Dear Dipa and friends,

this reflects the fact that people do not truly understand what Buddhism really is. For example, India people may not distinguish Buddhism and Hinduism, while China people may not know the differences between Buddhism and Taoism. It is really how Buddhism became integral to the society and culture it settled in without creating a social upheaval like what Christianity and Islam did in their history.

This must have proved difficult for early translators like Horner, because I think they did understand the idea of translating to context, but they may have got a "not-so-correct" context to start with, which is why we see these mistakes cropping up in the early translations.

And then, there are people who are influenced by theosophical, new-age and pseudo-Buddhist groups who like to keep their own incorrect interpretations of Buddhist teachings.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Sister Dipa wrote:

I am gathering this iformation to present to the person who has the impression that I.B. Horner was correct in her translation. I hope that by providing these responses that the individual will be convinced that it does indeed mean caravan.