Dear Jon and Piya,

thanks for the interesting sharing. It brings to our attention of the
careful treatment of words we need when we read, and more importantly
translate, the Tipitaka. Certainly, we would like to avoid using words
like "heretics" which would send shivers down the spine of a reader
who had knowledge of, say, the infamous Catholic Inquisitions.

There may be more words than we know which also carry some "concealed"
meanings which would bring up bad memories in some readers, or relate
the Buddha's teachings to something else. That is probably a challenge
faced by anyone attempting translation into any language at anytime.

I agree that consulting Pali dictionaries in other languages is very
important. But, that will rely on people with different sets of
language skills. Hence, it is important that discussions are conducted
in an open and respectful manner.

Coincidentally, Ven. Buddhadatta used 'heretic/heretical' for
micchaadi.t.thika in his grammar. As a grammar exercise, I usually
just follow the meanings the book gives without attempting to correct
it. See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/message/11758

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Jon Fernquest wrote:

There are a lot of words that have translation problems like this, for
instance, "micchaa-ditthi," usually translated nowadays as "wrong
view," but when I first encountered the phrase in Burmese in a
historical work describing events in the 16th century, it was
translated as "heretical" which conjures up images of burning people
at the stake, well this image was definitely wrong, but the word was
used in the context of forceful military conquest and religious
conversion, so perhaps the translation is not so innappropriate, but
it clearly is inappropriate for conveying the "teaching of the Buddha"
to people nowadays.

Words have a tremendous ability to morph to new meanings which they
probably have done pretty extensively in Pali since Pali has been
translated into so many different languages over hundreds of years,
Thai, Burmese, Sri Lankan, English...perhaps these dictionaries should
be consulted too.