netaṃ mama

From: Bryan Levman
Message: 2863
Date: 2010-07-09

Hi Khristos,

Jim forwarded me your attachment re: Chinese translation of the Pāli passage. Thanks very much for the research.

I think the Chinese have collapsed the three part phrase into two, viz.,
不是我 and 及以我所 " x is not self, nor anything belonging to self."

I've tried searching CBETA for your phrase 不屬我, but it doesn't come up close to the other two above, although it occurs in the sutras. The Chinese take much more license than the Tibetans, so it is understandable that they would interpret the phrase in their own terms.

The Chinese translation of the Vinaya (Mahaavagga) passage is pretty much the same as the sutra you quote:

悉應如前正智觀察。若我聲聞聖弟子眾觀此五取蘊知無有我及以我所。如是觀已即知世間。無能取所取亦非轉變。

which I would translate as: "All should know with correct wisdom as things really are (Chinese have translated Pāli yathābhūtaṃ "with correct wisdom",  as 如前 ruqian, meaning yathāpūrvaṃ, "as before" which doesn't make sense).Whatever appears to the I, as a śrāvaka or disciple, all these five aggregates are known to lack self or that which belongs to self. Having perceived in this way, he knows the mundane world. There is no cognizing subject nor cognizing object and there is no change or transformation."

Let me know if you come across a "word-for-word" translation of the tri-partite Pāli phrase,

Metta, Bryan




Previous message: 2862
Next message: 2864

Contemporaneous posts     all posts