Dear Nina,
I do not think Dave meant to be coarse.
I guess Dave does make a good point by quoting what Piya said earlier in my asking about the other Pali-Latin translation done by PTS, "Victorian scholars of yesteryears.....unspeakable" and Piya did translate the Latin verse into English for us. If it were unspeakable, Piya wouldn't have been able to speak about it .
And we all do agree that the passage is actually cute and interesting, not 'unspeakable' or 'dirty'.
Anyway, there are a lot of "violence" acts to be found in Jataka English translation which are not proper to be known and read by children. However, it IS translated into English. So what is the standard of "decency"?
If that is what happened at Buddha's/Bodhisatta's time, then so be it, why hide it?
Dhamma is the teaching of the Buddha, it is universal, and there should be nothing to be hidden or censored (throughout the using of 'Latin' or other languages) if it IS universal. I was wondering why PTS did that, on one side they claim to be selling the Tipitaka in English version (not in English version and a bit Latin version).
I do acknowledge and understand that translation needs time, and as you implicitly said it depends on your time and that you cannot promise when, I guess I (and Dave and many others who are eager to see the translation) have to wait till that day comes.
If only I knew Latin.............
Dear Piya Tan,
What remarks of yours are quoted by Nina? I don't get them. Or you mean by "Dave"?
Whether or not a person finds a/the translation in good taste is not an excuse for us to hide the translation by using other language(s).
The book reference given is not able to be read freely...it requires payment. Do you have any other source of reference which is free of charge?
I do not understand why we should pay for the "hidden" things as we can get the not "hidden" things freely through the web.
It seems like you do have the book with you. Is it possible to share it with us here?
Anyway, thank you all for the responses.
With Peace, Respect, and Loving Kindness,
Jo.
Piya Tan <
dharmafarer@...> wrote: Further to my remarks quoted by Nina, please let me add the following:
The Kacchapa Jataka (J 273) belong to the genre of the most ribald of tales
of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio's Decameron. It probably comes
from what is called gnomic tradition, or popular folklore, if you like. The
Buddhists
retold the story probably for its popular appeal.
I'm not sure if everyone who reads the English translation will find it in
good taste.
It is certainly not a canonical story.
For those who wish to read story in English, please see
John Garrett Jones,
"Tales and Teachings of the Buddha"
1979:194 f (Appendix)
which deals specifically with just this Jataka.
Sorry for lacking enthusiasm in presenting this information early.
Anyway, please laugh with good humour at the story, and leave it at that.
With metta,
Piya Tan
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:21 PM, Nina van Gorkom <
vangorko@...>
wrote:
> Dear Dave,
> I think it over, but I do not like anything coarse. It also depends
> on my time. The message in the Jataka is that the monkey and tortoise
> should forget their quarrel and make up, and this message is excellent.
> We can apply it and that is so with the Jatakas, they are Dhamma to
> be applied in daily life.
> Nina.
> Op 24-mrt-2008, om 18:46 heeft P G Dave het volgende geschreven:
>
>
> > I recall on an earlier occasion Piya Tan mentioning the practice of
> > "Victorian scholars of yesteryears" to use Latin where they thought
> > the Pali
> > passage was "unspeakable".
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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