-heavy’, i.e. it means, ‘making it less difficult’, ‘making it easy for us to understand’. It is not that the monks are being polite to Mahākaccāna, saying, please explain the Dharma, if it’s no trouble; rather they are saying, please explain it so we can understand it.
This understanding is borne out by what the commentary says and in at least one other translation, so you might like to incorporate it into yours.
Maybe that’s just a minor detail, but i’ll mention it anyway:
In the Pali-English line-by-line view, in the verses in the end of the sutta the indentations as well as the spaces between the lines are not everywhere the same:
In the English-only view they are fine:
In the two other Pali-English versions there are also slight irregularities.
Oops!
