Hello All,

As discussed with Yong Peng, every Saturday for the forseeable future I will
be posting a translation of one or two suttas (depending on length) from the
Sa.myutta Nikaaya. Taking on this project has occured to me for two main
reasons:


First, I noted that a project such as that being conducted by Yong Peng,
i.e. the Anguttara Nikaaya, really had the potential to help me learn
Paa.li, but that it was moving too quickly for my own pace as a beginning
Paa.li student.



Secondarily, I knew that due to the layout of the Sa.myutta Nikaaya (to be
discussed below) I would come across very similar passages in suttas of
related topics and thus this would help ingrain the Paa.li vocabulary in my
mind. Indeed, memorizing vocabulary, of whatever language, has always
seemed a pitiable task to me, especially when it is me that has to do the
memorizing. I wanted to avoid the task of rote memorization as much as
possible. So I slowly began translating my first sutta.



As I have worked on the Sa.myutta, I have also continued to move through the
"Introduction to Pali" text by Warder. In my opinion, these two projects
really go hand in hand as I learn the grammar from one and have a place to
test out my new knowledge in the other. Initially, I began posting these
Sa.myutta and Warder translations piece by piece in the Theravada Forum at
E-Sangha were I am a moderator. But, as the posts moved forward, I began to
see that no-one seemed to be watching. It seemed to me that if I was going
to be posting full translations and grammatical analyses, that someone might
as well know about it and learn from it. So, I spoke with the administrator
of E-Sangha, and had the Pali Forum at E-Sangha started in which I am the
moderator.

See: http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?showforum=50



Subsequently, I moved my translations of the Sa.myutta and the Warder
excercises into that forum. At that time, I had completed only the first
three suttas of the second vagga, the Nidaana Vagga, and was feeling
overwhelmed about moving onto the fourth through the tenth which are all
virtually identical, but even one, is quite long and seemed, at the time, an
insurmountable task. Luckily, starting a new Pali forum allowed more
exposure for my project, and Ven. Phra Noah Yuttadhammo happened across my
translations. He offered to share the load and so it was decided that, at
least for the foreseeable future, he would translate the suttas and I would
do the grammatical analysis until I felt that I had the skills to do both
and still remain a sane human being.



From this point, Ven. Yuttadhammo and I completed about two suttas per week
and are now working on the seventeenth sutta of the Nidaana-Vagga. The
reason why I started with the second of the five Vaggas, and why we are
continuing on with it, is very simple, the first Vagga contains much verse.
Bhikkhu Bodhi, himself, pointed out in the introduction to his translation
that even he would have risked not finishing the Sa.myutta if he would have
started with the first Vagga for this very reason. Having also read A.K.
Warder's comment that he chose the Diigha Nikaaya for use in his text due to
the lack of verse, which is more conducive to beginning students
understanding grammar, etc., I decided that the second Vagga would be the
best place to start.



As some of you may remember, when I first began the project, I posted a few
questions that showed that I was very confused regarding grammar and had a
very, infinitesimal, shall we say, grasp of Paa.li grammar. While my
understanding of it has probably not grown too much since then, I hope that
you will see some amelioration of my ability by way of my analyses not being
too filled with mistakes. Of course there are tricky spots, and compounds
are still not my strong side, but I am hoping that with a few (hopefully not
too many) corrections here and there, that my analyses will be more than
satisfactory and will continue to improve. Additionally, I will make note
of any terms/phrases/etc. that seem particularly tricky to me so that
mistakes do not slip by. As for the translations themselves, since Ven.
Yuttadhammo will not be here to discuss his choices, I will not make any
changes to the final translation drafts that I am posting on my web-site and
ask for the final translation to remain the same anywhere else it is posted
too, i.e. Tipitaka.net. However, I will make notes of any discussion
regarding terms, and so I hope that despite the somewhat rigid nature of the
final translation, that we can still discuss the translation choices
none-the-less and that more people than I will find it useful.



As for the paa.li version, I started with the CSCD for the first two suttas,
switched to the Buddha Jayanti Version through sutta 15 due to computer
issues, and then reverted, and will stay with, the CSCD for the remainder of
the project. The digitized Buddha Jayanti has had one too many spelling
problems, and so we have switched. I will note at the top of each
translation which version we have used, but after sutta 15, it will always
be the CSCD.



As for the title of this collection of the discourses, the "Sa.myutta
Nikaaya," the name has been translated as the "Connected Discourses of the
Buddha" by the Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi. "Sa.myutta" itself is a past participle
from: (sa.m+yuj II), which means connected or joined together. Furthermore,
As Bhikkhu Bodhi points out in his introduction, "yutta" means "yoked" and
"sa.m" means "together." This shows that the quality of the "connection"
of these discourses is like that of topics being "yoked together," which is
somewhat different, but not altogether unlike the old PTS version title:
"The Book of Kindred Sayings," which Ven. Bodhi's translation has, for all
intents and purposes, replaced in terms of quality. The reason why the
Sa.myutta Nikaaya is so named is because the discourses are arranged in
related themes. So far, the main theme of the Nidaana-Vagga has been
pa.ticcasamuppaada: "dependent origination," and more generally "causation."
However, the topics run the gamut from the aforementioned one to
mindfulness, to breathing, to Naagas, to stream-entry, etc. This is why, as
I mentioned, the Sam.yutta is a very useful tool for learning to translate.
It allows one to see similar terms, slight variations on a theme, and
repeated terms in various cases, etc. which is highly conducive to learning
Paa.li.



Thus, with all of this in mind, I bring this introduction of the upcoming
"Sa.myutta Nikaaya translation project," by Ven. Yuttadhammo and myself, to
a close. I hope that everyone will find it useful in more ways than one.
As mentioned, this series will run on Saturdays and will consist of one or
two suttas depending on their relative lengths. This series will hopefully
continue at the same pace until completed, in however much time that may
take. I have tried to cover most of the relevant information about this
project in the introduction above, but please let me know if you have any
further questions.



With a heart of metta,



Alan McClure