The translation of Sasana

The Watercooler
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Thank you for sharing!

One small thing I would note…

Since 1972, Sri Lanka has included in its constitution a special chapter obliging the government to “give the foremost place to Buddhism” and to “protect and foster the Buddha Sasana [teaching].”

The term “Buddha Sasana” in Sri Lanka refers to the whole manifestation of Buddhism, not just the teachings.

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‘Sasana’ seems a hard word to translate, I believe traditionally rendered as ‘dispensation’, which sounds strange to my ears.

It would include both the doctrine and the discipline. (Dhamma-vinaya).

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Ven @Snowbird 's point is that in Sri Lanka, the word now has a different meaning than it did in the Pāli Canon. In Sinhala, (and, indeed, Thai) the word now means something closer to “religion.” When encountering a Pāli-derived term in a modern language you can’t assume its meaning is the same as it was thousands of years ago.

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This is an important point, and I wonder if it can be applied to other Pali words as well.

Perhaps it points to the danger of using Pali words (untranslated) spliced into modern languages. The meaning can be ambiguous or misleading.

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I think that in the early Buddhist texts, “message” (or perhaps “advice” or “prescription”) works best in most places. E.g., Dhammapada 183:

Sabbapāpassa akaraṇaṃ kusalassūpasampadā

Sacittapariyodapanaṃ etaṃ buddhānasāsanaṃ

Then “dispensation” seems most appropriate for the way the term is used in the Pali commentaries. For example, the commentators speak of a five-stage disappearance of the sāsanā: First there’s a disappearance of attainment, then of practice, then of the scriptures and their study, then of the monastic sangha, and finally of the Buddha’s relics (adhigama-antaradhāna, paṭipatti-antaradhāna, pariyatti-antaradhāna, liṅga-antaradhāna, dhātu-antaradhāna). “Dispensation” seems to suffice to cover all these items.

Lastly, there’s its use as a loanword in the languages of modern Theravada countries. Here I think “religion” is probably best, since it forms part of the name not only of Buddhism but of most religions.

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In Sinhala, sāsana is used only with the Buddha- prefix: the Buddha’s religion, if you will. Ven. @snowbird is more accurate when he says “the whole manifestation of Buddhism,” as this would include the interpretation of some Sinhala Buddhists who state that it is a philosophy and not a religion.

The contemporary Sinhala word for religion proper is āgama. Samaya has also been used in the past but its use is not common these days. The word Dharmaya is used in all religions when referring to their teachings (e.g., Buddha Dharmaya, Hindu Dharmaya, Kristu Dharmaya).

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Thanks. It seems, then, that my observation is only true of the Thai, Lao and Khmer languages.

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Thanks ! And what word is used for other religions or spiritual traditions, such as Christianity ? (Ah, I think you have already answered that - Dharmaya)

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I believe for the religion it is ක්‍රිස්තියානි ආගම, Kristiyāni āgama. I have also heard Kristāgama, although I don’t see that in the dictionary. @prabhath does that sound correct?

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Yes. I’m afraid I haven’t encountered the Kristāgama variant—perhaps a regional thing.

For Catholicism it is Katōlika āgama.

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Thanks very much, I didn’t know about this loan word.
I suppose it’s something like, ‘that which has come from the Catholics.’

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was the etymology of āgama. I’d translate it more like “Catholic tradition” if you want to retain the etymological echo. Just remember that etymology is not meaning! An “advertisement” is not a literal turning of heads. And it’s not a loan word if it’s coming from the ancient ancestor language.

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I’m not sure what an “etymological echo” is.

The word ‘tradition’ comes from ‘tradere’, to bring over, which seems pretty synonymous with what I suggested above.

I don’t know enough about the Sinhala language, whether it existed previous to Pali, whether it evolved from Pali etc.

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Sinhala is a living language. No living language survives more than a few hundred years. Pāli is a few thousand years old. So, no, modern Sinhala did not “exist previous to Pali.”

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I’m not suggesting this should stand as a translation of the phrase ‘Katōlika āgama’ (Catholic religion) My point is to try and understand how the Pali word takes on a new meaning in the Sinhala context. ‘āgama’ can mean several things including the Chinese versions of Pali suttas, as well as non-Buddhist texts. Here it is not referring to texts at all.

PS it’s also interesting for me to learn that there is a long o vowel in Sinhala, something that doesn’t exist in Pali.

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Thank you ! And would materialism / atheism be also called “āgama” (or Dharmaya)?

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That would be seen as a philosophy/view, and thus called a darśanaya.

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The long and short O’s exist in both languages. It is just that in Pāli, it is always written as ‘o’ and the sound depends on the context.

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When Pāli is written with the Sinhala writing, is a difference made between long and short o- are different characters used?

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In old writings (including Ola leaf manuscripts) it was just like with Romanized Pāli: only the single character of ඔ was used, and the context decided the pronunciation. In some modern publications, we now find ඔ (short) and ඕ (long), while others continue to use the old convention.

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