Dear Dmytro,

Thank you very much for your message. I am happy that there is so much
interest in my suggestion regarding improving the Vimuttimagga.
Most of the articles on the Vimuttimagga that you list I have been
aware of and/or read.
You can definitely help with the Pali reconstruction and giving other
advice This might be better after Chinese scholars have gone through
it first.
Regarding making a completely new translation: Who would be willing
and capable to undertake such a task in accordance with the great
standards Dr Skilling puts forth? Dr Skilling does not have the time
himself...
Maybe it is better to update and improve the existing translation for
the time being. I already found one capable Chinese scholar who is
keen to help. If we can get several scholars, you included, to work on
it we might come to something which is maybe not perfect, but still
much better than what we have now. Some could focus on specific parts,
for example comparing the English with the Tibetan translation, etc.
I shall contact Toshiichi Endo too and ask him what he thinks about
this project.
I will be back with more on this later.
Mettaya,
Bh. Nyanatusita




In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Dmytro O. Ivakhnenko (äÍÉÔÒÏ ïÌÅËÓ¦ÊÏ×ÉÞ
¶×ÁÈÎÅÎËÏ)" <nibbanka@...> wrote:

> Bhante Nyanatusita,
>
> Yes, I am interested to help in making a better translation of

Vimuttimagga.

>
> Although I don't know Chinese, I have worked with Chinese text,
> consistently replacing Chinese terms with Pali equivalents, and
> compiling a Chinese-pali glossary.
>
> I have also done similar work with Tibetan translation of
> Samskrta-asamskrta-Vini"scaya by Da"sabala"sriimitra, which contains
> chapters 10,11,12 of Vimuttimagga. (See the relevant article by Peter
> Skilling in Buddhist Studies Review, Vol. 4, No.1, 1987).
>
> I can share the results of my work.
>
> Several scholars have suggested improvements in the translation of
> Vimuttimagga in following works:
>
> Vimuktimarga dhutanuga-nirdesa edited in Tibetan and translated into
> English by P.V.Bapat, Delhi University Buddhist Studies 1, 1964
>
> P.V.Bapat, Vimuttimagga and Visuddhimagga, a comparative study.

Poona 1937

>
> Vimuttimagga, edited by Galkatiyagama Siri Ratnajoti and Karalliyadde
> Siri Ratnapala. Colombo 1963. Reviewed by Purusottama Visvanath

Bapat in

> Journal of the Vidyalankara University of Ceylon 1, 1972, 172-190
>
> Toshiichi Endo, "The Asgiriya manuscript of the Pali Vimuttimagga" an
> inquiry into its authenticity", Kalyani. Journal of Humanities and
> Social Sciences of the University of Kelaniya 1, 1983, 100-108
>
> Peter Skilling, "Vimuttimagga and Abhayagiri: the form-aggregate
> according to the Samskrtasmkrtaviniscaya", JPTS 20, 1994, 171-210
>
> Also see full bibliography at
> http://faculty.washington.edu/kpotter/ckeyt/txt.html , number 123
>
> Peter Skilling wrote to me that the comparison of the Tibetan texts
> (only parts available) and the Chinese show that the English

translation

> is often inaccurate, and that the Pali terms inserted in parentheses

are

> not always correct. He thinks that "the only solution is a new English
> translation from the Chinese by someone who is steeped in Sanskrit and
> Pali, and also knows Tibetan to compare the excellent Tibetan excerpts.
> To render terms correctly one needs a profound knowledge of Abhidharma,
> including Sarvastivadin, and research tools such as the trilingual

(Skt,

> Tibetan, Ch) glossaries of Abhidharmakosa and Yogacarabhumi, etc.,
> produced in Japan in recent years, plus a deep knowledge of the Pali
> Abhidhamma tradition, more or less from reading through the whole.
> For example, where the English translation has the unattested
> khanda-, ayatana-, dhatu-upaya, the Tibetan has mkhas pa = kaushalya.
> Lexicons based on the comparison of translations with Sanskrit texts
> show that while the Chinese character in question often translates
> upaya, it is also attested for kushala, kaushalya, Pali kosalla."
>
> As for me, I hope to see the new translation with more comrehensive
> reconstruction of Pali texts and passages. Some of the key Pali terms
> like 'nimitta' are habitually wrongly translated in English. However
> with Pali terms available the reader has a chance to reconstruct the
> meaning.
>
> In Sri Lanka you can contact Toshiichi Endo from Postgraduate Institute
> of Pali and Buddhist Studies, University of Kelaniya, who has studied
> Vimuttimagga and related works.
>
> Metta, Dmytro
>
> http://dhamma.ru/sadhu/