Metta Translation

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bodhifollower
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Metta Translation

Post by bodhifollower »

Can someone who is skilled in Pali please translate this from the Karaniya Metta Sutta:
Sukhino va khemino hontu
Sabbe satta bhavantu sukhitatta

I'm looking for a quite literal translation word for word.
Every translation I've seen has been really inaccurate.
Thank you.
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Dhammanando
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Re: Metta Translation

Post by Dhammanando »

bodhifollower wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:14 pm Can someone who is skilled in Pali please translate this from the Karaniya Metta Sutta:
Sukhino va khemino hontu
Sabbe satta bhavantu sukhitatta

I'm looking for a quite literal translation word for word.
Sukhino, khemino and sukhitattā may be either adjectives or nouns. In English most translators treat them as adjectives as this sounds more natural.

Sukhino: plural of sukhī, "happy" or "one who is happy".

Khemino: plural of khemī, "safe/secure" or "one who is safe/secure".

Sukhitattā: = sukhita ("pleased") + attā ("self"). Literally, "having a pleased self" or "one who has a pleased self". But since the commentaries gloss attā as citta, most translators go for something like "happy in mind", "joyful in heart" or other words to this effect.

Vā: "and". In Pali prose vā always means "or". But in verse it is sometimes substituted for ca ("and") when the metre calls for a long syllable.

Hontu: "May they be!" Imperative plural of hoti.

Bhavantu: "May they be!" Imperative plural of bhavati.

Sabbe sattā (var. sabbasattā): "all beings".

"May they be happy and safe!
May all beings be joyful in heart!"

For the commentarial glosses see Minor Readings and Illustrator pp. 282-3.

https://archive.org/details/PaliComment ... 2/mode/2up
bodhifollower wrote: Thu May 13, 2021 9:14 pm Every translation I've seen has been really inaccurate.
Would you care to say more? Though there are certainly quite a few flawed translations of the Mettasutta as a whole, all the Sutta Central renderings of this particular verse seem fine to me. Even the one by the hacks at Amaravati seems passable.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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