Dear Jo, Mahinda and PG,

thanks to Mahinda for his lastest post on the topic. It really
clarifies many points, including my question on the "cultural belief",
something which I learnt years ago from a non-Buddhist Indian friend
in Singapore. I am no subject expert in this particular topic, but
after reading Mahinda's post, I referred to Wikipedia on 'gotra' and
'totem', and have a slightly better understanding now. Any further
contributions is appreciated, but please understand we are doing this
academically.

Mahinda has also clarify the term 'saddha' in the first verse, which I
agree.

Jo: I agree, following Mahinda's post, that "like" should be "or",
i.e. puura-hattho-va should be "full-hand-or", not "full-hand-like".
So, 'va' is a shortened form of 'vaa' (or) not 'viya' (as, like). I
hope that has clarified all your technical questions on this Jataka.
The rest, I think, is preference on words and style.

As for your translation work, given a group of 10 in your group, I
think it has the perfect size for Pali group study. Further, I hope
you would check the PTS translations against other English and
Indonesian translations for possible mistakes and omissions. Lastly, I
wish you success in your excellent work.

PG: Yes, I also tend to think that Kassapa and Konda~nna were the
names of the two senior officials having a dispute in the court of Kosala.

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, johan wijaya wrote:

Just one thing left, the phrase "like displaced meal (served meal)"
refers to the monkey (the brahmin) or to the tortoise? The monkey is
like the displaced meal or the monkey likes displaced meal? I'm quite
confused with the word 'like' in this verse.

Your suggestion, that I had better translate from Pali into Bahasa
than translate from English (PTS) into Bahasa, is indeed the same as
one suggestion that ever came to our ears by several bhikkhus which
are the members of the website that you know, containing Pali Suttas
in Indonesian. In that case, we have to learn a lot about Pali and
spend more time studying Pali before being able to do so. Again, time
is the barrier.

Sorry for the question that you asked, about the reference to the
cultural belief, as it was also one of the questions that I wanted to
ask yesterday, but it was forgotten...so I guess I'll just be waiting
for others, again.