The former was about how a Pali word was translated into a common English word of the 1950’s but has evolved into an offensive slur in today’s vernacular. The latter discussion mentioned Pali Text Society translations which are seldom used any longer due to archaic language overall and other reasons.
This topic is to discuss to what degree the Pali Text Society translations should be used or relied upon now. As a basic starting point, Bhante Sujato wrote:
Why do you ask? Why bother bringing it up? What is there even to say on the topic?
The only PTS “translation” I see people still relying on is the PTS Pāli-English Dictionary.
For some reason, despite the existence of several newer and much-improved dictionaries (including Cone’s, which the PTS themselves recommends!), some people still treat the PED as some God-given, ultimate authority over the meaning of Pāli terms.
But for the translations proper: is anyone actually still using them?
I mean, it’s still a fabulous dictionary (I don’t know about “ultimate authority” though!) and Cone’s is still not completed.
With so much free translations nowadays, I would expect not. Some old timers who keep a copy, academics, probably. We do have a member around here who has a habit of posting PTS translations.
The PTS translations have a few good things about them for me. First, they generally actually repeat the repetitions, which I really dislike when translators skip that. They’re philologically serious, which can sometimes result in weird, stilted English sentences. Though they can also get interestingly literary in English as well.
But whatever one might say, they’re enchanting texts. And truth be told, in most translations today, I often feel like I’m reading a scholarly rendering, meant to parse the text and deliver the content, rather than one that focuses on the enchantment of the text.
Reading, reciting, listening to suttas is as psychoactive an element of the practice as is meditation. And despite / through their idiosyncrasies, PTS translations give me goosebumps-immersion, so they got that going for them.
We could do what they do in that sense better nowadays, with better philological and Dharmic sensibilities, but baby steps.
As for reliability, I don’t know. I don’t think they’re that bad, but truthfully outdated in a way. I like “Activities” for Sankhara, for example (though they do use different translations at times).
Nikāyas, I might prefer a PTS text over Bhante Sujato for actual reading / listening. I’ll usually work with Bhante Sujato’s aligned texts when I’m working though.
I wouldn’t really recommend PTS translations to a beginner — that’s where Bhante’s, and Ajahn Thanissaro’s shine, IMO. But if you’re already familiar with the texts, I find it’s a good literature.
I also think the PTS Dictionary is very good, and use the U Chicago hosted electronic copy regularly.
Often, consulting multiple translations can be very helpful. None need to be thrown away.
I’m a big fan of the PTS Milindapañha translation by Rhys-Davids which dates back to the 1890s (!)
But I am also interested in the new translation by Maria Heim for the Murty Library.
I prefer the PTS translation of the Digha Nikaya by Rhys Davids (1899) to the one published by Wisdom.
I see the question in slightlty different framing:
How should EBT translations evolve with contemporary language?
Posed this way, we account for the phenomenon of “semantic derogation” which is unfortunately always in play. That is, enough people willfully use neutral language to ridicule others they don’t like to the extent the neutral language becomes pejorative and mean-spirited.
Wrong Speech by a few dominant voices that eventually seeps into contemporary discourse. Short read:
I wonder whether digital media have accelerated the velocity at which semantic derogation happens now. If so, IMO there’s a legitimate discussion to be had regarding the degree to which EBT translations remain “living” as a matter of course.
This would call for different copyright models (Creative Commons!) as well as structures that invite citizen feedback on current translation choices (SuttaCentral!).
Which is not profitable. So it requires community to financially support those providing the translation infrastructure and activities.
My post only addresses this. I feel the second scenario you note falls under some different models.
I see two issues here. If one zooms out the issues might be expressed as, how should translations of texts evolve (witness the giant discussion about translating the Odyssey right now! Emily Wilson is much in the news), and should older translations be altered to better conform with modern sensibilities.
For the record, there are a number of PTS translations that are excellent and crucial. All of Ñāṇamoli’s works, including the Patisambhidamagga and Nettippakarana, are excellent. Norman’s work is essential for linguistic reference. Peter Masefield’s translation of the Udana + commentary is good. And I’m sure there are many others.
And this is it, at the end of the day, we encounter a text that inspires us or elevates us or moves us in some way. And there’s no objective sense in which this is right or wrong, it just is. This is a big factor in the continued popularity of the King James Bible, of course. In German, the archaic Sutta translations by Neumann are much-beloved, though not very accurate.
For the record, I have zero ill regard or an axe to grind against the PTS nikaya translations. It’s just that I don’t think they’re suitable for me personally, an English speaker in the year 2026. In discussions on the forum about the dhamma, I find the PTS translations to be sometimes odd and different from how I think about the suttas.
If I’m reading or hearing something in a language I don’t speak, read or understand, say, Portuguese, I get nothing from it. If I’m reading Chaucer from about 1400, the archaic language makes it too difficult for me to follow. For instance:
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
When it comes to the EBTs (or more to the point, the Dhamma) what I’m most concerned with is correct understanding in order to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha. I can’t afford to merely enjoy the flowery words, ambiguous imagery or possible unsuitable language that doesn’t convey an accurate message. I’m also not approaching the EBTs only for scholarly purposes.
For me personally, when I read the PTS translations, some of the language and terminology comes across as strange and incongruent compared with modern translations and teachers I trust. In the case of the PTS, I attribute this mostly to the language from the period from which it came and its contrast to the subsequent evolution of the English language itself. It seems also that perhaps due to the Davids’ limited access to the volume and breadth of material and translations that we have now, much by translators with firsthand experience immersed in and practicing the Dhamma, they didn’t always adequately express the suttas even in their own vernacular.
Perhaps if some day, some life I attain Right View I’ll be able to enjoy less than perfect translations!
I think in some cases, the commentaries of the Theravadin tradition have influenced the modern translators, and I’m not sure why they place such stock in the commentaries, since especially with regard to “one-pointedness” the commentaries seem to be at odds with the suttas. OK, IMHO.
I appreciate Bhante Sujato’s conclusion: “It’s good to read what we like! Be inspired!”
For me, I would qualify that a bit: it’s good to use translations that reveal the consistencies in Gautama’s teaching, and that allow us to relate those consistencies to our own experience (without trying too hard to fill in the gaps).
And as I mentioned, there’s a subjective dimension to all this. But there’s also an objective dimension. These translations are full of errors. This is not news, and no modern Pali scholar would disagree. We don’t do our work just because we want to update the language of old translations, we do it because we know that they have many mistakes. The field learns and grows and gets better.
I hate to break it to you, but all Pali studies are massively dependent on the commentaries. Pali dictionaries are built largely as compendiums of commentarial glosses. There’s no escaping this, nor should there be. What we can do is work towards broadening understanding of the linguistic culture, and sometimes this lets us improve our renderings. This is why I spend so much time looking at contemporary texts.
I have to say, that most of what I see in the more modern translations is about making the text more readable. In my opinion, that’s not a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t attempt to gloss over the oddities in the original.
I was thinking in particular of Bhikkyu Kumāra’s analysis:
To sum up, the “samādhi” of the Suttas (EBT’s) is about concentrating the mind itself, while the “samādhi” of the Visuddhimagga is about concentrating on an object.
I’ll give an example where I greatly appreciate the Pali Text Society translation:
Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present… (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that “I am the doer, mine is the doer” in regard to this consciousness-informed body.
(MN 109; tr. PTS vol III p 68; reprint 1977; parentheticals paraphrase original)
Your translation is very different in that last sentence:
One truly sees any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ One truly sees any kind of feeling … perception … choices … consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all consciousness—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ That’s how to know and see so that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs.
My inspiration in sitting once said:
“You know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around.”
(Kobun Chino Otogawa, in a lecture at SF Zen Center in the 1980’s)
Not possible to have latent conceits that “I am the doer, mine is the doer”, when that happens.
You can say better than me which translation is more accurate, but to me the PTS translation is striking, and although it says something that many people might regard as nonsense, it has resonance for me.
Hard to translate, when it doesn’t make sense–the tendency is to make it make sense, perhaps according to the tradition.
Well thanks I think. That being so, you won’t mind if I explain a little about why Horner’s translation is not the best.
Rūpa need not have “shape” (eg. sounds) nor is it necessarily “material” (eg. perception of lights in the mind). But it’s a tricky one to translate!
“mean” is actually ok, tho it leans on an archaic sense.
This is a common but misleading translation of yathābhūta. Precisely, it is “as it has come to be”. In other words, it means seeing in terms of conditionality. “As it is” in the context of Indian ontology is suggestive of eternalism. Of course, as is well known, most of the mid-century PTS translators were in fact eternalists, who argued that the original Buddhism was the doctrine of the higher Self.
This is a later meaning for saṅkhāra, which does not occur in the Suttas. It means “choices, volitions, acts of will”.
This is a mistake, the Pali means “I-making, mine-making”, i.e. the process of creating the sense of I and mine. A lot of times these renderings are driven by the need to deny the doctrine of not-self. She wants to depict it so that the I is not the doer, because in fact the I is that which is for eternity. But that’s not what it says.
Pali doesn’t have “this”, which is a limiting pronoun. Again, this is probably driven by the need to allow the possibility that, apart from “this” consciousness, there is another kind of consciousness—eternal, unborn, and divine—which is not included here.
It’s a compound, so the relation between the items is not specified in the Pali. That means that either rendering is technically allowable. However, the commentary treats it as a dvanda with three terms, “I-making”, “mine-making”, and “the tendency to conceit”. Linguistically, this seems plausible, as elsewhere we find “I-making” and “mine-making” commonly as separate items. Nonetheless, doctrinally speaking, it makes sense that the underlying tendency for conceit is what drives the more overt and active creation of a sense of self, i.e. “I-making” and “mine-making”. There’s no decisive passage in Pali (or in Sanskrit from I can find) that decides this, so it’s a question of interpretation.
I appreciate your attention to detail. I could not do the work that you’re doing, and I too greatly appreciate the opportunity to compare translations, and to understand the underlying consensus (or lack thereof).
Interesting to me that Horner translates “perfect wisdom” in the passage in MN 109:
Whatever… is material shape, past, future or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, mean or excellent, or whatever is far or near, (a person), thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling… perception… the habitual tendencies… whatever is consciousness, past, future, or present… (that person), thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self’, sees it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. (For one) knowing thus, seeing thus, there are no latent conceits that “I am the doer, mine is the doer” in regard to this consciousness-informed body.
(MN 109; tr. PTS vol III p 68; reprint 1977; parentheticals paraphrase original)
And you, Bhante Sujato, translate “right understanding”:
“Sir, how does one know and see so that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs?”
One truly sees any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all form—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ One truly sees any kind of feeling … perception … choices … consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near: all consciousness—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’ That’s how to know and see so that there’s no I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit for this conscious body and externally for all signs.
“Perfect wisdom” would seem to imply “the attainment of the heart’s release, the release by insight”, while “right understanding” seems somewhat more accessible.
Ok, I see your note, Bhante, on MN 109:
From meditative contemplation, the question now turns to realization. The Buddha’s response makes it clear he is now speaking of the penetrative understanding of the aggregates that arises at stream-entry at least. The “underlying tendency to conceit”, however, is only fully overcome by the arahant. | “I-making” (ahaṅkāra) emphasizes the active role of the mind in creating a sense of self through its thoughts, habits, and desires. This is in contrast with the English notion of “ego”, which presents self as a given construct. | “Mine-making” (mamaṅkāra) is the propensity of the mind to appropriate things as possessions. | “All signs” (sabbanimitta) are the “features” (also nimitta) that characterize sensory stimulation (eg. MN 112:15.1).
Enjoyed reading this discussion of this difficult line. It also occurs in SN, and I recall struggling to parse the Chinese version in SA. I won’t bore anyone with the parallel, it is not much different than the Pali.
Probably the strangest expression in it is “conscious body,” which in Chinese could be mistaken for body of consciousness (ala the six bodies of consciousness). It seems to a unique way of summing up the mortal existence in EBTs.
[edit: I realized what habitual tendencies was translating in the PTS translation … I’m still curious, though, about anusaya.]
saviññāṇake kāye bahiddhā ca sabbanimittesu ahaṅkāra mamaṅkāra mānānusayā na hontī”ti?
Is there a better way to translate anusaya? I’ve often wondered about rendering it as “underlying tendency.”
The Pali is directly related to the verb sayati, to lie down or sleep. The word always has a negative connotation. (Sadly there aren’t underlying tendencies towards wisdom!) I believe there are specific lists of them somewhere.
I feel like it is an approximation of the meaning, that there might be a better rendering; but sometimes these things are mirages in a translator’s mind. We would like to find a better rendering, like we would like to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It’s good to always be on the lookout even though there may be nothing to find.
In this case, my intuition is that Buddhists were attempting to explain what we today call the subconscious, but they didn’t have a word for it. That is, that there are parts of the mind that function below the level of awareness that cause behaviors beyond our conscious control, like habits that trigger and execute, and then we consciously realize, “Oh, I just did that again!” Late Buddhist philosophy replicated this idea with theories like the Yogacara concept of an alaya consciousness full of seeds ready to sprout when the conditions are right.
Interesting that the verb it’s derived from means to go to sleep. Chinese translations often render the term that way: 隨眠 lit. means “going along with sleep.” An earlier translation was 使, which normally means “to carry out, do” as a verb and “messenger, servant” as a noun - as a translation of anusaya, it seems to mean something like an “instigator.”
Had a conversation with Erika O’Donnell on another thread, which I hope is relevant to the “conscious body”, or “consciousness-informed body” aspect of things (as in MN 109):
Horner’s translation of MN 109 leaves “underlying tendency" out entirely, and speaks only of “latent conceits” with regard to action of the “consciousness-informed” body. And yet, if we agree that “the ‘underlying tendency to conceit’… is only fully overcome by the arahant”, as you wrote, Bhante, then Horner has set up her translation of that passage in MN 109 by stipulating that the five aggregates are seen as they really are “by means of perfect wisdom”, and presumably only an arahant has that.
