At 15:14 24.03.2005 +0000, you wrote:

>Kåre A. Lie wrote:
>
> > I hope someone also can give some idea of the early Chinese translations
> > as
>well.
>
>As there don't seem to be any other takers, I'll have a go.
>For the compound phrase, "saranam *gam", the normal Chinese is "guiyi" in
>which the individual charcaters mean something like "turn to" and "rely on".
>I think the connotation would simply have been "rely upon". There may be
>other earlier non-standard equivalents but come spring to mind at present.
>In the "diipo le.na ..." chain, saranam is often just translated by "gui" =
>something you rely on or turn to.
>
>Best wishes,
>Stephen Hodge

This is very interesting, and it confirms my "suspicion" that a study of
the early Chinese translations can contribute quite a lot to the
understanding of Pali.

My heartfelt thanks to you, Stephen, for sharing your knowledge with us!

Best regards,

Kåre A. Lie
http://www.lienet.no/