Post
by Lal » Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:46 pm
As kstan1122 said, it is better not to comment (or even to read my posts) if someone is truly offended by my explanations. That would at least minimize the damage that one is doing to oneself. There are so many views out there, as in other forums even here. Why bother with this particular explanation (especially if it is so obviously wrong)?
Buddha Dhamma is deep and not everyone can understand it. As I pointed out before, the Buddha wondered how he would be able to explain this deep Dhamma to humans. But of course, there are enough people who can understand, once pointed out.
I am not done with my explanation of “san”. I will come back to it. But I think I have given enough things to think about. Further explanations need more background material and that is what I am focusing on now.
That does not mean one should not ask questions to clear one’s doubts. That is called “vimansā”, or “examination”. However, the difference between vimansā and attempts to put down an explanation just to win an argument can be clearly seen. I any case, I want to address some of the issues to point out some key misconceptions in translating Pali words to English.
Translation of Tipitaka Pāli Words to English
In response to Ven Dhammanando’s rebuttal quoted by Coemgenu, he quoted:
“Khandhānañ’ ca paṭipāṭi, dhātu-āyatanāna ca,
Abbocchinnaṃ vattamānā, saṃsāro’ ti pavuccatī ti.
The process of the aggregates, elements and bases,
Proceeding without interruption is called ‘saṃsāra’.”
There is nothing here that contradicts my explanation. The aggregates, dhatus, and the set of ayatanas will proceed uninterrupted (i.e., the rebirth process will continue) as long as one perceives “san” (attaching to worldly things) is “sāra” or “beneficial”. This was explained in the November 9 post.
By the way, how would you explain the difference between "phassa" and "samphassa"? (explained in the post on November 8).
The analysis of saṅkhyā does not refute my explanation either. It just says there could be other explanations. But my explanation fits too.
He says: “The disparateness of the two can be seen even more starkly in Sanskrit, where their respective cognates are saṅkhāyati and kṣinoti.”.
As I have explained before, Sanskrit should not be used to analyze Pali words.
He says: “There are two traditional etymologies for sandiṭṭhiko, one of which gives rise to the translation “to be seen by oneself” and the other to translations like “self-evident”. But regardless of which of these one prefers, the term is one of the special qualities of the Dhamma, not of any person. And so to speak of somebody “becoming” sandiṭṭhiko at the sotāpanna stage is nonsensical.”
What are the two traditional etymologies for sandiṭṭhiko? Not explained, neither for samma (and therefore, in sammaditthi, etc) too.
He says: “The nicca in anicca has nothing to do with the adjective iccha (wishing) or the noun icchā (a wish) or the verb icchati (to wish).
The colloquial Sinhala pronunciation of it is actually a mispronunciation when judged by the phonetic descriptions in the ancient Pali grammars. When Sri Lankans pronounce Pali words their commonest mistake is to make aspirated consonants into non-aspirates and non-aspirated consonants into aspirates. This can be seen in the unorthodox romanization system used at the Pure Dhamma site:
gathi instead of gati
hethu-pala instead of hetu-phala.
micca-ditthi instead of micchā-diṭṭhi
satipattana instead of satipaṭṭhāna
Etc., etc.”
As I have pointed out, Pali does not have its own alphabet. Tipitaka was written with Sinhala alphabet. When the European scholars started translating the Tipitaka, they had to come to an agreement on how to write certain words with the English alphabet. They decided to make, for example, “th” sound with just “t” just to keep the length of words shorter.
For example, the words “gathi” and “gati” are pronounced in Sinhala as, “ගති” and “ගටි”. In the Tipitaka, it is written in Sinhala as “ගති”. That is why I had written it as “gathi” in some of my posts. When I realized that it has been written as “gati” in many English translations, now I write it as “gati”, to be consistent with existing English literature.
It seems that the early European scholars made a decision to write the “th” sound just with “t”. In the same way, they decided to write the “ch” sound just with “c”. I can understand that, since otherwise the English words would become very long. For example, to make it sound the same, “cattāri” (චත්තාරි is the way it is written in the Tipitaka) needs to be written as “chaththāri”. So, I can understand the reasons for their convention, and I have tried to stick to that convention after I became aware of this usage.
So, one needs to have a good understanding of Sinhala (not in Sanskrit) to really make sure to have the correct “explanations”.
In the Tipitaka, both miccā-ditthi and micchā-diṭṭhi have been used. The latter is used to emphasize the importance, as in “very wrong views”. Same with anicca and aniccha.
Satipatthāna should really be that way. It is likely that I made a mistake in writing it as satipattāna in that particular instance.
By the way, has anyone bothered to think why the Tipitaka was never written in Sanskrit? It has been translated to Chinese, Burmese, etc, and NEVER to Sanskrit. That is because the Buddha prohibited it. Only the Mahayana texts (sutrās, not suttās), that were written hundreds of years later, are in Sanskrit. There are too many words (and roots) that appear to be related, but are really not. So, it is really a bad idea to try to find meanings of Pali words using Sanskrit roots.