>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.

I also found it interesting, but I don't see what
it contributes to our understanding of the word
sara.na.m. Perhaps I'm just dense, but what have
we learned?

best regards,

/Rett