Dear friends, after way too long I am finally catching up on corrections here. Just to note, the reason for the delay has been that we are switching our translation engine over and I wanted to wait until we were closer to launching the new system, which took longer than hoped.
Meanwhile, I will try to get everything in this thread, but please help me out if Iâve missed something. Certain systematic changes, such as revising the way of handling repetitions, I will note down and check separately.
When Iâve finished this process, Iâll close down this thread and open another, itâs getting too long!
It seems fine as is.
This is deliberate, I chose to omit the negative form in the repetitions. It rapidly becomes wearying!
No! I wrote about this in A Swift Pair of Messangers. The idea is that it is a condition that is both essential and strongly conducive, i.e. âvitalâ.
This is on a to-do list, I agree with you.
This seems correct, maybe it has been fixed.
Indeed, well-spotted, this is my mistake. It is a subtle issue, as the negatives are part of a compound, so the compound can be parsed both:
not listing to a good teaching
listening to a not-good teaching
Not that the same ambiguity attends to the neighboring term Asappurisasaáčsevo. (Also note in passing that the spelling is inconsistent in the MS edition: assaddhamma in AN 10.62, asaddhamma in AN 10.61. The former could be translated as âhorse teachingâ, but I think we can safely rule that out!)
In both cases, Ven Bodhi translates as ânot hearing the Good Dhammaâ and ânot associating with good peopleâ.
At the time I wrote this note:
BB has ânot listening to the true teachingâ. But where this negative form is used in MN 110, it has Asappuriso, bhikkhave, assaddhammasamannÄgato hoti, which must mean âa bad person possesses an untrue teachingâ. There, BB has âan untrue man is possessed of bad qualitiesâ which agrees with the syntax I am proposing. Admittedly, there the context show dhamma must be âqualitiesâ, while the association of dhamma here with savana shows that here it should be teachings. Similarly, below BB has ânot associating with good personsâ for asappurisesevana, but at SN 35.246 we have Asappurisasevito ceso maggo, na ceso maggo sappurisehi sevito. âThis path is frequented by bad people, not by good people.â, which there BB translates as âThis is a path followed by inferior people; it is not the path followed by superior people.â
However I clearly forgot to revise my earlier rendering, which I will do now!
Already fixed.
Fixed
Thanks, fixed.
Indeed, it should be improved. Our devs are working on other things, hopefully they will have time soon!
RĆ«pa began life as the idea of what is âseenâ, i.e. something that shines or is visible. It still keeps the connotation, even after its use has become much broader. In the context of jhana, the term rĆ«pa does not mean simply âbodyâ or even âsightâ, but rather a subtle apparition or vision that manifests to the mind, which these days is usually called nimitta. The rĆ«pajjhÄnas are the states of meditation that are based on such visions of âluminous formâ.
Well, I certainly wasnât attached to the view of having a correct translation! Thanks, fixed.
Thx, fixed, and extra points for the cute visualization!
Thx, fixed.
Indeed, my mistake. The inclusion of âsolid foodâ as one of the four fuels makes it clear that it must be âconsciousness as fuelâ rather than âfuel for consciousnessâ.
Itâs a tricky one. Word for the sky commonly have a âdivineâ connotation. Think of the English idiom, âthe heavensâ or âheavenly bodiesâ for example. It doesnât necessarily have a religious connotation. If we say, instead, âraised her eyes to heavenâ it may or may not have a religious aspect, depending on context.
The problem as I see it is this. If we translate consistently as âgodâ we risk over-determining the âanimistâ implications, and I am not convinced that is justified. On the other hand, by leaving it out we may be imposing a de-animizing modern spirit on the text.
I am not really sure which way to go, so have more-or-less followed BBâs lead. But Iâll put it on a 2-do list for further consideration.
Thx, itâs been fixed.
Excellent, thx, fixed now.
Indeed, well spotted.
Indeed, fixed.
Thatâs not the case now, it must have been a bug.
Itâs got to do with the structure of suttas. In the introduce, it says, âthere are four people âŠâ then in the recapitulation, âthese are the four peopleâ, i.e. the four people referred to in the introduction.
Indeed, thx. (for future reference, itâs helpful to mention the ID number of the sutta, in this case sn 52.1 )
Hmm, wonder why. In any case, I have changed the translation, I hope it is okay now!
Yes, this bug is fixed in Bilara, will be live soon.
This is a front end bug, will be fixed soon.
Thanks, I have adopted your suggestion.
Thx, have accepted all suggestions. And those in your following posts too!
Indeed, fixed now.
may there be many more!
Not sure exactly what youâre pointing to, but presumably the repeated ellipsis? If so, fixed!
Indeed it is! Thanks for noticing. For context on this, see Ven Bodhiâs note to sn22.55 in Connected Discourses. Note that I follow his interpretation, which
essentially requires me to ignore the reading of the text, which has apparently become confused, and translate according to context.
Itâs probably a little archaic. I have re-rendered it more consistently with elsewhere as:
Arenât you speaking only of what you have known and seen and realized for yourselves?
Indeed, I have fixed it. Normally we donât correct third-party errors, but this one is clear I feel itâs justified.
Thanks, fixed! Note that a little further down the Pali varies from paccavekkhati (reviews) to paáčisañcikkhati (reflects). I donât think thereâs any real difference in meaning.
To me it sounds like fine English? But if someone wants to explain why itâs wrong, Iâm all ears.
Indeed it is. Both thag and thig number the sections consecutively, not according to the number of verses. Not every number has a set of verses with a matching number: eg., there is no set of âtenâ verses in thig. Itâs a bit confusing, I know, I was confused by it too! But it is the system used by Thanissaro and Muninda, and appears to have originated in Mrs Rhys-Davidsâ English translation (see pg. 106). The PTS Pali edition, on the other hand, avoids adding numbers, while the BJT edition assigns the nipÄta numbers, i.e. the set of eleven verses is section eleven. That is arguably clearer, but it is not the system weâve adopted, sorry about that!
Thx, fixed!
Thatâs just a stylistic choice, avoid excess repetition.
Hmm yes.
On reflection, I should change âarchery and swordsmanshipâ throughout to âthe sword and the bowâ.
This is a sign used in the source text to indicate a passage not found in the mainline text, but about which there may be a note or variant reading.
Corrected to Gaáč gÄ
Fixed.
It seems okay to me?
Thx, fixed.
Yikes, okay thanks, well-spotted!
Indeed, fixed.
Yes, Iâve changed to âin that place thereâs âŠâ both here and MN 129 for clarity.
Indeed, thanks.
No, not Vangisa! But rest easy, this is fixed in Bilara.
Indeed, thx.
Yep, fixed.
Indeed it does, thanks.
yes, thanks.
Sujato finds this amusing.
Thatâs correct. Word of the year!
Well, I guess at that point they are probably not going to be fixated on grammatical niceties, but I will fix it anyway!
Hello hello! But yes, I have been correcting typos too long and am getting silly!
Indeed, I am probably being overly-consistent here.
Hmm, actually, on reflection best take âThenâ out. Usually atha or atha kho serve as grammatical grease, sliding from one event to the next, and readily represented with âthenâ. But here we have, rather bluntly, sentences that begin tamenaáč, i.e. just âhe/theyâ. Better to keep the bluntness in the translation.
The wardens of hell punish them with the five-fold crucifixion.
Actually, the phrase is translated in a previous segment. the problem is that the Pali has an extended syntactic construction, with a relative phrase separated from the demonstrative by a lengthy stock passage.
yÄvadeva Äkaáč khissasi ⊠( ) ⊠tatra tatreva sakkhibhabbataáč pÄpuáčissasi, sati satiÄyatane
Whenever you want (to do this incredible thing) youâll be capable of realizing it, in each and every case.
English buckles under such constructions (as IMHO the Bodhi translation shows), so I have fudged it by bringing the closing clause forward:
Whenever you want, youâll be capable of realizing the following, in each and every case:
No, itâs correct as-is. The âon earthâ idiom can be used with a variety of question words.
In the early days of SC (from whence this passage has survived with little change!) we discussed this and decided to use lower case for volumes for the sake of disambiguation. Weâre probably not very consistent, though.
Indeed yes, thanks.
No, it should be consisntent: he is supposed to be speaking in the future of a past event, so âIâve been rebornâ is right in both cases.
Made all definitive.
Hmm, itâs not really needed, but I can see that it makes it easier to parse. Iâll add it. Also accepted other suggestions.
Corrected here, an3.88, and an9.12.
Indeed, my mistake.
Interesting, it may well be that this is what is described here. However, there are two distinct words in Pali.
I made the following note:
Saradasamaya is between the vassa and the hema. Since itâs before the cold it can be considered as âautumnâ. But autumn conveys a distinct set of connotations. What is evoked here is the clear skies that follow the rainy season, a familiar and refreshing experience to one living in such climates.
the âextend the mindâ variant is correct, or at least itâs what I want to say. This is a case of a rendering that I changed, the âturningâ variant escaped the change.
Yes, I think it seems fine. Maybe there is some variation in editions.
Note that in the second clause, there appear to be two negations, but in fact they both simply qualify different synonymous clauses" âif there were no exertion and no striving, you did experience âŠâ. Thus just one negation can be used in translation.
sunlight/sunshine? Are their two different words in Pali?
I believe that in the most common usage, âwalking meditationâ is
present participle (walking) used as an adjective to modify a noun (meditation). So the whole thing becomes a noun.
What you are doing is treating walking as a verb and meditation is a noun used as an adverb. I donât think this is common.
Letâs think about breathing meditation. Could you say
several mendicants were breathing meditation
???
Iâd say absolutely not. You would say
several mendicants were doing breathing meditation
several mendicants were practicing breathing meditation
So I think, although it is more wordy, it should be one of these:
several mendicants were practicing walking meditation
several mendicants were walking in meditation
several mendicants were doing walking meditation
I think your economy of language is too confusing since it goes against the most common usage.
As an aside, Iâve spent more than a year trying to construct an argument against ârobing up.â Perhaps now is the time to state my case.
This is interesting to me. I knew about the original meaning of rĆ«pa as what is seen, but Iâm curious to know more about how light comes into play as part of its original meaning. Can you point me toward any early sources for this understanding (or works discussing it)?
Thank you @Snowbird for articulating my thoughts.
Syntactically, having the participle âwalkingâ function with verbal rection over âmeditationâ doesnât seem right to me.
Hey thanks for the clarification, Iâm convinced and will change it.
Itâs not immediately obvious what the best approach is here, though. Ven Bodhi has âwalking back and forthâ, which to my mind doesnât really convey that they were doing a spiritual practice. The Pali is just caáč kamati, so it doesnât really have any physical sense of âback and forthâ.
Clearly they are doing something like what we would call âwalking meditationâ, although it is not so clear that they would be doing a formal meditation method as we would imagine. More likely, I think, early walking meditation was simply being mindful while walking. This might not be 100% the case, but I think itâs a reasonable generalization.
Iâd like the translation to keep the emphasis where the Pali has it, on the verb caáč kamati âto walk, to wanderâ. If we say, âto practice walking meditationâ it shifts the emphasis rather.
Instead, itâd be better to keep the main verb as âwalkingâ, and use an adverb to qualify it as a spiritual practice. âWalking meditativelyâ is clumsy, so I think Iâll say:
At that time several mendicants were walking mindfully in the open air.
Sorry, I donât have sources to hand right now. If I get the chance Iâll publish something.
Indeed, fixed.
This is a really weird one. It occurs in about 10 suttas, all in the same samyutta. It must have been some regex error, but I have no idea how it crept in there.
Thx, fixed.
Seems fine now. Must have been a glitch.
End of line spaces must be handled by software for consistency.
Already fixed, thx.
Already fixed, thx.
What can I say? Iâm imprefetc.
Fixed, thx.
If anything, it should be âthe sabbath of the fifteenth dayâ.
In the Buddhist calendar, the uposatha (loosely âsabbathâ) usually falls on the fifteenth day, but twice per season it falls on the fourteenth day. Iâll consider changing the wording.
And Iâm done!
@mods, can I ask you to close this thread. Meanwhile, Iâll start up a new thread, and new typos can go there.
Everyone, youâve done amazing things! After 631 posts over nearly two years. Itâs incredible that so many errors have been noticed and fixed, and together we have made the Dhamma better for everyone. Thank you so very much!