Eg: Meaning of the words likeYour selection will affect your whole understanding of Dhamma and view, because it affects the interpretation of rest of the words as well.
From a secular point of view PTS may be sectarian interpretive.
From the commentarial point of view PTS may be a philological attempt or secular attempt.[Ven. Nyanaponika - Visuddhimagga Introduction:]The PED, as its preface states, is “essentially preliminary”; for when it was published many books had still not been collated; it leaves out many words even from the Sutta Piþaka, and the Sub-commentaries are not touched by it. Also—and most important here—in the making of that dictionary the study of Pali literature had for the most part not been tackled much from, shall one say, the philosophical, or better, epistemological, angle,24 work and interest having been concentrated till then almost exclusively on history and philology.
For instance, the epistemologically unimportant word vimána (divine mansion) is given more than twice the space allotted to the term paþiccasamuppáda (dependent origination), a difficult subject of central importance, the article on which is altogether inadequate and misleading (owing partly to misapplication of the “historical method”).
but not fully
What revived at several times in Sri Lanka was Upasampada not the doctrine.
If revived, then no problem
May be not always
Have you ever seen people doing the correct thing?
Is this the differently interpreted word "Ekayana Magga"?
That may be similar to say like this: (i) use an UNCERTAIN approach and (ii) analyze UNCERTAINLY how they are used contextually in the suttas.
I feel like ven. Buddhaghosa speaking.
MN 148 Chachakkasuttavaṇṇanā
.... Tattha na upapajjatīti na yujjati. .....
or some
Inverse Theory
can re-solve what has already solved.
Correction: (Here I meant the following idea. My first language is not English)
Maria Heim's new The Forerunner of All Things (Oxford University Press, 2013)
is one of the few books to explore Buddhaghosa's extremely wide corpus of work on a whole. She focuses on the theme of intention (cetana) to explore how Buddhaghosa articulates a moral psychology very different from modern Western conceptions of ethics that focus on individual choices and decisions. The book is an important work for philosophers in moral psychology as well as students of Theravada.
Maria Heim, Professor of Religion: 1, 2
While my training and scholarship are focused on premodern South Asian Buddhism, I teach about the whole Buddhist world, past and present, across diverse traditions in Asia and the west. ...
and much of my work involves texts that have not been translated into any modern language. My focus is primarily on the intellectual history of the Theravada tradition, that is, the main form of Buddhism found today in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia.
I have also worked a great deal on the 5th century Theravada thinker Buddhaghosa.
Interview "Buddhaghosa: Immeasurable Words"
Maria Heim: I have tried to point out that modern ways of reading based on historicist philology that began in the late 18thcentury in Europe are hardly universal. As we note that the theories and interpretative practices of modern philology are themselves products of a certain localized history, we can become aware of alternative ways of reading and thinking about texts from other times and places that were innocent of them. For me this perhaps obvious insight has entailed wanting to know what Buddhaghosa's "theory of text" is and what he thinks is required to interpret a text. (Sheldon Pollock's work has been good on helping us to think about how texts often suggest an implicit or explicit theory of text and alternative philologies.)
I have found Buddhaghosa to be remarkably explicit about this once I let myself be guided by his agendas. He tells us repeatedly that the "meaning and phrasing" of scripture are immeasurable, that we should look for beauty in every unit of text, that some kinds of Buddhist knowledge are particularist and context-dependent while other forms of it have a more abstract, view-from-nowhere quality, that the Buddha spoke in both colloquial and analytically-precise registers that should be interpreted differently, and so on. These qualities of the Buddha's knowledge suggest different ways of reading and interpreting it, and so can function as guidelines for us. We then arrive at understandings of Buddhist ideas and intellectual practices different from what we would have if we limited ourselves to European philology's interest in text criticism, historicism, etc.
Some publications/articles:Voice of the Buddha: Buddhaghosa on the Immeasurable Words
By examining the significance of the immeasurability of scripture in commentarial practice and as a general principle, this book offers new tools to understand the huge scriptural and commentarial literature of the Pali tradition. And by taking seriously a traditional commentator's theory of texts, it beckons us to learn from commentaries themselves how we might read and interpret them and the texts on which they comment.
Amazing. You appear to be the only poster on this topic you created after the invoking of the censors. What is the point & benefit of this topic about 'dictionaries' when the dictionaries cannot even be critiqued using the suttas? What is the point of starting this topic when one cannot post their opinion on the topic?
Pointless contributing to the above when posts quoting dictionaries & suttas will be censored & removed.
Sorry but we are not allowed to answer the above questions honestly & intelligently. If we do, the asker of the questions may invoke the censors.
You’re actually sort of trashing the ancient commentators and grammarians by trying to make this argument. Modern PEDs and translations are the result of their very hard work. Your issue is with how people continue to build on those primary meanings with interpretations that are at variance with the broader perspective of certain commentaries. That is a valid argument. You should probably find a simpler way to make your point. Something like, “I think the commentarial interpretation is most practical for gaining freedom from suffering because…”.Eko Care wrote: ↑Tue Mar 29, 2022 9:52 am Actually the Pali language and their meanings came down (from the Blessed One's time), by the monks who believed the commentary.
So there is no way to find a Pali independent from the commentary. All the old Pali grammar books are kind of sub-commentaries.
So if one believes an own interpretation of the pali text, then it will be a mixture of commentarial and anti-commentarial interpretations, which leads nowhere because it is a
Salad.
Depends on what dictionary you’re talking about. As far as I know, most Pali-English dictionaries are to some degree based off of commentarial views. I agree that there are many interpretations that build upon that basic framework into something completely at variance with the broader view of the commentarial tradition, but the very basis is still rooted in what came from the ancient grammarians and commentators. Like I said, you should structure your argument a little better so you don’t inadvertently end up calling into question the soundness of commentarial interpretations that are responsible for modern knowledge of the Pali language and therefore has a solid presence in modern translations and dictionaries.
I think DooDoot's initial analysis here is an appropriate one.DooDoot wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 9:28 pm The current Pali dictionaries, particularly the PTS, appear often sectarian interpretive rather than etymological; therefore appear cannot be relied on. The impression is the English scholars who compiled the PTS Dictionaries were indoctrinated by Sri Lankans in a country (Sri Lanka) where Buddhism came close to extinction and had to be revived by the Burmese.
These interpretive dictionaries often follow the Commentaries, therefore this topic's choices appear illogical.
The 3rd choice of this topic is equally illogical; given Buddhism is not about choosing your own idiosyncratic doctrinal interpretation.
I think the only way to understand Pali words is to: (i) use an etymological approach and (ii) analyze how they are used contextually in the suttas.
For example, the word 'upapajjati' is found in MN 148, where it obviously does not mean 'reborn' or 'reincarnated'.
Therefore, if we use an etymological approach and also analyze how words are used contextually in the suttas; we can find the meaning of a word that will fit most or all contexts.
