Online Pali Canon?

[victor79]

Kare and everyone else,

Translations are useful, but translations can never be trusted 100%.

Here is a line from a verse passage:

satto sa.msaaramaapaadi, kamma.m tassa paraayanan ti - SN i 38

The late and former (obviously) president of the Pali Text Society, I.B. Horner, translates this as:

"This being is bound to samsara, karma is his means for going beyond." BUDDHIST TEXTS THROUGH THE AGES, page 80, selection 67.

Ven Bodhi's translation:

A being enters upon samsara; Kamma determines his destiny. CDB I 129.

Without seeing Horner's first, Ven Bodhi's translation is a little weak, missing something of the significance of paraayana, which can easily signify awakening as a goal - destiny vs going beyond. Also, "is his means" vs "determines." I think, as well as I can understand the grammatical structure if this verse and verse is harder to understand, Horner's is by far the better translation.


As for getting acquainted with Pali without actually committing oneself to a several year project of learning the language, the PALI WORKBOOK is a good choice.

that was a fascinating example. as far as i'm concerned, the two translations give ENTIRELY different meanings. I am wondering, could this have something to do with the BELIEFS of the respective translators? It would then follow that two different translations could give completely different impressions of the Buddha's teachings,depending on the translators personal beliefs.

[Cittasanto]

Everywhere I know off have already been mentioned!
but if you have a look on the link section on Access to Insight their are a few links to programs, sites etc which are quite interesting

[nathan]

Translations are useful, but translations can never be trusted 100%.

that was a fascinating example. as far as i'm concerned, the two translations give ENTIRELY different meanings. I am wondering, could this have something to do with the BELIEFS of the respective translators? It would then follow that two different translations could give completely different impressions of the Buddha's teachings,depending on the translators personal beliefs.

It's a great example. It raises great questions. This is why the kind of resources I am suggesting be assembled are so vital. Given the Pali Texts. A number index for each word. Comprehensive dictionary and grammar. Various existing translations. Anyone can then investigate further. Improve further. It is readily seen the many synonymous uses of terms that fully inform each term and how these are interrelated to the other terms.

Could clear away heaps of misconception. For everyone. Think of it. Just imagine. It's how we got this far.

[jcsuperstar]

also and some people may disagree with me, but i feel the reader's beliefs also color how they read the translations i know that i and other western buddhists ive talked to just dont get or see things in some translations that some other western buddhists do.

also i'm a poet not a scholar so i look for different things than someone with a more scholarly bent would

i would say as a poet i read different than a the scholarly person as well

i also know full well the danger of people seeing in writing what they want to see, so maybe tilt is right about which is a better translation (over all) but for me the bodhi one is the better translation

[nathan]

What people who understand pali well could show us, if they had the tools and the right venue, would blow our minds. Again and again. Pali is incredibly rich in meaning. The gramatical constructions of the words, tenses, etc. in the pali point to both the multi-layered meanings that we may more easily note at times when we compare the few translations we have. What is less obvious is the extreme precision that can also be incorporated into the individual words, the relationships between the words and the relationship of these words and phrases to the whole structure of the text. If we could be shown real examples of this, again and again, as needed, we would have so many of our debates and divergent opinions about what a text means definitively settled beyond questioning so far as the texts go. It would revolutionize not only our personal understanding but how we communicate about the dhamma with each other. All of the implication that we need a modern secular language that is better would be blown out of the water pretty much instantly. The list goes on...

[victor79]

i prefer the Horner translation simply because it's consistant with my own views.....

i must agree, to undertake a serious study of the pali canon requires at least basic knowledge of pali... otherwise, we're stumbling around in the dark....

[tiltbillings]

Just a bit more about the Horner and Ven. Bodhi translations. There is a short sutta in the SN that nicely clears up our text in contention, the title of which is translated by Ven Bodhi as The Destination, SN IV 373, CDB II 1379: The Destination, in Pali: Paraayana Sutta. What is quite nice here is that the Buddha defines quite clealy what he means by paraayana, destiny/going beyond.

And what, bhikkhus, is the destination [the going beyond (which is more literal)]? The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this is called the destination [the going beyond]. In other words, nibbana. Paraayana is one of the 33 epithets for nibbana.

Taking that this sutta as part of the larger context of our contended text, it would seem that both Ven Bodhi and Ms Horner's translations are really not say anything different. I would still prefer Ms Horner's translation. It seems to me to be a bit clearer as to meaning.

[green]

My dream Tipitika would be something like what has been done with the Old and New Testaments. This is a huge project and the TIpitaka is much larger but over time...

As I see it this would involve creating a similar system to that used for biblical concordances, dictionaries and interlinear texts. A wiki environment would be the ideal place for co-operative scholarship and now we have a wiki to begin to work with. Are there copyright or other issues that prevent including all the other work that has already been done into this wiki? The pali text is already data in various scripts. The development of a number reference for each term would be something I would think would require some expertise and perhaps some kind of formal agreements to execute, I'm not sure. Then factor in the existing dictionary info and so forth, the existing translation work, fill in the blanks that are left and we are on our way to something really accessible and navigable.

I have already been wondering why so much of this work is partly here and partly there and why all those who are investing energy in this work don't simply combine all of these efforts into one centralized meta-work. I suppose if economic or legal factors are involved it is one thing but if this is largely an academic enterprise or a labor of love then I don't know why most of those who are already busy about this kind of work haven't already got this kind of a cooperative effort underway. There is the PTS but the end product of that work fills a room with hard copy texts. Somewhere along the line all these texts are data of some kind and available somewhere. How could we encourage the online compilation of all of it?

With a wiki of the Tipitaka that is well constructed, the commentaries, old and new, and whatever other useful information can also be collected and linked in and this becomes more accessible as well. It seems like something amazing is possible and at the same time small but real and highly beneficial steps are also possible. Is there anything we can do to encourage such developments short of becoming pali scholars or academic experts of one kind or another ourselves? 'Cause, I'm warning ya, I'll do it if I have to! On the other hand I can cut and paste or type in the existing translations and so on if it is legal or permissible to do so.

The situation as it stands is actually awful, we have a huge amount of excellent information now (compared to even a decade ago) but we can spend days trying to find some particular detail in that mass of knowledge. (The longer we put off collating and organizing the knowledge the more chaos is created for those who hopefully will.) Strong's concordance alone triggered a massive increase in biblical scholarship by making terms and concepts searchable. My father is a PhD theologian and he told me that once the concordances and interlineal texts went digital it reduced his time searching through texts from hours to minutes. So huge efficiencies are achievable for both scholars and students. The Dhamma has many structures of its own which can be applied to the structure of the data as well. There should be a great many ways that we can approach ordering this knowledge so that every newbie does not have to spend all of their time asking the same questions over and over because there is no straightforward way to access the information. This can free up teachers and practitioners enormously from having to present questions and answers regarding many things again and again (as we can see happens continually in the context of forums), making space for many other kinds of teaching foci such as aspects of technique which really benefit from one on one instruction and guidance and other kinds of study and discussion which can contribute to enhanced and deepened understandings for all of us.

May the TIpitaka be well and happy.

The BIble, Vedas and Gita, Koran have various translations in many languages.

Unfortuneatly, the Pali Tipitika is woefully underrepresented with "metta.lk" the only site with english and sinhala translations -- WHICH ARE STILL INCOMPLETE. hope the original Pali can be put along side many different languages -- the first languages should be english, chinese, hindi, thai, arabic.

[Dhammanando]

Unfortuneatly, the Pali Tipitika is woefully underrepresented with "metta.lk" the only site with english and sinhala translations -- WHICH ARE STILL INCOMPLETE. hope the original Pali can be put along side many different languages -- the first languages should be english, chinese, hindi, thai, arabic.

Two complete Thai translations of the Tipitaka (those of Mahachula and Mahamakut) and one of the Atthakatha are already available on many websites.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

[Cittasanto]

Two complete Thai translations of the Tipitaka (those of Mahachula and Mahamakut) and one of the Atthakatha are already available on many websites.

Hi Dhammanando good to see you well!

Do you know of any sites with the satipatthana Sutta in both English and Romanised pali versions line to line comparison as well as a site with the ones you mention?

thanks and glad you are well!

Metta
Manapa

[AlaskanDhamma]

Bhante,

Ok so I know the idea of an online Pali Canon would take forever, but I'm just curious about it.

It is already available — the Pali text, the Commentaries and the Subcommentaries, and in many different scripts.

Tipitaka.org

That is a great site, but I kind of think that he might mean in translation, which is how I took it, since reading Pali, though not as rare as turtle fangs, is not common.

Yes, she did mean in translation. ;P Thank you.

[AlaskanDhamma]

Thank you everyone for the plentiful information.

Translations of texts of such importance will always be something to be debated about. Everyone wants to get the "right" or "accurate" translation. Which I'm afraid is impossible since you'd have to have lived in those times to have the right translation. Thousands of years will play "telephone" with texts, leading people to believe one thing while it actuality something else is attempting to be conveyed.

The overall message is what is important to me though. What was Buddha trying to say? During those times he would be speaking to a certain group of people at a certain time and for a certain purpose, with a certain context. The importance isn't in his exact wording, but in his message of the Dhamma.

Just my opinion.

[Dhammanando]

Hi Manapa,

Do you know of any sites with the satipatthana Sutta in both English and Romanised pali versions line to line comparison as well as a site with the ones you mention?

I don't know of any online interlinear translation of the Satipatthana Sutta.

The Thai translation of the Tipitaka and its commentaries is available here: http://www.84000.org

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

[AlaskanDhamma]

Ven. Dhammanando,

Do you know the name of that Thai painting on the website? Is this when Lord Buddha is dying?

[piotr]

Hi,

Here you can find trilinear edition (Pali text, English gloss & translation with notes) of Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna-sutta (DN 22) done by Piya Tan.

http://www.geocities.com/paligroup/pali ... D22PDF.zip

[Dhammanando]

Do you know the name of that Thai painting on the website? Is this when Lord Buddha is dying?

Yes, it depicts him lying in the lion's posture at the time of his parinibbāna.

Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu

[AlaskanDhamma]

Thank you Bhante.