Hello! I started studying Buddhism because I’m a Japanese to English translator and Buddhist concepts come up often in my work. During an online course I took, I got the impression the words “evil” and “sin” weren’t really used, but rather unwholesome, unskillful, wrong action/view/etc., and sometimes even defilement.
However, when I went to look at translations of the suttas, I did see quite a lot of “evil” used and even some “sin”. Would you say this is standard? Has there been any changes to how these words are used? (I think I saw a post on here saying more recent translations try to avoid “sin” due to its connection with Abrahamic religions)
How they appear in texts translated from both Pali and Chinese might be relevant since some of the Japanese I translate may overlap with Chinese pretty closely, but I also just want a general overview of the sort of language used.
The characters primarily in question are 魔 and 罪. These are often translated as “evil” and “sin/crime”, but obviously the Buddhist usage is a bit different from standard usage.
魔 came to Japanese through Chinese as 魔羅 (Mara), and my brief searching of translations of Chinese suttas here shows Mara itself used in some cases, but my Chinese is limited in terms of determining the exact context.
I don’t know exactly how 罪 came to Japan, but it was likely through Buddhism from China (I mean, obviously from China, they’re Chinese characters…but originally only used in a Buddhist context maybe). I found this one translated once as “misdeeds” but again, my Chinese is limited.
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Great to hear from another translator on the forum.
I think evil is an acceptable translation of some terms since it’s essentially a strong moral adjective, and Buddhist texts certainly don’t mince words sometimes when it comes to immorality. Sin is more problematic. I’m tempted to use it to translate 罪, but the trouble is that to English speakers it carries a Christian context of actions that go against God’s will, such as breaking the commandments. In Buddhism, morality and karma function like natural laws rather than being a desire imposed on humans by a god. So, it rubs many people the wrong way when they see it used in Buddhist texts. Which I can understand.
I think the Chinese word that can be translated as “evil” sometimes is 惡, but I often translate it more simply as “bad” (as opposed to 善 “good”). 魔 originally meant “demon” or “evil spirit” and was used to translate māra. The king of māras is often called pāpīyān, which could be translated as “wicked” or “evil” one.
I think sin is generally a translation for pāpa, which is the polar opposite of puñña, actions that result in a unfavorable afterlife.
Seeing they’re brahmancial terms that’s also adopted by Buddhists, I think they’re familiar enough concepts to the Abrahamical concept of “sin” (although of course with some differences), it’s generally hard to find a word that has a similar connotation that would make sense to a first time reader.
In my translations too to Turkish, I use the Turkish equivalent of “sin” in the muslim sense “günah”.
Bhante Sujato uses “sin” in the context of the Jain practice called tapojigucchā, which he translates as “fervent mortification in disgust of sin”. This is not a Buddhist concept, but it is discussed by the Buddha with his interlocutors, in DN25 and other texts. He uses the word “sin” because it resembles the Jain concept in question. At DN25:7.16, he has the following comment:
“Higher disgust of sin” renders adhijegucche. The idea is that people are tainted with corruption, somewhat comparable to the notion of “original sin”, although due to their own actions in the past rather than ancestral legacy. In “disgust” at that sin, they practice forms of fervent mortification (tapas) to burn out the corruption.
In Bhante Sujato’s translation, pāpa is rendered “evil”, if I am correct.
As others have said, my own thought is that sin is so heavily entrenched as a religious term that it implies a transgression of a law/rule set by a deity. The word evil transcends the more heavily religious meaning and is widely considered as an act considered reprehensible across the majority of everyone, religious or not. At least in English, but perhaps not in some other languages.
It definitely seems the easiest word for expressing the concept to an audience more familiar with Christianity. I suppose to me it just comes with such an implication of judgement rather than a more cause-effect situation that I feel hesitant to use it, but perhaps I should reconsider that. Thank you for your input!
At least in modern usage, “demon” is 悪魔 in Japanese, which I believe is/was synonymous with 魔羅 (which the average person today probably wouldn’t be able to read). 悪 in Japanese also means something along the lines of “bad” and “immoral” though I suppose could stretch to the evil acts of people, while 魔 is usually reserved for a sort of otherworldy evil or magic.
I definitely see the aversion to using the word “sin” even if it fits in many instances, and that’s why I’m having problems with it in one instance. There’s a legend (nothing in the sutras but something written by the Japanese monk Jōkei) that children who die before their parents become stuck at a river and there they must stack rocks for eternity while a demon of sorts constantly knocks the stacks over. The act of dying before their parents is described as a 罪 because it causes the parents suffering, but that seems to go against the fact that only volitional acts create karma. If it were a volitional act, it’d be easy enough to avoid “sin” using something like misdeed, but in this case, I feel that becomes more difficult, since you’d be hard pressed to convince people the child chose to do that (though that’s actually the implication I’m getting from the original text, sort of a “how dare you cause your parents suffering” sort of thing).
Hmm! Yeah, I guess this would be a cultural belief that bends the word beyond it’s usual usage. Other ways to translate 罪 could be “crime” or “fault,” it not just used in a religious or moral sense. It’s also used ordinarily for breaking the law or just doing things that go against the social norm that make people judge the culprit. In this case, it’s to do with a child’s responsibility to their parents in Japanese culture.
