Yuttadhammo wrote:

> Please comment.

[snip]

> Tassuddaana'm
> It's content is:

Dear Bhante,

It interests me how people working with the different Buddhist
languages have each developed in apparent isolation various equivalents for
terms. Being accustomed to read Sanskrit / Tibetan / Chinese based
materials, it sometimes seems as though I am reading texts with a totally
different base terminology when I read Pali translations. I am not, of
course, saying that anybody's translation terminology should be privileged
over another's, but it does get a bit confusing.
At the moment, as I have mentioned before, I am working inter alia
on a large section of the Yogacara-bhumi which functions as a commentary on
the Samyukta-agama -- hence many of the sutras covered also have their
equivalents in Pali. I translate quotations and terms based on the
quasi-standardized equivalents for Tibetan, Chinese and Sanskrit, but I
always get a big surprise when I look at e.g. Bikkhu Bodhi's Samyutta-nikaya
translation. I suppose some of his equivalents are based on Pali atthakatha
interpretations -- like the use of the "cords of desire" for "kaama-gu.na",
which is never understood thus by non-Pali translators.
Similarly, though rather trivial in import, in the case of "uddaana"
above, we always put "summary verse" -- naturally, your "contents" is not
wrong, for that is what it is -- though your "it's" IS wrong: it should be
"its", a common, though regrettable, mistake these days.
I have been monitoring this ongoing AN translation project in the
hope that a sutta with a Chinese parallel will crop up sooner or later so I
can compare the two -- but curiously, huge swathes of the AN suttas have no
equivalents in the Ekottara-agama and vice versa. I suppose this indicates
the relatively late date of compilation for this Nikaya / Agama.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge