“by by”
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In a sentence in the sutta With Hatthaka (1st), the English misstates who is speaking:
4.2Then after the meal, on his return from alms-round, he went to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him of what he had discussed with the householder Hatthaka. The Buddha said:
Atha kho so bhikkhu pacchābhattaṃ piṇḍapātapaṭikkanto yena bhagavā tenupasaṅkami; upasaṅkamitvā bhagavantaṃ abhivādetvā ekamantaṃ nisīdi. Ekamantaṃ nisinno kho so bhikkhu bhagavantaṃ etadavoca:
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SO happy to catch one!)
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I am afraid, I may have to disappoint you:
AN8.23:4.2: Atha kho so bhikkhu pacchābhattaṃ piṇḍapātapaṭikkanto yena bhagavā tenupasaṅkami; upasaṅkamitvā bhagavantaṃ abhivādetvā ekamantaṃ nisīdi. Ekamantaṃ nisinno kho so bhikkhu bhagavantaṃ etadavoca:
AN8.23:4.2: Then after the meal, on his return from alms-round, he went to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him of what he had discussed with the householder Hatthaka. The Buddha said:
Then it continues:
AN8.23:7.1: “Sādhu sādhu, bhikkhu.
AN8.23:7.1: “Good, good, mendicant!
The text in-between, i.e. what the mendicant says, is not repeated in the translation. Ekamantaṃ nisinno kho so bhikkhu bhagavantaṃ etadavoca is translated as "and told him … ". And “The Buddha said” already refers to the Buddha’s reply afterwards.
That’s how I understand it, at least. The dukkha of abbreviation! 
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Here it’s the dukkha of finding a sentence in the translated paragraph missing, and another sentence inserted there that is later implied but doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the Pali. (When I began to read the next untranslated paragraph in Pali it was confusing.) Wouldn’t it be better if the inserted sentence were moved below the material left out in English and given parentheses to indicate that it doesn’t appear in the original text?
Or are Bhante’s other translations loose that way, giving the gist instead of a sentence by sentence translation? (I don’t read Pali well enough to know, this text just happened to be simple enough to discern the discrepancy.)
Edit: Correction, I see now that nothing was left out. So my issue here is just the insertion of “The Buddha said,” which is premature and does not appear anywhere in the original.
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Yes, this is not in the Pali. I guess Bhante @sujato added it in order to make the context clear after leaving out everything that is repeated from the previous conversation in the Pali. But maybe we should rather leave the question to him to answer.
The discrepancy is that the degree of abbreviation is different in the root text and the translation. This is more obvious when viewing English/Pali line by line.
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And happy to have you catching!
Just a general comment on this thread, we are still transitioning to our new translation platform, so I am waiting until that is ready, hopefully by the end of the year, before doing all these corrections. So please keep them coming!
So yes, you end up resorting to some such strategies when you do anything that isn’t a purely literal word-for-word translation.
The approach I take with such passages is this.
The Pali has a passage that generally deals with the “situation” of the discussion. In the Pali, this says that the mendicant came to the Buddha, sat down, and spoke to him. It then follows on by repeating the whole passage in full.
Now, as a rule, I try to avoid repeating passages within suttas more than necessary. In this case the repetition seems unnecessary, so I leave it out. But the reader needs to know that the passage was repeated, so I say that. In many suttas, it will identify the speaker’s response, but in this case it is implied. Perhaps this is because the response (“Sādhu sādhu, bhikkhu”) is a common one. But I felt that the English was confusing without identifying the speaker, so I inserted that.
The question then becomes, where do you insert it? It could be in the last segment of the previous speaker’s utterance; or at the beginning of the Buddha’s response; or as part of the “situational” description. I choose to include it as part of the situational description, as it is semantically in the same ballpark as the Pali text: it’s a short phrase clarifying who is speaking to whom.
One of the things with our segmented translations is that generally speaking any translated text must correspond with something in the Pali. Usually the translation simply renders the Pali, but there are many exceptions, as there always must be when dealing with natural language. It is technically possible to insert extra segments in the translation that are not in the Pali, but this is complex and we try to reserve it for headings only.
On the use of parentheses:
Right. And this is why we give the Pali so you can always see.
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(disregard below. it was addressed in later posts)
Actually, this is tricky, since it is followed in English by:
“Good, good, mendicant!
Bhante omitted the translation of what Hatthakka repeated in Pali. Perhaps “The Buddha said” could be moved down to segment 7.1?
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Dear Bhante, thanks for patiently and thoroughly explaining why the inserted sentence was hung there. It’s clear now that segmenting all but mandates the placement, and bracketing some inserted words would cultivate a false impression of precision. This was very informative. Much appreciated!
Edit: Oh and thanks also for managing to be very encouraging while showing there was no error.
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Hi,
In the New Concise Pali English Dictionary “aññāṇa” is defined as “knowledge”, but in other dictionaries it is defined as “ignorance”. Does the word occur in the EBTs or commentaries meaning “knowledge”? If it does, it is surely worthy of a note in the New Concise Pali English Dictionary. Otherwise, the definition is wrong.
David
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I believe that by adding the ‘a’ before the ‘nnana’ , it reverses the meaning ie becomes without knowledge = ignorance
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Hi @Viveka,
Thanks, for your reply!
That is also my understanding. But, if that is the case, the meaning should be given as “ignorance” not “knowledge” since the headword in the entry is “aññāṇa” = “a + ñ + ñāṇa” not “ñāṇa”.
David.
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Witness the knowledge of ignorance.
So I have seen.
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Lol, okay. Actually it means both, depending on whether the initial a- is a shortened ā:
ā + (j)ñāṇa = aññāṇa = deep knowledge
a + (j)ñāṇa = aññāṇa = un-knowing
Both forms occur in the EBTs, and both should be listed in the NCPED.
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Couldn’t find this one.
Bhante, are there any examples for this use?
Then there is this word aññā which means deep knowledge or enlightenment.
diṭṭheva dhamme aññā, sati vā upādisese anāgāmitā (SN 46.57).
Enlightenment in the present life, or if there’s something left over, non-return.
Añña means another or other. Sometimes it is used as aññā.
Aññā vedanā, añño vedayati
The feeling is one thing and the one who feels it is another (SN 12.18).
There is aññāya (having known or understood) and aññāta (who knows/ has insight)
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…and now I see a critical advantage in studying suttas segment by segment bilingually.
Thank you, Bhante. 
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Any examples from EBTs ?
3aññāṇa, n. [ sa. ājñāna], perceiving, knowledge; °-atthaṁ, for the sake of Arhatship ( cf. aññā), DN III 57,17 (= jānanatthaṁ, Sv; ājānanatthaṁ . . . vīmaṁsanatthaṁ, pt); AN I 199,13* (= do., Mp).
Word aññā has no ṇa at the end? Any grammatical form?
No, that’s just the stem. It’s a variant, normally in such cases the ṇa is omitted.
Hi, in the Mahāsuññatasutta MN 122, Bhante translated sambahulā as “several”, as in several monks dwelling together. “Several” is defined by Google as “more than two but not many”, and in my experience covers the range between a few and half a dozen.
The Buddha’s strong response advocating for seclusion made more sense when I re-read and noticed the Buddha noticed furnishings of sambahulā (which the insta-dictionary gives as “many”) monks dwelling together. “Many” means “a large number” - possibly dozens or hundreds of monks.
Ven Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation also has it as “many”, and he added footnotes giving the Commentary’s explanation that “Beds, chairs, mattresses, and mats were prepared, and they were so close together that the dwelling looked like the residence of a society of bhikkhus,” and that the Buddha was thinking that as soon as they form a society and delight in society they will act in improper ways, therefore he expounded this discourse.
Most likely the Buddha wanted to get the message to monks dwelling together, although gathered for the good purpose of making robes, to instead seek seclusion, specifically because they were “many” monks and not merely “several” of them.
I’d like to suggest it be changed from several to many.
2.7 are there several mendicants living here?”
Sambahulā nu kho idha bhikkhū viharantī”ti.
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This may not be a typo, but it doens’t need its own thread. SuttaCentral
Then the wardens of hell punish them with the five-fold crucifixion.
In Ven Nyanamoli’s translation it says “now” instead of “then”. I realize that “then” may be more consistent, however it implies a transition that isn’t really there. It seems like maybe in the text itself the transition is not clear, but to me, the “then” makes it feel like there is something missing in the text. However, maybe you feel like there is indeed a gap and decided to reflect this in the translation. I’d be curious to know if that is the case.
But as a reader, it stands out.
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