Hi Kare A. Lie and all,

Firstly, a belated Happy New Year to all.

Secondly, a little bit about myself on account of my being one of
the "more passive" members of this forum. For the benfit of the "non-
Malaysian" international members, and I guess, especially for you,
Kare, I would would like to inform you that the national language of
my country of residence (as well as citizebship) is know as "Bahasa
Melayu", or just "Malay". "Bahasa" means "Language". It is a
language which I know and speak fairly well.

When I first started reading Buddhist literature I was quite
surprised at the number of "Malay sounding words" I came across in
Pali. (Just a little reminder, ethnically, I am a Punjabi [a type of
north Indian], and I have also found many Punjabi sounding words in
Pali).

However, the Malay sounding word that really gave me a terrible jolt
was the word "Hinayana", and especially so, when it was brought
together with the word "Mahayana".

In the Malay language, the commonly used word "hina" simply
means "disrespect" or "to look down upon" and so many words that you
have described in your webpage http://www.lienet.no/hinayan1.htm .

Some excerpts:

<<<They called their opponents Hinayana, and this word worked
excellently as an insult - with a simplicity and a parallellity to
Mahayana that any fool could grasp. Hinayana, or, more correctly,
hiinayaana, is a highly derogatory term. It does not simply
mean "Lesser vehicle" as one often can see stated.>>>

<<<Every Buddhist knows the first recorded sermon of the Buddha, the
Dhammacakkappavattanasutta spoken to the five ascets who became the
first five bhikkhus. There the Buddha says: "These two extremes,
monks, are not to be practised by one who has gone forth from the
world. What are the two? That conjoined with the passions and luxury,
low (hiina), coarse, vulgar, ignoble and harmful ..." >>>

<<<Knowing that the sutta style often use strings of synonyms this
way, so that they strengthen and define each other, one can
regard "coarse, vulgar, ignoble and harmful" as auxiliary definitions
of "hiina" in this case.>>>

<<<Here the Buddha clearly denotes tIn Mahayanasutralankara by
Asanga, which is a very representativ Mahayana text, we find
something of interest for our quest. Asanga says: "There are three
groups of people: hiina-madhyama-vishishta ...(bad - medium -
excellent)." This expression is parallell to the Pali: hiina-majjhima-
pa.niita, and goes to show that the Mahayanists who coined the
therm "hiinayaana", regarded "hiina" as a derogatory term, with the
same meaning as in the Pali texts the path not to be practised, as
hiina.>>>

So I just want to thank you for that article you have posted on your
website. I found it quite informative, indeed.

regards

Sukhdev Singh

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Kåre A. Lie" <alberlie@...> wrote:
> At 06:32 16.01.2005 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
> >Hi!
> >
> >Happy new year 2005!! Wishing you the best of everything this new
year
> >and always! May all your dreams come true!!!
> >
> >Which is your favorite digital version of the Tipitaka (both
online and not
> >online)?
> >
> >Thanks!
> >June
>
> My favorite version is the Chattha Sangayana CD from the Vipassana
Research
> Institute. I have copied the entire CD onto my harddisk, and find
it very
> useful.
>
> Yours,
>
> Kåre A. Lie
> http://www.lienet.no/