SarathW said,
Hi Lal
Could you give your opinion on the Pabhassara Citta in the following link? Please do not answer here.
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15567&start=20#p422008
I will try to give my opinion after I have read through the posts in that link in a few days. But I prefer to settle a key issue here before going to other issues, because without resolving this, it is hard to make progress on any other issue.
We need to address and resolve this issue about getting stuck in whether it is “atta”, “attha”, or even “aththa”.
Aflatun said,
Bikkhu Pesala, Lal, et al.
For those of us with no command of Pali, perhaps you could help understand the disagreement
Bhante, are you saying there is a master, source Pali text that says, for example, anattho vs. anattö ? If so, how/why has the transliteration error happened?
SarathW said,
Unfortunately I have to disagree with you in your definition of Attha and atta.
I have re-read most of the posts in this discussion. We are going around in loops without addressing the root issue.
Let me ask the following questions:
1.I think everyone agrees that we need to take the Pali Tipitaka as the basis.
2. Tipitaka was transmitted orally until 29 BCE when it was written down in Sri Lanka at the fourth Council (Sangayana). Pali does not have its own alphabet. It was written with Sinhala script.
- For example, Tilakkhana (Three characteristics of nature) were written in the original Tipitaka as අනිච්ච, දුක්ඛ, අනත්ත. It was not written down in English or Sanskrit, or any other language. So, it is not relevant to the discussion to try find the etymology in English or Sanskrit.
- Let us take just one of them: අනත්ත. It was NOT written down first as “anatta”, “anattha”, or even “anaththa” in English OR as “anathma” in Sanskrit.
- The first English translations were first made by Rhys Davis and other Europeans in the late 1600’s, see:
https://puredhamma.net/historical-backg ... -dhamma-2/
- This is the key to many of the problems that we keep encountering in this and other discussion forums.
3. So, Aflatun and SrathW, do you see my point?
Depending on who writes අනත්ත in English, it could be written as “anatta”, “anattha”, or even “anaththa”. It could also be written as “anatto” to rhyme in a Pali verse. Those are not grammatical variations most of the time.
The key is not to get hang up on how it is written, but WHAT IS MEANT by that word.
So, there are two issues here:
First, a given Pali word is written in English. For example, අනත්ත could be written as “anatta”, “anattha”, or even “anaththa”. It would be nice to settle down on a standard way to write it, but that is not the critical issue.
Second, it is TRANSLATED into English too. This is the more critical step. Did the correct meaning come through with the commonly used word, “impermanence”?
When Rhys Davis and others started doing those translations, they were heavily influenced by Sanskrit Mahayana sutras, as well by Vedic literature (Think about it: when the Europeans first started discovering all these different Pali and Sanskrit documents, it was not easy for them to distinguish between Hinduism and Buddhism). They ASSUMED that “anatta” was the same as “anaathma” which is a Sanskrit word, with a totally different meaning.
The worst is that even Sinhala scholars like Malasekara (who was a doctoral student of Rhys Davis), “learned” Buddhism from the Europeans, and thus started using wrong interpretations. Other Sinhala scholars like Kalupahana and Jayathilake also learned “Buddhism” at universities in United Kingdom. But if one is interested in experiencing the “cooling down”, one needs to learn Buddha Dhamma from either a Buddha or a true disciple of the Buddha, i.e., one with at least the Sotapanna stage of Nibbana (one who has already experienced the “cooling down”), see:
https://puredhamma.net/seeking-nibbana/ ... aggaphala/
4.The Tipitaka was never translated, even to Sinhala, for 1500 years until it started to be translated to English in the late 1600’s as mentioned above. When it was first translated to Sinhala in 2005, incorrect meanings were used for most key words.
- Pali suttas are not meant to be translated word-to-word as I explained in the previous post. Please read my earlier posts and the links given. One problem here is that I don’t think people read the links that I give. Of course, it is up to each person to read or not, but without being exposed to that information, one will be unaware of some critical information. And it is not possible for me to write everything down in a comment like this (it is still going to be long).
5. Since most suttas are in condensed form, those key Pali words were explained in detail in commentaries that were composed from the time the Buddha. Most old commentaries have been lost, but luckily there are three commentaries composed in the time of the Buddha that are still in the Tipitaka: Patisambhidamagga, Petakopadesa, and Nettippakarana
My late teacher, Waharaka Thero, was the first to really go through those three commentaries and he found the correct interpretations of many key words including anicca, dukkha, anatta.
There is a separate section on the historical background:
https://puredhamma.net/historical-background/
But, at least read the most recent post:
https://puredhamma.net/historical-backg ... ackground/
6.I think this should be a key discussion to try get to the root of the problem. Otherwise, we will be going around in circles forever, jumping from one issue to another without resolving any issue and thus without much benefit.
I have also added a section to my key post anicca, dukkha, anatta to discuss how these words could have been mistranslated starting with the works of Rhys Davis, Eugene Burnouf, Olcott, and others:
https://puredhamma.net/key-dhamma-conce ... ha-anatta/
I hope those who are interested will take time to go through this material.
Please feel free to criticize/comment. I am open to an honest, open discussion based on facts, not statements on how one feels about a given issue. Buddha Dhamma is unique and different; it takes an effort to grasp the key concepts. A Buddha comes to this world to explain these hard-to-grasp concepts that are hidden from normal human minds.
With metta, Lal
, I see your point, I hope Ven Dhammanando or Ven Pesala might give their thoughts on this.
