Suttanipata trans. by Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi

[Nicholas Weeks]

Venerable, I have no plans to memorize, but do intend to recite all (or most) of the SN. Always in English of course. I am fond of that old practice of recitation.

So, which SN suttas would you single out as being especially worthy of reciting; prioritize if you will?

From very early times the parts of the Suttanipāta that were especial favourites for memorization/recitation were, firstly, the thirty-two suttas that make up the Aṭṭhakavagga and Parāyanavagga, and secondly, the seven suttas which came to be included in an early paritta collection called the Four Bhāṇavāras (also called the Mahāparit-poṭha). These are:

Maṅgalasutta
Ratanasutta
Karaṇīyamettasutta
Āḷavakasutta
Kasībhāradvājasutta
Parābhavasutta
Vasalasutta

Being of a rather solitary bent, my personal favourite —besides the above— is the Khaggavisāṇasutta.

Great, I shall begin sacred mutterings soon.

But since I am often of a surly, misanthropic bent I have been fussing with that last line of the attractive Rhino Sutta. Because this Pali word 'care' is usually rendered wander or move, it makes sense for the rhino but not for the attached horn, which stays put. So among the choices I have tinkered thusly, considering the vertical slow growth of the horn & its point:

Thanks (and pardon) to the late L. MIlls:
grow singly - as the rhino’s horn
or aspire singly - as the rhino’s horn
or rise singly - as the rhino’s horn.

The inserted hyphen (or maybe colon or semi-colon) seems to clarify some. Allowing for poetic license, could the Pali word be stretched so far - what do you think?

But perhaps you are in the 'wandering rhino' camp like some?

[Dhammanando]

But perhaps you are in the 'wandering rhino' camp like some?

Certainly not. I’m a card-carrying member of the ceratinous camp.

Though from a literary point of view I highly appreciate E.M. Hare’s elegant rendering in Woven Cadences, nevertheless there’s no doubt that the instrument of the simile is correctly understood to be a horn, not a rhinoceros.

As for the tenor of the simile, this is not the verb care, but rather the adjective eko, ‘solitary’, ‘single’.

And so if one were to give the line an expansive explanatory translation, the meaning would not be: “Wander solitarily, as a rhinoceros horn wanders solitarily,” but rather: “Wander solitary, as a rhinoceros horn is solitary,” or, “Be solitary as you wander, in the way that a rhinoceros horn is solitary.”

Unfortunately a translation conveying the simile’s sense with this degree of formal accuracy is liable to sound a bit clumsy in English. Consequently most translators will either opt for Eugene Nida-style dynamic equivalence (e.g., by turning the rhinoceros horn into a rhinoceros, as the above-mentioned E.M Hare did) or else produce translations where care rather than eko is treated as the simile’s tenor. When the latter course is adopted, the translation may at first sound passable:

“One should wander solitary as a rhinoceros horn.”
(K.R. Norman)

... but then seems a trifle absurd when the reader thinks about it, for it requires him to imagine a detached rhinoceros’s horn gallivanting about in the jungle.

[paul]

The Indian rhino is mostly solitary, with the exception of breeding pairs and females with calves.

[binocular]

And so if one were to give the line an expansive explanatory translation, the meaning would not be: “Wander solitarily, as a rhinoceros horn wanders solitarily,” but rather: “Wander solitary, as a rhinoceros horn is solitary,” or, “Be solitary as you wander, in the way that a rhinoceros horn is solitary.”

With the proviso that we're talking about the Indian rhinoceros:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:One_horned_Rhino.jpg

The African ones have two horns:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wate ... shorn2.jpg

[binocular]

... but then seems a trifle absurd when the reader thinks about it, for it requires him to imagine a detached rhinoceros’s horn gallivanting about in the jungle.

Could the simile refer to something entirely different which would require specific cultural-historic knowledge to understand it?

For example, back in the day, they didn't have solid soap; they had a powder which had to be mixed with water and kneaded into a paste. "Kneading soap" doesn't make sense now, but it did then.

[Dhammanando]

... but then seems a trifle absurd when the reader thinks about it, for it requires him to imagine a detached rhinoceros’s horn gallivanting about in the jungle.

Could the simile refer to something entirely different which would require specific cultural-historic knowledge to understand it?

The case for the traditional understanding of the simile is both so ancient (i.e., it appears unambiguously as early as the KN's Niddesa), so widely attested (e.g. in non-Theravadin texts like the Mahāvastu) and so strong (see, for example, K.R. Norman's defence of it in the revised edition of his Sn. translation) that I don't perceive any imperative to go speculating on alternative possibilities based on unknowns.

[JiWe2]

A solitary rhino having a single horn <-> a solitary wanderer having a single aim?

[Nicholas Weeks]

Wander solitary, as a rhinoceros horn is solitary,

Think I will use Bhante's suggestion, with a little tweak: Wander alone - solitary as is a rhino's horn.

Or modify my own amateur effort to: Fare alone - as the rhino’s horn is single.

[binocular]

The case for the traditional understanding of the simile is both so ancient (i.e., it appears unambiguously as early as the KN's Niddesa), so widely attested (e.g. in non-Theravadin texts like the Mahāvastu) and so strong (see, for example, K.R. Norman's defence of it in the revised edition of his Sn. translation) that I don't perceive any imperative to go speculating on alternative possibilities based on unknowns.

Knowing that the reference is to the Indian one-horned rhinoceros (as opposed to other, two-horned rhinoceroses) is already specific cultural-historic knowledge.

It's sometimes difficult to internalize some widely accepted notions that are considered self-evident, because to one, they aren't self-evident.

- - -

A solitary rhino having a single horn <-> a solitary wanderer having a single aim?

And thick skin and a fierce nature, and being neither an aggressive hunter like a tiger or a lion, nor docile like a cow. But who knows whether the analogy is meant to go into that direction or not.

[Nicholas Weeks]

A solitary rhino having a single horn <-> a solitary wanderer having a single aim?

Yes, that is the gist!

[aflatun]

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