Dhammanando wrote: ↑Fri Jan 02, 2009 4:20 am The earliest interpretation of the Dhammapada's opening verses —that of the Peṭakopadesa— takes mano in verse 1 as referring to viññāṇakkhandha or manoviññāṇadhātu or manāyatana or manindriya accompanied by the three akusala roots (loba, dosa, moha). Dhammā is then taken to refer to the ten akusalakammapaṭha, from killing of living beings to wrong view. Verse 2 is the same, but with the consciousness arising with kusala roots and dhammā referring to the ten kusalakammapaṭha.
The Dhammapada Atthakathā follows the same interpretation, but expounding it in a more abhidhammic fashion, with mano defined as the eight kāmāvacara kusalacittas and dhammā as vedanā, saññā and saṅkhārā.
My preferred translation is that of K.R. Norman:
"Mental phenomena are preceded by mind, have mind as their leader, are made by mind..."
As for the others....
Buddharakkhita's and Piyadassi's renderings are marred by the gratuitous insertion of the word "all".
In Carter and Palihawadana's, "perception" is a very quirky rendering of mano, which doesn't correspond to any of the senses that this word has in the Suttas or Abhidhamma.
Thanissaro's "made of the heart" for manomayā sounds a little bizarre. "Heart" in my view would be best reserved for hadaya and not used for anything else.
Those of Mascaro, Fronsdal, Lal, Byrom and Maguire are not really translations at all, but ill-conceived paraphrases.
If anyone have a deviation/view from the general/classical view, he have to cherry-pick some of the "Neyyattha" phrases to claim that their view is true.Cittasanto wrote: ↑Fri Jan 02, 2009 1:01 pmI agree I remember the first time I came across the Kalama Sutta, (I can never find the page of the internet where this particular translation is, but have a copy of it from the Book called "Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism - By Kobutsu Malone") it is called the Kernel of Free inquiry but omits quite allot of the text as found on Access to insight! and it is called a distillation which to my mind gives more of an impression that this is the essence of what the sutta is about rather than an extract, when in fact it turns out that an extract would of been a more fitting word! as it only addresses the discernment of truth aspect of the sutta not the action aspect which I think is bigger and more important part of the Dialogue!Dhammanando wrote: It's true that the meaning is more important than the phrasing:
But this doesn't mean that the phrasing is of no importance at all:
So they generally prefer the phrases like Dhamma, Sambhavesi, Antara Parinibbayi, Thatagata, Nama, Magga, Pabbhassara Citta ...etc.