Thanks again for trying to explain your view point to me. Ajaatasattu
clearly *confesses* to the Buddha - there is no doubt about the word
being appropriate in English. A guilty criminal confesses to the
police with no religious undertones. Any open acknowledgement of a
transgression previously concealed is straightforwardly a confession.
Just as you are sure about your culture and language, I am sure about
mine :-)
My original point was regarding the translation of the word
pa.tikaroti as confession. While we would say in English that the King
confessed his transgression to the Buddha, the word is defined in PED
as "to make amends (etc)". (The supplementary question which just
occurs to me is why did RD not follow his own dictionary?!)
My question has become, does the English definition of the word work?
PED suggests that what is turned around is the *transgression* when
clearly this is not possible as we know - the King is "done for". What
is turned around is actually King Ajaatasattu!
The phrase is "yathaadhamma.m pa.tikaroti" - "he turns around
according to dhamma", or perhaps "he turns back to the law", or "he
makes a return to righteousness"? Perhaps the problem is in the PED
definition? Previously his accaya is said to occur yathaa-
baala.m/muu.la.m/akusala.m "because of his foolishness, confusion, and
unskilfulness". If he turned back from these, he would be
yathaadhamma.m - "lawful" - yes? And this would mean that "aayati.m
sa.mvara.m aapajjati" in the future he would be restrained. The
implication is that he will be restrained by *dhamma*, however we
interpret that word here.
To sum up I propose that the text is saying that the King confesses to
the Buddha that because of his foolishness, confusion, and
unskilfulness he has killed his father, the good and lawful king. He
adds that he sees his transgression as a transgression and will be
lawful in the future. The Buddha responds by agreeing that it was
foolish, confused, and unskilful to kill the good and lawful king his
father, but because Ajaatasattu sees his transgression as a
transgression that he, the Buddha, accepts that the king has returned
to lawfulness, and will abide by the law in future.
I'm sometimes resistant to seeing dhamma translated as law, but in
this case it seems to fit the context. I think this reading avoids any
sense of forgiveness, or of the King having made amends (which he
clearly doesn't). However it does suggest that some fine Pali scholars
were wrong, and that the PED is wrong - which is a big claim to make
when one has not even finished Warder's Intro to Pali!
To back-up my claim I randomly looked at about half (6) of the
occurrences of the word pa.tikaroti in the suttas (using the VRI CD)
and the phrasing is close to identical in each case:
It seems that this is a standard phrase. This both helps and hinders.
It helps because there is no dissent from other texts. It hinders
because it is simply a repeated phrase and we get no sense of how the
word might be used in other contexts that might help to fill out the
picture. I see nothing to contradict my reading of the passage, but
would need to check the other occurrences and see how the commentaries
deal with it. I'm not sure if I have the time or patience, but will
report back if I get around to it.