| Bapat | Taisho 198 |
|---|---|
| "Neither conscious, nor with consciousness of the formless | 不想想不色想、 |
| Neither unconscious, nor with consciousness inactive; | 非無想不行想， |
| Cutting off all consciousness, detached doth one get. | 一切斷不著者 ， |
| For, in consciousness lies the root of all that is travail.” | 因想本戲隨苦。 |
Bapat is translating P. saññā (想) as “conscious(ness)” throughout, drops some words, and the last line is just kind of butchered to me.
I would translate it as something like this:
Not perceiving perceptions, not perceiving forms,
Not without perception, nor forming perceptions:
All being stopped, one is detached.
Because of the root of perception, one leans towards (or “speculation leads to”)* pain.
* Early Chinese translations of P. papañca used a word 戲 that could mean “to play” (which sometimes was paired with 論 to mean something like “idle speculation”) or “to lean towards”. Needless to say, neither is like the modern dictionary reads for P. or S. equivalents, suggesting it was used with an idiomatic meaning in ancient times.
When I compare the Chinese and Pali, they are remarkably similar, but there are key words that are clearly different in each line, and the third line is somewhat different.
| Snp 4.11v13 | T198.10v13 | Note |
|---|---|---|
| “Na saññasaññī na visaññasaññī, | 不想想不色想、 | Ch. has P. rūpa (色) instead of visañña |
| Nopi asaññī na vibhūtasaññī; | 非無想不行想， | Ch. has 行 instead of vibhūta, perhaps something like P. saṅkhata |
| Evaṁ sametassa vibhoti rūpaṁ, | 一切斷不著者， | It seems a stretch but perhaps P. sametassa means “altogether/combined” |
| Saññānidānā hi papañcasaṅkhā”. | 因想本戲隨苦。 | Not sure what Indic 隨苦 would be - something like P. yāva dukkha? |