I am new to this forum and came here because I have a very specific question about the translation of "the cessation of suffering". I hope you can help me.
I acquired recently the book "Pali Buddhist Texts explained to the beginner" by Rune E.A. Johansson and my question is the following:
On page 28 of the book, ch. 4 "The cessation of suffering" (Digha Nikaya II 310)":
There is the Pali phrase:
(sorry I have no Pali accents).Yo tassa yeva tanhaya asesa-viraga-nirodho cago patinissaggo mutti analayo
Literally, word for word:
Yo tassa yeva: Just this
tanhaya: craving/thirst (noun)
asesa-viraga-nirodho: complete-indifference/freedom_from_desire-cessation (compound noun)
cago: abandoning (noun)
patinissaggo: rejecting (noun)
mutti: release (noun)
analayo: aversion (noun)
In the book (and generally in Buddhism I believe) this is translated as:
All the nouns following tanhaya are interpreted as referring to tanhaya, as having tanhaya as object.Just the complete indifference to and cessation of that very craving, the abandoning of it, the rejection of it, the freedom of it, the aversion towards it.
My question is: purely technically speaking (making abstraction of meaning and only taking in consideration grammar), what would prevent me from translating as, for instance:
Now I know this may sound like "Buddhist nonsense", but I would really like to ask you to leave interpretation aside for a moment and only focus on grammar, if that would be possible...Just this, the complete cessation of the indifference towards craving, the abandoning of rejection, the release of aversion.
In fact, the main points of my question are:
1) the compound asesa-viraga-nirodho: (complete, without remainder)-(indifference towards, freedom from desire)-cessation, could be translated as:
a) the complete indifference towards or freedom from cessation
b) the complete cessation of indifference or freedom from
How do I know, purely technically/gramatically speaking, which is correct? Is there a way in Pali, or is this up to the reader, depending on context and interpretation?
2) cago patinissaggo mutti analayo
Same question really, how do I know to which object they refer? In fact it's just a series of nouns if I understand correctly. So one could understand for instance cago to point to patinissaggo, or to tanhaya, or to the compound asesa-viraga-nirodho? Or is there something in the grammar, inflections and such, which would prevent me from doing this, which would "force" me to understand it in one way or another?
I would be very grateful if someone could shed some light on this; I'm sorry if this turns out to be a stupid question, thank you for your time in any case...