Nice! I like how this just says clearly what it is, without adding any ideas or further adjectives about it. I prefer the full phrase as ‘path completer’ sounds a bit awkward. Wish it worked to say ‘completed one’ 
These are nice and simple as well. I prefer consummate one becasue accomplished one has some of the same problems as other renderings since in a way accomplished needs qualification. To me, consummate one basically says the same thing @stuindhamma suggested.
“Accomplished one” has been used by some previous translators, and I think it works well. As for “consummate one” it always reminds me of consummation of marriage, which is an unfortunate association. I know of others who have the same problem with this rendering. I now have few possibilities to work with, which is great!
I like the descriptive clarity and simplicity of ‘path completer.’ Additionally, it has the advantage of matching the language used for the other attainments. Stream enterer, once returner, nonreturner, path completer — trippingly on the tongue, eh?
if there is no direct equivalent in English or other European languages I am inclined to the view that we leave it untranslated. We understand its meaning from the socio/philosophical context in which it is placed. It seems from what you have said in qualifying all the usual attempts to convey its meaning in English that few if any of the phrases you’ve quoted reach out to us in the way that arahant does so effectively.
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I like “worthy”. Even as an adjective, as in “he is worthy” instead of “he is a worthy one”. (All this “well-gone one”, “supreme one” etc. is a personal grudge of mine, because nobody says that in day-to-day English)
“enlightened” would work, I suppose.
Hi Trevor. I like the idea of translating every single Pali word into English. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude (I am being the ‘devil’s advocate’), but why should people new to the suttas have to learn words from a second language? I think those who are more experienced with the suttas and Pali should just translate every word. It has not been done before because people say it is too hard but I say boo to that! (Agani, please don’t take my tone the wrong way).
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Hi Stuart
Of course, at one level, at least, we need to arrive at an understanding of suttas through translation of Pali. I could be accused here of stating the obvious. I didn’t mean to imply that we are in no need of that in our first step along the path, but, alongside that understanding that comes with one’s early reading/discussion also comes the realisation that, because of the extraordinary depth and complexity of the concepts that have their roots in Indian thought, so vastly different from Western thinking, that so many of the Pali terms defy translation. It follows from this that we need to focus at other levels as well, where we can.
I am not saying that the translation exercise, so refreshingly undertaken in forums like this, is invalid. It must be continued by those with the skills to undertake it and with the patience to hear the thoughts of people like me, for which I am grateful. But by its very nature, what we are witness to in these exchanges is a fluid process. It has been that way since the process began and will continue. What is considered a close approximation of a Pali word or phrase in English today may seem poor and inadequate decades from now, and one of the reasons is that English is a fluid and dynamic language, like all spoken languages.
For example, reading some of the introductions to translations of Pali suttas by Caroline Rhys Davids leaves the reader with the startling realisation that the suttas were necessarily viewed through the prism of her time, with all the cultural baggage of empire that she and her husband inevitably carried due to their Victorian upbringing.
And we must know that we also view the suttas through the prism of our own time. It cannot be otherwise.
So, from that understanding alone, the process of translation and re-translation must continue with, hopefully, some recognition that, just occasionally, I can delight in Dhamma, be in thrall of dhammas, be hopeful of attaining the jhanas, and perhaps, in aeons, reach nibbana.
with metta
Trevor
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I remember reading, many years ago, a remark by Ken Wilber. He pointed out that Freud never used the words “ego” or “id”. He just used the ordinary German phrases for “the I” and “the it”. But when translated to English, for reasons which we can only guess at, the Latin was used.
The result was a certain elevation and reification of these concepts. When I first heard about Freud’s ideas as a schoolkid, I couldn’t figure out what these things were, they seemed to point to some esoteric reality that I had never suspected. I doubt if this would happen if the ordinary words were used.
It seems to me that the first job of a translator is to respect the author of the original text. Whatever we do, it must come from a base of sympathy and understanding, a resonance with the motivations and aims of the author. One nice thing about Buddhist texts is that these motivations are very clear. The Buddha was interested in Awakening. All his teachings have the single purpose of helping people understand suffering and letting go of it.
While this is clear enough, it is not so clear how this relates to the texts exactly as we have them. They were obviously edited by people other than the Buddha, and not all the texts can be said to have such clear motivations. Still, as a general guiding principle I think it’s a good start.
If we are to translate with the aim of helping people realize Awakening, how are we to go about this? Here, the most salient fact is that we’re not the expert. Or perhaps I should (following the Buddha’s advice!) keep my statements to myself: I’m not the expert. The Buddha was the expert. So our means of staying true to this purpose should learn from the Buddha’s own statements and practices. In other words, our best guide to how to translate is the Buddha himself.
Here we have a number of direct statements. The Buddha encouraged people to use their own language, and in addition, advised against getting caught up in linguistic details, but be content to adopt whatever local practices were suitable. In fact, there are quite a number of passages where he invokes the accepted or common usage in the world. He was clearly opposed to restricting Dhamma to any particular social group, based on wealth, gender, race, caste, and the like. On a more general level, language is treated as a convention, that is, as an agreement, tacit or otherwise, between members of a linguistic community.
Notice that this inclusiveness is not merely how the Buddha himself used language, but is quite explicitly how he encouraged his students to use it. We often feel inadequate in the face of the Dhamma, that we falter before the task of conveying something of such subtlety. But here’s the thing: so did the Buddha (or at least, that’s what the story says). Translation ultimately must be an act of faith. We can’t ever know that we have got the author’s intention right, so there’s nothing to do but to do our best.
Given this, how would the Buddha speak if he was speaking today? In his own speech, he never used exotic terms, so we can be pretty sure that he wouldn’t be simply airlifting words in from other languages. Specialized or obscure words are used sparingly (archaic terms in verse, some abstract philosophical contexts, etc.). The vast bulk of sentences in the suttas use fairly plain language.
Of course, a translation is not the Buddha speaking today. But I think, based on the above, that if we were to ask the Buddha what kind of translation he’d prefer to see, he’d want something that preserved these essential features of his own speech. And I think he would encourage the translator to have the courage to properly translate the meaning, rather than fall back on linguistic mimicry, or, worse, erode meaning for fear that people won’t like it. (I am thinking of how translators handle, say, nibbāna, or the role of rebirth in the four noble truths.) The Dhamma should terrify the gods.
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the Buddha and his most eminent disciples had the benefit of really knowing what they were talking about therefore their language was totally unhindered and uninhibited, it’s this knowledge which allowed them to choose and use the right words
we on the other hand normally have a fairly vague notion about those things, and the key word here is ABOUT, because our knowledge is mostly ABOUT rather than OF
that’s the reason for insecurity in choosing adequate terms in other languages and a tendency of leaving, maybe justifiably, the words untranslated
after all the process of cross-pollination between languages at cultural meeting points is a normal and usual thing, so if we borrow foreign terms from IT sphere to make up for gaps in our native language i think with the same legitimacy we can borrow terms from other spheres and make them our own
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Ok, but they still had to work within a number of constraints, most importantly the nature of the audience. Although the Buddha and his closest disciples knew the Dhamma directly, this was not the case for the vast majority of monastics and lay people. And the teachings were obviously mostly meant for these people rather than for the arahants, or even the other ariyas. Moreover, the audience would have been very varied, from the most educated brahmin and khattiya, to the most simple low-caste person. Levels of intelligence, levels of education, levels of sophistication, etc., would have varied enormously, just as they do in our present society. In other words, the audience dictates what sort of language is most effective in conveying the message. And for everyone to get the message, it would generally have to be delivered in ordinary, everyday language. In fact one’s ability to deliver a profound message in a way that is easily understood by others is precisely a sign of their depth of understanding.
Fine, but remember that the Buddhist world still includes people with very profound insight into these teachings. In fact one of the great advantages of being a monastic is that you generally tend to have better access to such people, and with that access comes a greater ability to interpret the teachings correctly. Further, the longer you live as a Buddhist, especially as a monastic, the more well-rounded and complete your understanding of the teachings tends to become. This is no different from long experience in any sphere of life. With a bit of integrity, self-awareness, and humility, it is then generally possible to come up with a translation that is close enough to the original to at least convey the gist of it.
Indeed. But it takes time for foreign words to become well-known and fully accepted in the adoptive language. The question then is whether it is the job of translators to push for the uptake of new words from a foreign language. To me it seems this depends on the nature of the translation. Some translations are technical in nature and are intended for a specialist audience. Other translations are intended for all-comers and such should be very transparent. Ven. Bodhi’s translations fall somewhere in between these two extremes, and it is therefore reasonable that he retains some Pali words. But a translation that is meant for all and sundry should not, in my opinion, be a laboratory for the expansion of English with foreign words from Buddhist texts.
With time all this will change. More Pali and Sanskrit words will make their way into English and other languages, and then of course it will only be reasonable to include these in a translation. This is just one among a large number of directions in which languages continuously evolve, and it is for this reason that any translation tends to become outdated within a few decades. Impermanence really is troublesome!
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I think I like both “perfected one” and “consummate one” because they both carry the sense of a process of development that has been completed. A term like “supreme one” doesn’t really imply that, since at least in many cultural contexts supreme ones are just the highest ones, and may even have been born that way.
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I’m reminded of the strange Pali/Thai hybrids you see in Thailand. I don’t know too much about it, but you get it in certain chanting. Not the “official” chants, which cleanly separate Pali and Thai, but more colloquial things you hear around the place. Here’s an example, based on my memory from 20 year ago.
udon rasmiṁ, phra phutthakhunaṁ
udon rasmiṁ, phra thammānaṁ
udon rasmiṁ, phra saṅghānaṁ
thukkharokhaphaya(a or ā) vivañcaye
sappathukkh, sapphasokh, sappharokh, sappaphay sapphakro saniet jan ry vivañcaye
So the first few lines are pretty much Pali in Thai spelling, something like “the radiance of the Buddha’s qualities (buddhaguṇa) in the north (uttara=udon)” and so on. It doesn’t seem to be grammatical, but hard to say if that’s the intent. The only Thai word is “phra”. Next you have a series of words, mostly repeated in the last line, which are Pali words that are used in everyday Thai:
thukkh=dukkha, rokh=roga, phay=bhaya, sokh=soka.
Then the verb says to get rid of these things (vivancaye, not sure of the spelling, I think it is from vivajjeti). This uses, metri causa, the poetic variation of the optative in -e, so this must be written by or descended from a source familiar with Pali verse. And while the words above are used in Thai, they are prefixed by sabba, which isn’t. Then the line ends with the purely Thai phrase, which I am not familar with so my spelling is probably wrong, kro saniet jan ry, which I think means something like “bad dreams and ill omens”.
So there’s a very free mixture of Thai and Pali elements, handled with a high degree of literary skill, and combining to a metrically memorable chant, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember it!
This is a popular example, but if I am not wrong, this tendency was very common in the monasteries, and characterizes the so-called nissaya literature. These were more or less handbooks written in monasteries and copied and passed down by the students, forming the backbone of Thai monastic education before the “modern” reforms. Perhaps someone knows more about this than I do, but my understanding was that in such texts, at least part of what they did was provide a crib for Pali texts, so that you’d have more or less a comprehensible Thai text, but with Pali terminology, perhaps something like the verse above.
This is probably not a very accurate description, but the point I’m trying to make is that in Buddhist cultures there are different ways of melding the languages. Even though we might speak of certain words that are adopted in Thai, changes in meaning of Pali words, and so on, the reality is that the language environment was always complex and changing. In a specialized context like monastic education, it is clearly appropriate to introduce more Pali terms.
In the popular sphere, this still happens, but the effect is different. It’s not about learning Pali words to get a closer understanding of the Dhamma. Most Thais wouldn’t understand the words, and the chant is more along the lines of a magical mantra or invocation, like George Harrison singing “hari krishna, hari rama”. Such things are extremely common and very popular, and there are reams of Thai chants that are, in fact, just streams of nonsense syllables.
One assumption that we have to relax when considering how language is used in traditional Buddhism is that it is a means of communicating meaning. Very often, language is used as a means of obscuring meaning, of disclosing the presence of an elevated discourse accessible only to an elite, and inherently incomprehensible to the uninitiated. (I wrote something related to this in The Mystique of the Abhidhamma) Obviously not all discourse is like this, but a lot is. Like, a lot. It’s not just a few chants, it’s the whole production of pre-processed Dhamma talks, which are full of late Pali commentarial terms, and are distributed to monasteries all over Thailand, where they are read out in formal terms. The purpose is not education, it’s mystification. (Of course the same thing happens in western discourse all the time, and for similar reasons, although these days it is more related to secular notions of academic prestige and the like, rather than overt magical beliefs.)
Anyway, my take home message is simply this: just because something works in a traditional Buddhist culture doesn’t mean it will work for us. And, to reinforce what you said earlier, different translations serve different purposes.
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Hi Trevor
I agree with everything you are saying. I think the best outcome in the end (and I’m talking say 50 years in the future) would be to have a vast array of translations available to us which could perhaps be layered or tiered.
For example,
Tier 1: Translations that maintain the use of all those tricky Pali words such as arahant, nibbana, etc. for which we are hard pressed to find adequate words to describe. These sets of translations would suit people with a good knowledge of Pali or who wish to learn.
Tier 2: Translations that maintain the use of some tricky Pali words whist translating the less tricky ones.
Tier 3: Translations that use only English (or French or Hindi, or whatever other language translators choose). These would be good for people with no Pali at all but who still wish to read the suttas. Of course theses translations may not be a good as tier 1 or tier 2 translations for the very reasons you point out, however, I think it would be great to have these available anyway.
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How we translate such Pali terms significantly depends on the context of our work and target audience. For popular writings, it would be good to use “descriptive” translations (like “the awakened one” for buddha, etc). It is vital for us to know the Pali sense and spirit when we attempt such translations.
For scriptural translations, we should, of course, use terms that reflect as fully as possible their meaning and usage in the Pali Canon. A special problem in Pali terminology is the polysemy of words like arahato and tathaagata. In such cases, it is wise to stick to the Pali terms (stem forms), or to use their anglicised forme such as “arhat” and “tathagata” which are found in OED and other larger English dictionaries. Word do not define themselves, we do: this is the “Humpty Dumpty rule” (Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland). As far as Buddhism goes (because we have no “catholic” authority over terminology), it is helpful to first find out how the translator or teacher uses his terms. I think this is also in the spirit of non-self (anattata).
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great to see Mr. @Piya Tan in this forum 
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