Bhante @sujato FYI
There already is a topic to address issues like this:
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@Nimal thanks for the error message. I’ve just moved your post to the existing topic for this, 
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Bhante @sujato
This is not an error or typos but I just like to ask the question here.
If moderators think this is worthwhile discussing please create a new post.
Just a matter of interest, why did you translate Naga as a dragon, not as a snake?
To me, the dragon reminds the dinosaur or a Chinese dragon.
I believe here Naga is referring to an Arahant.
Bhante @sujato Just a suggestion.
If I were you I will leave the full translation of the following. That is the crux of this Sutta. In my opinion full translation should be provided for the main pont of any of the suttas.
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“In the same way, reverend, purification of ethics is only for the sake of purification of mind. … Purification of knowledge and vision is only for the sake of extinguishment by not grasping.
“Evameva kho, āvuso, sīlavisuddhi yāvadeva cittavisuddhatthā, cittavisuddhi yāvadeva diṭṭhivisuddhatthā, diṭṭhivisuddhi yāvadeva kaṅkhāvitaraṇavisuddhatthā, kaṅkhāvitaraṇavisuddhi yāvadeva maggāmaggañāṇadassanavisuddhatthā, maggāmaggañāṇadassanavisuddhi yāvadeva paṭipadāñāṇadassanavisuddhatthā, paṭipadāñāṇadassanavisuddhi yāvadeva ñāṇadassanavisuddhatthā, ñāṇadassanavisuddhi yāvadeva anupādāparinibbānatthā.
The spiritual life is lived under the Buddha for the sake of extinguishment by not grasping.”
Anupādāparinibbānatthaṃ kho, āvuso, bhagavati brahmacariyaṃ vussatī”ti.
Oops, well spotted, I have fixed it now.
As a general rule, I translated the names of non-human beings to an approximate English equivalent. This is in line with my even more general policy of translating everything unless it was really impossible. Of course, the names of non-human beings in Pali only map very loosely onto those in English; but it is worth bearing in mind that the English meanings also change drastically, as do the Pali. An obvious case is yakkhas, which in later literature typically have a negative sense, a ferocious demon, but in the suttas is most often ambivalent if not positive. Thus using the Indic term can be even more misleading, so I have used “spirit”.
In the case of nāga, we find four main meanings:
- A large snake, probably king cobra
- A powerful and dangerous non-human spirit in serpentine form (“dragon”)
- Elephant
- In metaphorical sense, a “spiritual giant”.
In MN 23, there is series of interesting metaphors, each of which can be read on multiple levels. On one hand, of course it is to be expected that a snake would live in an ant-hill. However the border between an ordinary snake and a mystical dragon is far from clear-cut. It is common in modern Hinduism to find nagas worshiped in an anthill. Given that the Buddha identified it with the arahant, it seems a better reading than “snake”.
I wrote on this here:
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Hello,
In Majjhima Nikaya 142, Dakkhinavibhanga Sutta, there is a typo at the very end. The sutta ends with 5 short verses. The third one pertains to a gift being purified by neither the giver nor the recepient if both persons are of immoral character. It reads:
When an unethical and untrusting person,
gives an improper gift to ethical persons,
not trusting in the ample fruit of deeds,
I declare that gift is not very fruitful.
But actually, it should read like this:
When an unethical and untrusting person,
gives an improper gift to unethical persons,
not trusting in the ample fruit of deeds,
I declare that gift is not very fruitful.
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Thanks, fixed.
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Should ‘this’ be ‘these’ in the following verse???
"People now are seen and heard
and this are called by name,
but alone will the name remain
in speaking of those gone…" - Jarā Sutta
It’s these and those isn’t it not, this and those? The verse is talking about people not things.
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DN 3, SC 17
For fear of diluting their lineage, they are sleeping with their own (saka) sisters.
Does this parenthetical saka belong here?
DN 4, SC 8
You recite and remember the hymns, and are have mastered the three Vedas
have
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Hello,
There is a small typo in the Dhammapada translation by Buddharakkhita Thera, in the Affection chapter, the 7th verse in that chapter:
From lust springs grief, from lust springs fear. For one who is wholly free from craving there is no grief; whence then fear?
The word lust should be substituted for craving here.
In Ven. Sujato’s translation of DN 31, in the section regarding the five duties of a parent to a child, only four are listed. Arranging a suitable marriage is omitted.
Parents served by the children in these five ways show compassion to them in five ways. They keep them from doing bad. They support them in doing good. They train them in a profession. They transfer the inheritance in due time. Parents served by their children in these five ways show compassion to them in these five ways
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MN 25 #SC 5.16
“We won’t become indulgent, then we won’t became negligent, and then we won’t be vulnerable to the trapper on account of that bait.”
… then we won’t become negligent …
Again at # SC 6.28, SC 10.16, and SC 11.28.
. See the staging server: DN 5, SC 88
When someone with confident heart goes for refuge to the Buddha, the teaching, and the Saṅgha.
Elsewhere in the sutta (SC 98) brahmin Kūṭadanta goes for refuge to the “mendicant Saṅgha.” Is the difference between SC 88 and SC 98 intentional?
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DN 17, blurb
An elaborate story of a past life of the Buddha as a legendary king how renounced all to practice meditation.
who (?)
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MN 26, SC 15.23
Reverend Kālāma, have you realized this teaching with your own insight up to this point, and declare it having achieved it?
… and declare having achieved it?—Remove one it.
At SC 16.23 the same for Rama.
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or add a comma: “declare it, having achieved it.”
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All three versions sound correct to me 
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