SuttaCentral
@Matt, i think futile is the alternative translation for anatta, not atta
they trace it to anartha
the quoted passage in Pali in their interpretation would probably read as
Rūpavantaṃ vā (arthānaṃ)
Form is singificant/advantageous/true sense
for the sake of discussion disregarding the fact that it’s a Sanskrit word, not Pali
as artha is the opposite of anartha
not sure the declension is at all grammatically sound
Anattā is being said to mean “futile”, and given that, we can only suppose that “attā” now means “effective” or “satisfactory”, given that it is going to have to be the opposite of anattā… It will be interesting how that is compensated for.
This “anattā = futile” hypothesis is actually a product specifically of the Pāli dispensation, and becomes only more and more problematic when one does not take a Pāli-centric approach to decoding early Buddhavacana (無我 = futile? thats not very convincing).
This is definitely a possibility, what I said at the very beginning, that the early sangha utterly and completely altered the Buddha’s teaching, but its awfully pessimistic. If anattā = futile than basically every Buddhist on the planet, who lives now and who has lived historically in the past, where all unanimously practicing wrong.
Furthermore, since this corruption would have needed to have happened before the writing of it, the true Dhamma is not demonstrable if this corruption occurred, because all of the original documents are unreliable. If this corruption is serious, we have absolutely no access to the “real” Buddha who taught a teaching of… futility?
There seem to be too many serious problems with this rendering.
For instance, [quote]「瞿曇！一 切 眾 生為有我不？」
“Gotama! Myriad births lack bhava futility (?!), no?”[/quote]The Chinese dispensation nails the lid in the coffin, as 我, 有我, 為有我, or 為我 simply cannot mean futile. This is a benefit to the pictographic nature of Chinese: 我 definitely means “me, myself, I”, because Chinese communicates the meanings of words but not the sounds (at least, not the sounds in a way someone used to an “alphabet” would recognize).
The opposite is the case with most scripts, which encode for sounds but not meaning (this is a little bit of a generalization, as most alphabetic languages do have some purely semantic encoding: e.g. bough, bow, which are pronounced identically in many dialects of English). This does not make Chinese impervious to errors in manuscript transmission, but it eliminates the possibility of something like anartha becoming anattā.
Then we have, from the Pāli, Vacchagotta’s question, which now reads something like “How now Gotama, is there satisfaction?”, “Is there futility?”
The Buddha’s responce is also now far more problematic to interpret [quote]I had answered, ‘There is no satisfaction,’ the wanderer Vacchagotta, already confused, would have fallen into even greater confusion, thinking, ‘It seems that the satisfaction I formerly had does not exist now.’”[/quote]It also makes the sassatavāda-ucchedavāda discourse somewhat incoherent?
Similarly, there is the attakāro and the parakāro. If the attā in attakāro is not “self”, then the para- must mean something else too, that is completely unreconstructable, just as the “true” meaning of anattā in unreconstructable from a scholarly informed viewpoint, if we assume that the assumption of substantial corruption is warranted.
If one admits to maximal epistemic agnosticism, the theory could technically be true, in the same manner that Schrödinger’s cat “can” be alive “and” dead, but it posits that the true interpretation of Buddhadharma rests on an unverifiable and untestable hypothesis, and thus, any decision to engage in bhāvanā is itself seriously incoherent.
Since this discourse of “futility” does not occur in any of the early Buddhist schools that are studied, the idea that anattā means futile has to be justified by the assumption that these documents and schools are practicing a form of Buddhism that has apostatized from the “true Dhamma”, and that the true Dhamma is lost.
The assumption that the true Dhamma is lost has to go into believing that anattā means futile, because it presumes that either a) all, most, or some disciples of the Buddha, at a time when the sangha was proportionally smaller and more manageable, conspired to change the Dhamma at a time that predates written records of Buddhist history, b) the disciples taught anattā as “futility”, but failed to teach the Dhamma correctly to the masses (resulting in the “corrupted” doctrine of anattā as selfless). Either way, the idea that anattā = futile has the Buddha’s Dhamma go into relatively quick decline, and disappear completely (or, possibly, one could argue that “some secret small group” kept it alive, but that, again, would not be demonstrable), only to reemgerge in modern times, because all of the manuscript evidence points to “selfless” as the dominant reading of anattā, meaning that “futility” as a “true meaning” has to predate all material evidence of Buddhism.
This actually places the teacher of the “anattā as futility” doctrine as Maitreya, technically, as he is redistributing the Dhamma after it has went into complete decline. Proving this would involve proving that the teacher of the “anattā as futility” school was demonstrably a samyaksaṃbuddha, a heavy task indeed.
Yes, there are but we have to acknowledge that this point of view seems to be related to a cult-like movement. Due to this it may be almost impossible to prove them wrong!
I would like to suggest we at least make clear that the relevant cracks in this theory probably makes it something that could not be hosted or seriously considered here in SuttaCentral.
Although I don’t know Sinhala I would be worried if we ever find hosted in SC translations which render anatta in this problematic way.
I understand that it is to avoid this kind of situation that bhante @sujato is going through the trouble of reviewing and translating into English the whole of MN and SN (will he ever do DN?). And he has been using D&D as a nice log of his findings and decisions on how to achieve his translations.
Just as it would be very odd to host doctored translations of doctrinally relevant passages done by Mrs. Rhys Davids. However, I think it is important to provide a linguistically and historically based criticism of these translations to explain why they are not hosted here.
@Coemgenu
Thanks for your excellent analysis! 
I am afraid it will fall on deaf ears, because this group believes we can’t use Sanskrit, and I think they will also find an explanation why we can’t use Gandhari and Chinese 
Sorry I cannot fully grasp what you were alluding in this quote but let me make clear that I do see the importance and relevance of all the effort you have been making to show how what this group is suggesting is just wrong.
I just think that we should be realistic about the fact that even if we write a PhD thesis on how this hypothesis is wrong you will never be able to prove wrong someone who is taken as an arahant by his disciples to his disciples!
The only choice left is first to make clear of what are the boundaries of tolerance in regards to alternative creative interpretation of EBTs and of course make information as available as possible so those not yet 100% invested in misunderstanding may make the choice to jump the sinking boat themselves (as you are patiently doing)!
[quote=“Vstakan, post:46, topic:4986”]
I am afraid it will fall on deaf ears, because this group believes we can’t use Sanskrit, and I think they will also find an explanation why we can’t use Gandhari and Chinese 
[/quote]Well, I wasn’t quoting the Chinese to invoke its authority as purported Buddhavacana, the ramifications of the Chinese translation are very profound for the theory that anattā = anartha.
The people who made the decision to render anattā into Chinese as 為我 specifically chose “not/without/lacking I/me”. It just means that, since the originals for these translations are at least as roughly old as the Pāli Canon, in its modern-day form, itself, anartha as a “correct reading” would have to predate “textual Buddhism” itself, as the Pāli Canon is not substantially older than other EBTs (there is also no reason to believe that the Sarvāstivāda & Dharmaguptaka āgamāḥ were translated from Pāli).
It just highlights the further “futility” and unreconstructability of an “Early Buddhism” where anattā is anartha.
Edit: Furthermore, there are many ways in which Literary Chinese can certainly be considered a “less reliable” means of Dhamma-transmission, for one, there is the ambiguity of the language itself in regards to everyday occurrences (佛行塔, did he walk to the pagoda or just go there? Is he standing by the pagoda? Did he make the pagoda? Is he in the process of making the pagoda?), but its encoding for semantic meaning can be of much value at the same time, simply because it encodes meaning, not pronunciation.
[details=What’s wrong with Mrs. Rhys David]After the death of her son in 1917 and her husband in 1922, Rhys Davids turned Spiritualism and possibly by Theosophy. She seems to have had little actual interaction with Theosophical groups until very late in her career, and can even be seen to criticize Theosophical belief in some works. She became particularly involved in various forms of psychic communication with the dead, first attempting to reach her dead son through seances and then through automatic writing. She later claimed to have developed clairaudience, as well as the ability to pass into the next world when dreaming. She kept extensive notebooks of automatic writing, along with notes on the afterlife and diaries detailing her experiences, which are held by the University of London.
Although earlier in her career she accepted more mainstream beliefs about Buddhist teachings, later in life she rejected the concept of anatta as an “original” Buddhist teaching. She appears to have influenced several of her students in this direction, including A. K. Coomaraswamy, F. L. Woodward, and I. B. Horner.
Source
[/details]
As far as I understand, her personal views influenced her translations and even the PTSD to a degree, so one has to be very careful when working with doctrinally relevant passages translated or lemmata done by her.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. There are translations hosted in SC attributed to a Rhys Davids. I assume these were done by the wife of Thomas Rhys Davids, Caroline_Rhys_Davids.
Have you ever found anything really problematic with her translations?
The bit you quote from the article affirms the woman had a view but does not have any reference listed there for support the claim. Do you know where this understanding may have come from?
That looks like a good starting point. As for her problems with the anatta doctrine, I don’t quite remember where I first read it, but I definitely came across this point in many sources (e.g. every second essay by Eisel Mazard).
Check this chapter of Millinda Pañha on the topic of individuality (puggala) translated by Thomas, from which I quote:
And Milinda the king replied to Nāgasena, and said: ‘I have spoken no untruth, reverend Sir. It is on account of its having all these things—the pole, and the axle, the wheels, and the framework, the ropes, the yoke, the spokes, and the goad—that it comes under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of “chariot.”’
‘Very good! Your Majesty has rightly grasped the meaning of “chariot.” And just even so it is on account of all those things you questioned me about—The thirty-two kinds of organic matter in a human body, and the five constituent elements of being—that I come under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of “Nāgasena.” For it was said, Sire, by our Sister Vajirā in the presence of the Blessed One:
“‘Just as it is by the condition precedent
Of the co-existence of its various parts
That the word ‘chariot’ is used,
Just so is it that when the Skandhas
Are there we talk of a ‘being.’”’
‘Most wonderful, Nāgasena, and most strange. Well has the puzzle put to you, most difficult though it was, been solved. Were the Buddha himself here he would approve your answer. Well done, well done, Nāgasena!’
Looks quite anatta-kosher to me! 
Other chapters worth checking are listed below, all “kosher” as well!
https://suttacentral.net/en/mil3.5.8
https://suttacentral.net/en/mil3.1.4
https://suttacentral.net/en/mil3.3.6
P.S.: I know that people usually tend to not take Millinda Pañha seriously. 
佛行塔 actually meant
the pagoda of Buddha conduct (practice) ,
or in Pali = Buddha carana dhatugabbha.
" Edit: Furthermore, there are many ways in which Literary Chinese can certainly be considered a “less reliable” means of Dhamma-transmission, for one, there is the ambiguity of the language itself in regards to everyday occurrences (佛行塔, did he walk to the pagoda or just go there? Is he standing by the pagoda? Did he make the pagoda? Is he in the process of making the pagoda?), but its encoding for semantic meaning can be of much value at the same time, simply because it encodes meaning, not pronunciation. "
Please note that ,
佛行塔 actually meant
the pagoda of Buddha conduct (practice) ,
or in Pali = Buddha carana dhatugabbha.
And Chinese literature or language is
Not A Less Reliable means for dhamma transmission !!!
[quote=“James2997, post:54, topic:4986”]
Please note that ,
佛行塔 actually meant
the pagoda of Buddha conduct (practice) ,
or in Pali = Buddha carana dhatugabbha.
[/quote]I formed this sentence using the usage of 行 found specfically in SA 197, 佛 is the Buddha, 塔 is the stupa/padoga, 行, as used in SA 197, means “to walk to”. In fact, its most common meaning in āgama-literature is saṃskāra.
That you believed this was a phrase from an EBT, and had a different reading of it, actually reinforces was I was saying earlier.
Sorry , I don’t quite understand why 行 meaning is to walk to ?
SA 197, observe the usage of 行 presented in the context of the four comportments:
[quote]世尊隨其所應，而示現入禪定正受，陵虛至東方，作四威儀，
行、住、坐、臥，入火三昧，出種種火光，青、黃、赤、白、紅、頗梨色，水火俱現,
或身下出火，身上出水，身上出火，身下出水，周圓四方亦復如是。[/quote]
I’ll zoom in for better focus: [quote] 行、住、坐、臥，[/quote]
行、住、坐、臥，here it mean " walking " ,
Whereas above meant one’s " Practice " !
Yes, and this was what I was referring too earlier.
Chinese has the unique benefit of encoding for meaning, someone other scripts do not do nearly as well, however it has its own drawbacks (chiefly concerning matters of ambiguity) that Pāli does not have.
That happens is because if you are of non Chinese background ! As I am a Chinese ,
not seems to be a problem !
It also happens to very experienced translators who try to address this material and create translations, whether or not they are Chinese themselves. There are several books full of problems like this in the āgamāḥ, like those by Ven Anālayo or Marcus Bingenheimer.
I think you are taking offence at something I did not say. I said that there are some reasons why Literary Chinese could be considered “less reliable”, and then I said a reason why this was not necessarily so. There are also several reasons why English could be considered a less reliable means of Dhamma-transmission too, but the existence of potential reasons why it could be considered inferior does not make a certainty.
[quote=“James2997, post:60, topic:4986”]
As I am a Chinese ,
not seems to be a problem !
[/quote]Be careful about trying to read ancient texts through contemporary eyes and language, that is all I can say. Most of the Chinese people I know are very tentative about their ability to natively intuit ancient texts simply by virtue of their being “Chinese” alone and understanding contemporary Chinese languages.
For example : 明行足
Knowledge conduct perfection
Vijja carana sampanno
