Tipitika - Best English translation?

[jwstone]

I was wondering if there was a widely accepted and used English translation of the Tipitika? I'm noticing there are many translations, similar to the way there are with Christianity. For example, I always loved the King James version of the Bible because it seemed to be closer to the original wording (at least from what I could tell). I'm looking for both accuracy and readability.

[DNS]

I like Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhante Sujato's translations. Very readable. As far as accuracy, I can't judge on that as I'm not a Pali expert.

For example, I always loved the King James version of the Bible because it seemed to be closer to the original wording (at least from what I could tell).

On this I'm an expert and definitely the Hebrew version is the most accurate.

[SarathW]

I started reading Sutta by translations in Accesstoinsight.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/index.html

I think the best is to read Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation. To do that you have to buy the books or find a library you can borrow them.
Sutta Central publishes translations in many languages by many authors.

[mikenz66]

I think the best is to read Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation. To do that you have to buy the books or find a library you can borrow them.
Sutta Central publishes translations in many languages by many authors.

There are quite a few of Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations on Sutta Central: https://suttacentral.net/search?query=author:bodhi
Along with, as Sarath says, many translations by other, less famous, translators, some of whom are very well studied, such as Bhikkhu Ānandajoti. His own site is here: https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/ and includes a number of line-by-line Pali-English translations, which is, of course, a great strength of Sutta Central.

Bhikkhu Thanissaro's latest translations are here: https://www.dhammatalks.org/ He has made quite a few updates since Access To Insight https://www.accesstoinsight.org/index.html became static ten years ago. However, there are some translations on ATI by other authors that are not available elsewhere. t

The availability of line-by-line translations of all of the early Pali texts (DN, MN, SN, AN and selected KN texts) on Sutta Central is a huge change. Whether one agrees with a particular translator's choice of doctrinal terms becomes a non-issue, as it's easy to check the Pali words.

The real work of translation is not in choosing words for major doctrinal term (whether one translates dukkha as suffering or stress, etc.). The real work is in translating difficult passages that require a comprehensive knowledge of context. For this reason it is great that new English translations continue to appear, with the translators bringing their various knowledge to bear on those issues.


Mike

[BKh]

This page should give you some idea of what is out there:
https://readingfaithfully.org/overview- ... criptures/

Almost all translations of the suttas have been done by individuals and not teams/denominations like with the Christian bible.

Sutta central has about a third of Bhikkhu Bodhi's translations from the MN, SN and AN. You can find ebooks of them here:
https://readingfaithfully.org/selection ... epub-mobi/
http://readingfaithfully.org/selections ... epub-mobi/
https://readingfaithfully.org/book-sour ... epub-mobi/

The translations themselves were released by the publisher for free distribution.

[skandha]

Nowadays my main go to translation is Bhikkhu Sujato's. I think he has done a great job to make it an "approachable" translation which is easier to understand for the masses. That's the way the Buddha would have wanted it as he taught in the vernacular language rather than in the elite Sanskrit.

[jwstone]

Nowadays my main go to translation is Bhikkhu Sujato's. I think he has done a great job to make it an "approachable" translation which is easier to understand for the masses. That's the way the Buddha would have wanted it as he taught in the vernacular language rather than in the elite Sanskrit.

Totally agree! This is the translation I have been studying and using. Very modern and much easier to understand. I would like to get print versions one of these days. I usually read it on my computer, phone and Kindle.