Dear George and friends,

thank you for your feedback.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, gdbedell wrote:

> I agree with Mahinda that we are not making much progress, and it not just that the going is slow, but also that the result (so far, at least) is not an accurate and readable translation that might be of use to others.

Allow me to say that what we doing is unconventional. For a typical translation be published, it would be going through several rounds of drafts, proof-readings, and revisions, before it sees daylight. Here, we are only making the first draft, and purely for the purpose of group discussion and self-discovery.

> I think this must be the `third thread' which Yong Peng said 'did not start'.

You are correct. It was my mistake to have missed it. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/message/13095

> The throw-enough-mud-against-the-wall-and-some-of-it-is-bound-to-stick method does not strike me as very effective in translation.

Rome was not built in a day.

Translation is never an easy task. I know that some may prefer we work on something which has already been translated, as we do now for AN (not its commentary, or something not yet available in English). I thought people would appreciate that Saddaniiti is of a different genre, and a different mindset can be acquired in this project, that we be less conscious of making mistakes.

> We find the Saddaniiti difficult not because it is `advanced Pali' but because (i) it was written at least a thousand years after the Tipitaka in another country and another culture and (ii) it belongs to a highly specialized and technical genre: grammar. The majority of Pali reference works (dictionaries and grammars) were compiled to be used in reading the Tipitaka, and did not put much (if any) effort into medieval technical prose. Mahinda is right that we need to beome familiar with this variety of the language. He is also right about the role of Sanskrit and Sanskrit grammar in understanding Aggava.msa. This point is quite separate from any help a knowledge of Sanskrit might provide in learning Pali. The Pali grammars were written by people who were familiar with Sanskrit and Sanskrit grammar, and who were trying to show that Pali could be analyzed in the same way. Their work cannot be understood out of that context. So I am disappointed that Mahinda's remarks have not been taken very seriously.

I have been highlighting that Saddaniti is a classical grammar, and had also pointed out a grammar is a different genre, a technical text for language study. I have also provided a brief background of Saddaniti and its author Aggavamsa, including the time and place the text was written. In addition, I consider Saddaniti an advance text, as I similarly consider Kaccayana and Moggallana.

I had offered to stop Saddaniti and let Mahinda run us through Balavatara. I thought that is a constructive move. Otherwise, we will have to progress with Saddaniti. I do not see how we can become familiar with classical grammars without getting our hands dirty. But, that doesn't mean we can just throw mud against the wall.

As for classical Sanskrit, I am all with Mahinda's remarks. The two languages are closely related, and we can comfortably discuss similarities and differences. Still, we have to rely on members who have that knowledge for assistance. Our group focus is on Pali, and we are not abandoning that just yet.

I hope this would generate some ideas how we can improve our group discussions, particularly on Saddaniti.


metta,
Yong Peng.