Dear Jo, Dave, Piya, Gunnar,
Jo, very nice you translate into Indonesian, I lived in Jakarta with
my husband and learnt Bahasa. Do you know the Bogor group? Yes, you
deserve all the help.
Reading the summary kindly given by Piya, I compared with Pali and
the Pali does more justice to the lesson we can learn. The Latin is
too much abridged. Quite possible that folktales were used and that
the Buddha gave them a new meaning, this often happened.
Gunnar, I also heard the opposite that the prose was the original,
not the verse. But these Jatakas were also rehearsed at the Great
Councils.
In the beginning the Bodhisatta's immense equanimity is emphasized,
one of the paramis, perfections, he developed. We know the story of
the children who poked grass in his ears, how much equanimity he had,
but here we have the most atrocious behaviour of the monkey, and the
Bodhisatta was undisturbed, he developed equanimity.
The lesson he gave to the tortoise and the monkey: their clans were
related by marriage bonds. He preached to them about sexual
misbehaviour and the tortoise should no longer be angry and free the
monkey. Then we read that the tortoise rejoiced (in Pali pasanno),
after hearing the words of the Bodhisatta. The Pali does not have
'amused'. The Latin has: valde delectata, greatly rejoiced.
Nina.
Op 27-mrt-2008, om 5:11 heeft johan wijaya het volgende geschreven:

> The reason why I came up with those several Latin translations is
> actually we are trying to translate the English version to
> Indonesian version...so while doing the translation, I got stuck by
> the Latin.

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