SuttaCentral
Perfect. I will start translating things from the English version and when we find the French, I will try to confirm what I did, my French is quite rusty, but I guess I can learn again!
I have actually finished the first chapter, I will review a few things with a friend who works in translations before I send it to you.
Hi, thanks again for your effort.
I was reading through Chapter I and I found a few things, I will post them here:
Chapter I
25 -> moun (there is a space here) tains
27 -> renounced (double space here) the bonds of family
34, -> there is a comma, not a period
41 -> old age and death crush him, (that last comma)
I hope it helps 
thanks, Felipe, 
the link in the previous post has been updated
@LXNDR my corrections for Chapter II
Best regards.
Felipe
corrected a few other glitches and misspellings and re-updated the link
my apology for not being able to catch them the first time around
thank you, the discussion suggested the ultimate solution
aha! sounds a bit like ditching notepad might be far easier
Notepad is never a good idea. I donāt use Sublime text, but back in the day when I used Windows I had notepad++ which is free (GPL) and incredibly good for just a āsimpleā and light text editor. It has a portable version, no install required!
No apologies required. I will update my version and confirm some other things I found in the following chapters, two eyes are always better than one 
and four is better still
Chapter XIV
9 āHe affronted me, he insulted me, he overcame me, he offended meā; their animosity is not appeased of those who cling (to that thought).
10 āHe affronted me, he insulted me, he overcame me, he offended meā; of those in this world who cling (to that thought), their animosity is not appeased.
the meaning of these two verses is identical, whereas it is opposite with their counterparts in the Pali Dhammapada (Dhp1), so something has been lost in transmission or in translation, i think it warrants a cross-check against the first order texts: the Sanskrit and the French
yes, this is a translation mistake
ÄkroÅan mÄm avocan mÄm
ayojan mÄm ajÄpayet /
atra ye hy upanahyanti
vairaį¹ teį¹£Äį¹ na ÅÄmyati // 9
ÄkroÅan mÄm avocan mÄm
ajayan mÄm ajÄpayet /
atra ye nopanahyanti
vairaį¹ teį¹£Äį¹ praÅÄmyati // 10
na ÅÄmyati - not become quiet, not come to an end, not tranquilize
praÅÄmyati - become calm, be allayed
Interesting.
It would be interesting also to cross check with the Sanskrit version of the Dhammapada too.
I have not found the French version, but I asked in the Amaravati library, who knows.
the largely complete Sanskrit text seems to have survived, maybe in another instance than the one used for French translation
Thanks for solving this!
The site youāre linking to has the various versions verse-by-verse, so thatās nice. The English translation there is an old one done from the Tibetan. Mostly it will similar to the Sanskrit, so can be used for checking, but obviously the Sanskrit text is the final authority.
Keep the questions coming, weāll try to sort them out.
another peculiar verse occurs in Chapter VI
Sara Boin Webb
14 Rain penetrates what is covered, not what is uncovered; it is therefore necessary to uncover what is covered so that the rain cannot penetrate.
its apparent paradoxy, of a koan type, is explained with a footnote (which i removed, since itās not a part of the original text, but can restore if needed)
[Ed.] The commentarial story alludes to a miraculous occasion on which rain did NOT penetrate the only house without roof in a village. Here rain represents the mist of ignorance which cannot penetrate a mind the cover (roof) on which no longer obscures the Four Noble Truths.
i donāt remember paradoxical passages in the Dhammapada and therefore think theyāre unlikely to appear in this text as well
in the translation from Tibetan version the verse sounds more straightforward
14 The rain falls from a sky covered by clouds, it falls not from a clear sky; remove then that which obscures (the mind) and the rain will not fall.
the Sanskrit is
channam evÄbhivarį¹£ati
vivį¹taį¹ nÄbhivarį¹£ati
tasmÄdd hi channaį¹ vivared
evaį¹ taį¹ nÄbhivarį¹£ati
That verse appears in Ud5.5.
https://suttacentral.net/pi/ud5.5/28
āChannaĀmativasĀsati,
vivaį¹aį¹ nÄtivassati;
TasmÄ channaį¹ vivaretha,
evaį¹ taį¹ nÄtivassatÄ«āti.
Translation:
āOn what is covered defilement pours down, on what is open it does not pour down,
Therefore what is covered open up, so that it does not pour down on you.ā
https://suttacentral.net/en/ud5.5/40
Rain soddens whatās covered
& doesnāt sodden whatās open.
So open up whatās covered up,
so that it wonāt get soddened by the rain.
Or: Uposatha Sutta: The Observance Day
Rain soddens what is covered up,
It does not sodden what is open.
Therefore uncover what is covered
That the rain will not sodden it.
Whereas in the Dhammapada:
https://suttacentral.net/en/dhp/14-
Just as rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion penetrates an undeveloped mind.
Just as rain does not break through a well-thatched house, so passion never penetrates a well-developed mind.
This verse, in the pali version quoted below, is a famous one, and it occurs in the Vinaya. The context is the confession or concealment of offences. Despite its frequent quoting, I have never really understood it.
Reading the Tibetan version is the first time it makes sense! But Iām not sure it can be taken in that way. Iāll have to look more closely at it.
@Brahmali, we discussed this verse earlier. Do you have any opinion on the Tibetan version? It makes much more sense, but I canāt justify it grammatically: the rain should fall on the accusative, not from it!
I think the Tibetan versions may be grammatically possible. The accusative can be used to express the āplace whereā or the ātime whenā the action of the verb takes place (See āSyntax of the Cases in the Pali NikÄyasā, paragraphs 45+46). The first two lines could then be rendered:
It rains when/where there is cover,
Not when/where there is no cover.
The question is whether the word channa , which usually implies cover from the rain, can be stretched to mean the cloud-cover itself. I havenāt been able to find any convincing evidence one way or the other.
Much is lost regardless of how you translate this. Channa means covered, but it also means concealed, and presumably it is this double meaning that gives the verse its sense. Inadequate as it is, perhaps this will work:
It rains when there is (cloud) cover,
Not when there is no (cloud) cover.
So remove the cover,
and it will rain no more.
But this is incredibly obscure. I mean, no-one has ever heard of a phrase like ekaį¹ samayaį¹ bhagavÄ sÄvatthiyaį¹ viharati. O, wait ā¦ </sarcasm>
Thanks for pointing out what I should have recognized immediately!
Perhaps the nuance is to be found in a Sanskrit usage, where it can mean the āobscuredā moon. In its current, and perhaps original, context, the verse is set on an uposatha, and earlier in the text we have several references to the sky:
abhikkantÄ, bhante, ratti; nikkhanto pacchimo yÄmo; uddhasto aruį¹o; nandimukhÄ« ratti
So itās not us covered by the clouds, itās the sky. And we could translate:
It rains when the sky is hidden,
not when itās revealed.
So reveal whatās hidden,
and it will rain no more.
I doubt if itās germane to the translation, but it is interesting to note that, if we are correct, vivarati here has exactly the opposite of its ancestral Vedic meaning. One of the primal Vedic myths is of Vritra, the ādragonā (= ahi) who imprisons the waters, bringing drought to the land. Indra slays the dragon (vivarati) releasing the waters. The meaning of vritra as āconstrictorā is still felt in the Pali nÄ«varaį¹a.
While this is no more than a side note, it does point to another curious feature of the verse which is usually overlooked. Normally, especially in agrarian cultures, rain is a good thing. But here it seems to be considered a bad thing. However, it is not so straightforward. When Vritra holds back the waters you have a drought. But if he releases them all at once you get floods.
And in one place where ativassati is used with a clear contextual meaning, thatās exactly what it means. In Mil 6.3.1 we have ativassena dhaƱƱaį¹ vinassati.
Obviously ātoo muchā is the most common meaning of ati. Equally, it might mean āon or overā as is usually interpreted here.
CPD hedges its bets, giving āexcessive rainā for ativassa, but āto rain violently, to rain into or throughā for ativassati, attested only in this verse (Cone has more references). It does seem a little unnecessary to posit two senses of a word for one context, when ārain too muchā works perfectly well.
Comm. is ambiguous. It says that the positive use of ativassati does indeed mean too much (ativiya vassati), but in the negative form nÄtivassati the ati is a mere prefix.
The sense of ārain intoā seems to be derived from the Ghatikara Sutta:
Atha kho, mahÄrÄja, Ävesanaį¹ sabbantaį¹ temÄsaį¹ ÄkÄsacchadanaį¹ aį¹į¹hÄsi, na devotivassi
But this has variant readings. Perhaps we should read abhivassati with Mil here. (See Cone under ativassati and abhivassati).
In any case, the meaning of ārain on or intoā is relevant only when the channa is the covered thing that the rains falls on. If it is, instead, the covered sky, then ārain too muchā would seem to be better:
It rains too much when the sky is hidden,
not when itās revealed.
So reveal whatās hidden,
and it wonāt rain too much.
Oh, and I just noticed, that passage from the Ghatikara Sutta is relevant here, too. It says ÄkÄsacchadana, which BB renders āopen to the skyā, but literally it is āsky-coveredā, i.e āthe sky was its only roofā. (cp. English āsky-cladā=naked). This would seem to agree with our interpretation of channa.
Check this one
Vom rechten Leben - Buddhistische Lehren aus Indien und Tibet
Aus dem Sanskrit und aus dem Tibetischen Ć¼bersetzt und mit einem Kommentar herausgegeben von Michael Hahn
http://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/vom_rechten_leben-_70003.html
I think there couldnāt be a better translator than Hahn.
Well, German is too important to be neglected, especially for the serious scholars.