Word by word translation of Namo Tassa...

[mettafuture]

Hi Everyone,

I know "Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa" means "Honour to the Blessed One, the Exalted One, the fully Enlightened One." I was just curious about which Pali word corresponded with which English word.

Your assistance would be appreciated.

Metta

[David N. Snyder]

Namo Homage or Honor
Tassa to the
Bhagavato Blessed One or Auspicious One or Exalted One
Arahato Worthy One / enlightened one
Samma Sambhuddasa Fully Enlighted by Himself

[mettafuture]

Thank you very much, David.

[yuttadhammo]

Tassa to the

"to that" would probably be more correct. bhagavato by itself would mean "to the blessed one" already.

Samma Sambhuddasa Fully Enlighted by Himself

Sammā is probably "rightly"... fully would be "paripuṇṇa" or some such thing. "sam" means self, so sambuddhassa could just be "self-enlightened", though "enlightened by himself" works too

[mettafuture]

Thank you, Venerable.

This is the translation I've gathered from your replies so far

Namo Homage or Honor
Tassa to that
Bhagavato Blessed One or Auspicious One or Exalted One
Arahato Worthy One or Enlightened One
Samma rightly
Sam self
buddhassa enlightened

[David N. Snyder]

Sammā is probably "rightly"... fully would be "paripuṇṇa" or some such thing. "sam" means self, so sambuddhassa could just be "self-enlightened", though "enlightened by himself" works too

Okay, thanks Bhante!

[Kare]

Thank you, Venerable.

This is the translation I've gathered from your replies so far

Namo Homage or Honor

Just an additional detail:

Namo is related to the verb namati - to bend down or to bow.

So Namo then means a bow, which of course is meant as a homage or honor.

An alternative translation of the sentence could therefore be: "I bow down for the ... etc."

[beeblebrox]

In case the word "right" gives some people wrong ideas about sammā (I'm right, you're wrong), there's also "properly". I think it's more something along this line. What do you guys think?

[mettafuture]

This is fun. I love learning Pali. Thank you Kare & beeblebrox.

namo Homage or Honor or I bow down
tassa to that
bhagavato Blessed One or Auspicious One or Exalted One
arahato Worthy One or Enlightened One
sammā rightly or properly or supremely or fully
sam self
buddhassa enlightened


There might be too many translations for sammā.

[Kare]

This is fun. I love learning Pali. Thank you Kare & beeblebrox.

namo Homage or Honor or I bow down
tassa to that
bhagavato Blessed One or Auspicious One or Exalted One
arahato Worthy One or Enlightened One
sammā rightly or properly or supremely or fully
sam self
buddhassa enlightened


There might be too many translations for sammā.

Isn't it nice to have the word rightly, properly, supremely and fully translated?

[mettafuture]

This is fun. I love learning Pali. Thank you Kare & beeblebrox.

namo Homage or Honor or I bow down
tassa to that
bhagavato Blessed One or Auspicious One or Exalted One
arahato Worthy One or Enlightened One
sammā rightly or properly or supremely or fully
sam self
buddhassa enlightened


There might be too many translations for sammā.

Isn't it nice to have the word rightly, properly, supremely and fully translated?

Yes. I see now why some teachers prefer using the Pali words over the English ones. Sammā is much easier.

[yuttadhammo]

"to that" would probably be more correct. bhagavato by itself would mean "to the blessed one" already.

I'm sorry, that's not right... it seems likely that "tassa" here should be "to him", not "to that (blessed one)"; so a proper translation (grammatically anyway, your choice of words may differ), would be:

Homage to him - the blessed one, the worthy one, the rightly self-awakened Buddha.

[mettafuture]

"to that" would probably be more correct. bhagavato by itself would mean "to the blessed one" already.

I'm sorry, that's not right... it seems likely that "tassa" here should be "to him", not "to that (blessed one)"; so a proper translation (grammatically anyway, your choice of words may differ), would be:

Homage to him - the blessed one, the worthy one, the rightly self-awakened Buddha.

Thank you, Venerable.



Update -

namo Homage or I bow down
tassa to him
bhagavato the Blessed One or the Exalted One
arahato the Worthy One or the Enlightened One
sammā rightly or fully
sam self
buddhassa awakened-Buddha or enlightened-Buddha

[Kare]

"to that" would probably be more correct. bhagavato by itself would mean "to the blessed one" already.

I'm sorry, that's not right... it seems likely that "tassa" here should be "to him", not "to that (blessed one)"; so a proper translation (grammatically anyway, your choice of words may differ), would be:

Homage to him - the blessed one, the worthy one, the rightly self-awakened Buddha.

You are both right. Every word in the sentence (except namo) stands in dative case, which implies a "to". Therefore it says "to him", "to the blessed one", "to the worthy one", "to the rightly self-awakened one". In Pali, that is normal usage. In English it feels superfluous with so many repetitions of "to", so we keep only one and skip the rest of them.

[yuttadhammo]

"to that" would probably be more correct. bhagavato by itself would mean "to the blessed one" already.

I'm sorry, that's not right... it seems likely that "tassa" here should be "to him", not "to that (blessed one)"; so a proper translation (grammatically anyway, your choice of words may differ), would be:

Homage to him - the blessed one, the worthy one, the rightly self-awakened Buddha.

You are both right. Every word in the sentence (except namo) stands in dative case, which implies a "to". Therefore it says "to him", "to the blessed one", "to the worthy one", "to the rightly self-awakened one". In Pali, that is normal usage. In English it feels superfluous with so many repetitions of "to", so we keep only one and skip the rest of them.

Actually, I was correcting myself... I had said that it should be "homage to that blessed one", which thinking about it seems improbable, since, as you say, they are all in dative case, and so it should be "to him, the blessed one..." It was just a question of whether "tassa" is the main object and the rest are qualifiers, or "bhagavato" is the main object instead. Since the rest of the words are qualifiers, I would suggest a literal translation not be to add "to" to every word, but rather "who is" to the ones that are not the main object, i.e.:

"Homage to him, who is blessed, who is a worthy one, who is rightly self-awakened."

in the same way that one would translate (literally), "yo so bhagavā arahaṃ sammāsambuddho..." as "He who is blessed, who is worthy, who is perfectly self-awakened...".