It is precisely on account of a lack of lexical skills (i.e., an inaccurate understanding of the semantic range of the word sacca) that certain readers of SN56.11 (starting with Mrs Rhys Davids) have regarded the phrase dukkhasamudayaṃ ariyasaccaṃ pahātabbaṃ as problematic. The seeming problem disappears when one recognizes the very imperfect semantic correspondence between English truth and Pali sacca.frank k wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:16 pm Show me how your awesome "reading comprehension skills" works when you see how in SN 56.11, in the twelve permutations, one is told to abandon the second noble truth, rather than craving, the cause of suffering that the second noble truth is referring to.
How well will your grammar and lexical skills serve you there?
The word satya (Pāli sacca) can certainly mean truth, but it might equally well be rendered as ‘real’ or ‘actual thing’. That is, we are not dealing with propositional truths with which we must either agree or disagree, but with four ‘true things’ or ‘realities’ whose nature, we are told, the Buddha finally understood on the night of his awakening.
(Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism)
For a fuller discussion of sacca in SN56.11 see the attached paper by Peter Harvey.
The Four Ariya-saccas as ‘True Realities for the Spiritually Ennobled’ rather than ‘Noble Truths’ Concerning These