Lost without translation?

[Snoopy]

Hi,

I have just read an interview in Tricycle magazine with Dr Masefield who works for the Pali Text Society (PTS), translating the words of the Buddha (according to Theravada tradition) into English. Each canonical text is explained by a commentarial text, which is often much longer than the text it explains.

One particular issue seemed to stand out for me and I would be interested to see what others think. To highlight the issue here are a some Q&A’s from the interview, I am not (hopefully) taking them out of context but merely providing them as a vehicle for comment and discussion…

The issue should I think become apparent but essentially it was a surprise to me how little has been translated into English. (He also discussed how errors would have crept in over the centuries as the oral transmission became one of scribing on palm leaves, which quickly degenerated).

And the PTS has translated those texts?
The PTS has translated most of what we call the Pali canon, those books whose contents are attributed to the mouth of the Buddha, whereas there is a very wide body of commentarial material, very little of which has been translated.

But at the end of the day, how can we be sure of the correct reading?
Often we can’t. But this is the job of the scholar – to try to eradicate the scribal errors.

If the canonical text was translated without the commentary, then the translation may not be perfect?
Because only a handful of the commentaries have so far been translated into English, it may be that many of the translations that we take for granted may not always fully accord with the explanations found in the commentaries.

Can we say that some of the existing translations may not be quite right?
Yes. And some of the early scholars may have offered translations of canonical texts that were partially idiosyncratic.

You have translated four commentaries. Altogether, how many of the commentaries have been translated into English?
I would say about eight or nine.

That’s not very many. Out of how many?
Forty five.

I gather, then that the commentary to the Digha Nikaya has not been made available in English?
It is extremely surprising that it has never been translated into English. Neither have the commentaries to the other core books of the canon, the Majjhima Nikaya, the Samyutta Nikaya and the Anguttara Nikaya.


…thoughts anyone…?

s.

 

[Tariki]

Well, I would say that Buddhism not being a "religion of the book" - in the same sense as say Christianity or Islam - then the questions/problems raised would never be finally destructive regarding a degree of faith/trust in the efficacy of the dharma to bring the cessation of suffering. The Buddhist texts never claim to bring a "revelation" that would be impossible to know and appropriate except via such knowledge gained by such revelation. The dharma is ehipassiko - come and see (for oneself). Its fundamental words and texts themselves call to be tested at various levels by personal experience..................and I would certainly say that the texts themselves are to be trusted enough to trust such a call!

That said, it seems to me very important that the commentaries spoken off are translated, and that the knowledge gained by such translation applied to future translations of the prime texts themselves. It seems interesting to me that one of the great current translators, Bhikkhu Bodhi, actually ackowledges that you "learn as you go" in respect of all this. In his latest offering, a selection of texts drawn form the Pali Canon, "In the Buddha's Words" , he states quite explicitly that some of the suttas offered differ in translation from that which appears in his previous translations - this because of knowledge and understanding gained since the previous translation was completed.

One example (though not drawn from any translation of Bhikkhu Bodhi) which is worth consideration regarding this, the Pali word upekkha. This is the fourth "sublime state", and is almost universally translated now as "equanimity". In very early translations, however, the word came through as "indifference"............ . (Given that the other sublime states are love/metta, compassion/karuna and sympathetic joy/mudita, it would seem difficult to justify "indifference" as being in any way the culmination of them!) And just as a little offering to anyone reading this dry answer to Snoopy's question, an excerpt from the essay "The Four Sublime States" by Nyanaponika Thera........

Equanimity, which means "even mindedness", gives to love an even, unchanging firmness and loyalty. It endows it with the great virtue of patience. Equanimity furnishes compassion with an even, unwavering courage and fearlessness, enabling it to face the awesome abyss of misery and despair which confront boundless compassion again and again. To the active side of compassion, equanimity is the calm and firm hand led by wisdom - indispensable to those who want to practice the difficult art of helping others. And here again equanimity means patience, the patient devotion to the work of compassion.....................in these and other ways equanimity may be said to be the crown and culmination of the other three sublime states.

"Indifference" indeed!!! I think, giving consideration to this, we can even perhaps look forward to future translations based upon greater knowledge of the various commentaries. What further wonders are in store?

 

[Pathless]

Words and scribblings cannot contain the Dharma. In the Zen tradition, there's a story about some monk who burned all of his sacred texts. He didn't need them anymore. They were garbage, trash, signposts pointing him in the wrong direction, walls to be broken down. This is the irreverence and freedom of Zen, perhaps more akin to Taoism than other schools and forms of Buddhism.

The transmission of "Dharma" to the western world over the past century or so has taken place in many different ways. Perhaps in a thousand years we will see a variety of concrete, well-established western schools of Buddhism (Personally, I think not and hope not, for reasons of the survival and emancipation of humanity to be discussed in another thread, perhaps...). Also, as Buddhism came to China through Bodhidharma, it wasn't translated as texts. It was a "direct transmission," supposedly, from "master" to newly-minted "master." And such was the method of the Buddha (and Christ for that matter, although his teachings were highjacked all to hell before they had a chance to sprout) back in the day. I like the flower sermon of the Buddha. Legend has it that he held up a flower and maybe smiled, never saying a word, and someone in the crowd "got it," or maybe more correctly "got with it." Enliightenment, you know, all that liberation b.s. happened to this fortunate bikkhu (is that the term?). That guy didn't sit around reading books. He looked at a flower in the hand of another guy and knew.

So yeah. Lost in translation for sure. The words always get in the way. But they are beautiful, aren't they, those words?

Peace,
Pathless


p.s.

After all, these Theravada guys are entrenched in their system of Buddhism, no? One dependent on the supposed pure original words of the Buddha in Pali, or some clap-trap like that. Buddha's original words in English? That's crap, just as much as the King James Version of the bible is crap. People like that have got their own agendas, and they want you to come on along and join up. Question is for each of us, who sets our own agendas?

 

[Snoopy]

The dharma is ehipassiko - come and see (for oneself). Its fundamental words and texts themselves call to be tested at various levels by personal experience..................and I would certainly say that the texts themselves are to be trusted enough to trust such a call!

That said, it seems to me very important that the commentaries spoken off are translated, and that the knowledge gained by such translation applied to future translations of the prime texts themselves. It seems interesting to me that one of the great current translators, Bhikkhu Bodhi, actually ackowledges that you "learn as you go" in respect of all this. In his latest offering, a selection of texts drawn form the Pali Canon, "In the Buddha's Words" , he states quite explicitly that some of the suttas offered differ in translation from that which appears in his previous translations - this because of knowledge and understanding gained since the previous translation was completed.

One example (though not drawn from any translation of Bhikkhu Bodhi) which is worth consideration regarding this, the Pali word upekkha. This is the fourth "sublime state", and is almost universally translated now as "equanimity". In very early translations, however, the word came through as "indifference"............ . (Given that the other sublime states are love/metta, compassion/karuna and sympathetic joy/mudita, it would seem difficult to justify "indifference" as being in any way the culmination of them!) And just as a little offering to anyone reading this dry answer to Snoopy's question, an excerpt from the essay "The Four Sublime States" by Nyanaponika Thera........

Hi Tariki,

Ehipassiko indeed! I’d not come across this word before but yes of course.

I think “In the Buddha’s Words” is an excellent book, I looked at one of the Discourses books by Bhikkhu Bodhi the other day but it was a little too pricey for the likes of me!

As well as changing translations over time, the interview also highlighted how one word can have several meanings and the context determines which one is appropriate. The Pali word “satta” is derived from four different Sanskrit words (sakta, sattva, shapta and sapta) meaning, respectively, “holding to”, “being”, “cursed” and “seven”. Obviously this can happen in other languages (e.g. English!) but it shows how treacherous (?) translation can be.

On a related point, I was under the impression that Pali and Sanskrit were two languages. In fact, Pali is a vernacular spoken form of the Sanskrit language; strictly speaking Pali is not a language. Also, the term Pali has traditionally been used to refer to the Theravada canon as opposed to the commentaries....

s.

 

[Snoopy]

Words and scribblings cannot contain the Dharma. In the Zen tradition, there's a story about some monk who burned all of his sacred texts. He didn't need them anymore. They were garbage, trash, signposts pointing him in the wrong direction, walls to be broken down. This is the irreverence and freedom of Zen, perhaps more akin to Taoism than other schools and forms of Buddhism.

Hi Pathless,

Is an important WORD here, “anymore”?. He didn’t need the stuff anymore. But he needed it before now perhaps? Do you think Zen Buddhism is Taoism after you remove the Buddhism? (“The Tao of Zen” by Ray Griggs).

Also, as Buddhism came to China through Bodhidharma, it wasn't translated as texts. It was a "direct transmission," supposedly, from "master" to newly-minted "master." And such was the method of the Buddha (and Christ for that matter, although his teachings were highjacked all to hell before they had a chance to sprout) back in the day. I like the flower sermon of the Buddha. Legend has it that he held up a flower and maybe smiled, never saying a word, and someone in the crowd "got it," or maybe more correctly "got with it." Enliightenment, you know, all that liberation b.s. happened to this fortunate bikkhu (is that the term?). That guy didn't sit around reading books. He looked at a flower in the hand of another guy and knew.

Yes, the dharma transmission without words. But did not the buddha teach WITH words as well, an awful lot of them in his 45 years of teaching. (I wonder what might have happened in the world if Jesus had been able to teach for a long time?...)

After all, these Theravada guys are entrenched in their system of Buddhism, no? One dependent on the supposed pure original words of the Buddha in Pali, or some clap-trap like that. Buddha's original words in English? That's crap, just as much as the King James Version of the bible is crap. People like that have got their own agendas, and they want you to come on along and join up. Question is for each of us, who sets our own agendas?

Are the core teachings of the historical Buddha not a vital foundation for the dharma, including zen?

s.

 

[Tariki]

Hi Snoopy and Pathless,

Just picking up on a couple of points..........

Regarding words and contexts, its instructive that Bhikkhu Nanamoli (actually Osbert Moore, an Oxford graduate) attempted - as evidenced in his various notebooks found after his death - certain experimentations by using just one English word in all contexts......yet "as shown by handwritten changes in the manuscript, the author had found that some of his new renderings could not be consistently applied...." (Nyanaponika Thera, in his preface to Nanamoli's "The Life of the Buddha")

And yes, the "treacherous sea of language" which the Buddha entered - apparently reluctantly according to the testimony of the treacherous sea itself! - soon after his enlightenment. I have always liked the story of the group of Zen monks who were transporting many of the sacred texts from one monastery to another, through very rough territory and high mountain passes. They were caught out by a storm and had to spend the night out in the open. To keep warm they burnt the texts to make a fire. I think a careful reading of this story shows both the profound importance of the texts as well as indicating the final limits of words. I think we do well to recognise this.

And I think that we can all become "entrenched" in our own systems, Zen no less than Theravada, Theravada no more than Zen.

Anyway, as another little offering, as Snoopy had not heard of the word ehipassiko, a few more words that traditionally describe the dharma. (For those who prefer a flower to be held aloft, please look away now......)

svakkhato..................or "well communicated",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the Buddha insisted that his teaching should be made available to people in their own language...........that his teaching should be spread as widely as possible, in as many ways as possible.

sanditthiko............or "immediately apparent".................in other words, you will see the results of your practice of the Dharma for yourself, in this lifetime.

akaliko...........or "not connected with time"................the culture may be different, manners and customs may be different, but the Dharma is the same, because the minds and hearts of men and women are the same everywhere.

opanayiko.........or "leading forward".....or "progressive" (in the cultural or spiritual sense)..........the Dharma's purpose is to lead us forward, to make us happier, kinder............

paccatam veditabbo vinnuhi............or "to be understood individually, by the wise". Which means that the Buddha's teaching is to be experienced by each person for himself or herself..............it is your life.

(Many thanks to Sangharakshita and his book "What is the Dharma?")

 

[Snoopy]

svakkhato
"well communicated",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the Buddha insisted that his teaching should be made available to people in their own language...........that his teaching should be spread as widely as possible, in as many ways as possible.

Hi,

Many thanks for this; these terms are great for putting the Dharma into its "proper" context. This particular one made me wonder if future translations of the word may include the word "podcast"

Not wishing to derail my own thread I'll make no reference to the ahem, controversy surrounding Sangharakshita. Dang, I did it.

s.

 

[Tariki]

Hi,

Not wishing to derail my own thread I'll make no reference to the ahem, controversy surrounding Sangharakshita. Dang, I did it.

s.

Oh yes, you've done it all right.................

I remember my first reading of a "Survey of Buddhism" and me thinking just how "authentic" it was to be reading a book on Buddhism by a "real" Easterner...............Sangharakshita no less!! Imagine my despair when it was finally revealed to me that the guy's real name was Dennis Lingwood, who hailed from South London. Whats in a name, a Sangharakshita by any other name would be......

And as for Wei Wu Wei, and his enigmatic little book "Ask the Awakened"! For a couple of years I imagined the author as some wizened little Chinese guy living perhaps in some primitive cave deep in the Himalayas! Lo and behold, its Terence Gray, an Irish racehorse owner..........

Well, thats enough controversy for me.......

 

[Snoopy]

I remember my first reading of a "Survey of Buddhism" and me thinking just how "authentic" it was to be reading a book on Buddhism by a "real" Easterner...............Sangharakshita no less!! Imagine my despair when it was finally revealed to me that the guy's real name was Dennis Lingwood, who hailed from South London. Whats in a name, a Sangharakshita by any other name would be......

And as for Wei Wu Wei, and his enigmatic little book "Ask the Awakened"! For a couple of years I imagined the author as some wizened little Chinese guy living perhaps in some primitive cave deep in the Himalayas! Lo and behold, its Terence Gray, an Irish racehorse owner..........

Ha! I bought "All Else is Bondage" by your racehorse owner years ago but promptly got rid of it!

And as for Mr Lingwood...

"MANY BODIES, ONE MIND":MOVEMENTS IN BRITISH BUDDHISM

There's nowt wrong with changing your name, to a chosen one rather than a given one even, perhaps from Siddhartha to...

s.

 

[Pathless]

Well don't get me wrong or take me too seriously. I may prefer a flower sermon and a quiet night of reading poetry, but I don't think Theravada or any other religious way is invalid. For me, though, I get bored with what I percieve as long-winded academic dissertations on concepts. This applies whether I'm discussing religion or cartoons. I love language. Sometimes I feel it is abused by institutions or people who want to create their own special code talk. At the same time, I'm not one who believes everything needs to be said simply. I love metaphor and good use of language. What irritates me and seems unnessecary is long, self-important discourses, systems that work up their own elite vocabulary for things that could be said in simpler language. For this reason, I suppose I'm against most institutionalized religions. Hence the appeal of zen (but then even zen has been made into Zen by some--stiff, dead, uninspiring) which to me is more immediate and appeals to experience over philosophy. It may use metaphor, poetry, and even ridiculous and purposefully obscure stories, but at the same time it seems to (for the most part) stay fresh. I like things that are in continual revoution, evolution, and revelation.

That's just me. It's what works for me. I get vocal about it because for me to not be vocal has sometimes, in the past, led me to lose my truth and myself, and that sucks. And I wouldn't ever want anyone to be robbed of their truth. So whatever I shout or say, if it's bull to you, than that's great! It's bull for you--go with that.

I just advocate for what I know and feel becuase maybe there are other people out there for whom it resonates. Plus I like to hear myself type.

Peace,
Pathless

 

[Tariki]

Well don't get me wrong or take me too seriously. I may prefer a flower sermon and a quiet night of reading poetry, but I don't think Theravada or any other religious way is invalid. For me, though, I get bored with what I percieve as long-winded academic dissertations on concepts. This applies whether I'm discussing religion or cartoons. I love language. Sometimes I feel it is abused by institutions or people who want to create their own special code talk. At the same time, I'm not one who believes everything needs to be said simply. I love metaphor and good use of language. What irritates me and seems unnessecary is long, self-important discourses, systems that work up their own elite vocabulary for things that could be said in simpler language. For this reason, I suppose I'm against most institutionalized religions. Hence the appeal of zen (but then even zen has been made into Zen by some--stiff, dead, uninspiring) which to me is more immediate and appeals to experience over philosophy. It may use metaphor, poetry, and even ridiculous and purposefully obscure stories, but at the same time it seems to (for the most part) stay fresh. I like things that are in continual revoution, evolution, and revelation.

That's just me. It's what works for me. I get vocal about it because for me to not be vocal has sometimes, in the past, led me to lose my truth and myself, and that sucks. And I wouldn't ever want anyone to be robbed of their truth. So whatever I shout or say, if it's bull to you, than that's great! It's bull for you--go with that.

I just advocate for what I know and feel becuase maybe there are other people out there for whom it resonates. Plus I like to hear myself type.

Peace,
Pathless

Pathless,

I indentify completely with your own chosen preferences and agree with much of what you say. Give me a poem any day rather than some academic discourse!

As far as academic study is concerned, I have always been glad that my first real introduction to Buddhism was via Theravada. Amid the sometimes bewildering profusion of doctrines and teachings of the Dharma - as expressed historically - I feel Theravada has provided me with a framework that allows my mind to identify continuity, a peg to refer back to, that allows me to recognise the point and purpose of what can often seem obscure. As an example, the seeds of the Madhyamika are to be found in one of the most ancient Theravada texts, the Sutta Nipata..................but then, thats just me, perhaps they are not there at all, or relate instead to the Japanese Tea Ceremony.....

Anyway, whatever, in the end one has to "walk the talk".....................whatever form the talk has taken!

All the best
Derek

 

[Snoopy]

So whatever I shout or say, if it's bull to you, than that's great! It's bull for you--go with that.
Peace,
Pathless

Hey, not BS to my eyes; I think we're pretty much in the same ball park; I just felt like kicking this topic around!

s.

 

[Francis king]

interesting, snoopy...

to me, and my way of thinking, a lot of what passes itself off as commentary to the sutras is erroneous... to me, just because somebody in the old days was intelligent enough to write it does not naturally follow that they understand what they are writing, and nor does it mean that they will be intelligent enough to cut through the verbiage and present the dharma to u in the right way for u... of course, if we were all enlightened beings, then we would see what was real and what wasn't, but hey, there's not many of them about, so we take one man's story above anothers, because we're deferring responsibility or we're playing the hierarchy game... I don't think we need commentarys, just give us the texts, and plainly as u can, without adding intellectualisms and correcting sentence structure simply for the sake of grammar if it means that the text loses something in translation...

we're happy to say to the xtians that their bible isn't accurate, but not so happy when "they" suggest that "ours" is probably just as lacking, but if we're honest we accept it cannot be any other way...

thankfully though, buddhists have a better get out clause than the xtians do-

all objects are products, all products are impermanent...

we accept that what we have isn't the undisputed word of Buddha- and buddhism is all the better for it, I think, as it gives us the freedom to understand the doctrine in our own way...

and well, as far as books on buddhism go...

just because a man trains horses doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about, or he hasn't got something to offer...

yay! let's drink yak butter tea in Tibet, covered in fleas, not able to bathe...

well, it works for the natives, don't it, and if they're so much wiser than us there must be something in it, right?

or is that just mistaken appearance..?

...as for the "Pali word upekkha. This is the fourth "sublime state", and is almost universally translated now as "equanimity".."

as u know, I dislike pali becuase it is to my mind, open to translation... they have funny habits of combining and changing letters which do not follow the normal sanskrit rules, and so I try to translate them into pidgin sanskrit to better understand them...

I translate upekkha as "upakesa"

beyond poison... upa, kesa... (i wish I had sanskrit text, the s here is like the s of siva, btw) if we go beyond poison, how do we treat ppl?

ahhh... would that be equanimously...?

u might criticise my pidgin sanskrit translations, peeps, but it works for me...

cheerio

 

[Snoopy]

we're happy to say to the xtians that their bible isn't accurate, but not so happy when "they" suggest that "ours" is probably just as lacking, but if we're honest we accept it cannot be any other way
thankfully though, buddhists have a better get out clause than the xtians do-
all objects are products, all products are impermanent...
we accept that what we have isn't the undisputed word of Buddha- and buddhism is all the better for it, I think, as it gives us the freedom to understand the doctrine in our own way...

A crucial aspect for me is the expected and accepted attitude of “examine this for yourself and make of it what you will in your life…” as opposed to “here is the final word on the matter, now go away and learn it till you can quote it verbatim (and putting it into use in your life is optional…)

and well, as far as books on buddhism go...
just because a man trains horses doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about, or he hasn't got something to offer...

no not at all, I agree. It was his “offering” that I found distinctly lacking, not his day job.

as u know, I dislike pali becuase it is to my mind, open to translation... they have funny habits of combining and changing letters which do not follow the normal sanskrit rules, and so I try to translate them into pidgin sanskrit to better understand them...
I translate upekkha as "upakesa"
beyond poison... upa, kesa... (i wish I had sanskrit text, the s here is like the s of siva, btw) if we go beyond poison, how do we treat ppl?
ahhh... would that be equanimously...?
u might criticise my pidgin sanskrit translations, peeps, but it works for me...

Didn’t know you were linguistically inclined. I have enough trouble being understood in English sometimes!

s.

 

[Pathless]

just because a man trains horses doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about, or he hasn't got something to offer...

yay! let's drink yak butter tea in Tibet, covered in fleas, not able to bathe...

....

cheerio

Haha!!! Cheerio indeed!! I love it. Way to be, F-Dawg.

 

[Francis king]

oh, and in case any linguists bite me... I think I meant klesa, not kesa..

kesa, is hair, mane, etc, whereas klesa is poison..sorry about that...

 

[Pathless]

oh, and in case any linguists bite me... I think I meant klesa, not kesa..

kesa, is hair, mane, etc, whereas klesa is poison..sorry about that...

That's okay! Some weird people equate hair with poison, at least here in the states. It's always good fun to be sitting in a high-scale restaurant when some high-society zoot suit snob finds a dreadlock in his oysters:

"Ack!!!" And he almost has a heart attack. "What in God's name is this?!!" Horrified and aghast, this stockbroker summons the waiter. "I found this dreadlock in my oysters, it almost killed me!!" Choking sounds, and the man's wife is cowering behind her tea, trying to hide her tears. The children are slack-jawed and incredulous, awed into silence, except for Timmy, who at 16, has recently seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High with his pals, and now makes a grimace reminiscent of either Jeff Spicoli or Mr. Hand--there's no telling for sure on this crazy beat scene--and yells, pointing and jeering: "Gnarly!!!"

Meanwhile, the maitre'd has made his way over to the table, the offended first-class businessman is in a red huff, choking with rage and smacking his fist repeatedly on the table. The dreadlock wags in his other clenched hand and his wife is now sobbing. Exasperated, the entitled customer shouts, "See what you've done now, you dirty Mexicans!!!"

The waiter stands by as the maitre'd skillfully plucks the dreadlock out of the man's hand and replaces his dinner with a freshly produced plate of oysters, deep fried calamari, and yak butter. "Sorry about that mon," says the maitre'd, his eyes half-closed in a sage pose. "The dinner be on us now."

"Radical!!!" yells teenage Timmy, and orders more shrimp and chips.

So I have witnessed. Ah, the confusion of Americans, swimming in too much translation and commoditization, always confusing kesa with klesa and muslims with terrorists.

God Bless the U.S.A.