Re: Tathāgata

The Khaggavisāṇasutta (Khvs) is one of the oldest suttas of the Sn, considered by some scholars to hearken back to a pre-saṅgha time when samaṇas wandered alone. There is also a tradition extant that these verses were spoken by 500 pratyekabuddhas, each of whom passed away immediately after uttering the udāna. Like the Aṭṭhakavagga and Pārāyanavagga of the Sn, the Khvs is old enough for a commentary on it - the Culla Niddesa - to be included in the canon. Its age and popularity is confirmed by the fact that several versions of it are extant: The P canon preserves two versions, an early recension consisting of 41 verses which is found in the Uragavagga of the Sn and the same verses (plus one extra) incorporated into the much later Apadāna - a Sanskritized Pkt version preserved in the the Mahāvastu - which, however, contains only 12 of the verses ; and a G recension of 40 verses, the oldest manuscript copy we possess, which may be dated from the 1 st century CE. A comparison of these different recensions can tell us a lot about the early oral transmission process of the teachings, and often provide clues about the nature of the underlying BMI “proto - canonical” source language."

Seems like Khaggavisāṇasutta, Aṭṭhakavagga and Pārāyanavagga are not so 'normalized'/'stylized' as the prosaic parts of the Tipiṭaka? Are there grades of 'normalization'/'stylization' observable in the different chronological strata of the Tipiṭaka?

Best wishes,
Dmytro

______________________________________________________________
> Od: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Komu: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Datum: 15.03.2016 17:24
> Předmět: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata
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Dear Dmytro,

Thanks for the reference to Boucher's work. I have read it, as it forms part of a study I did on Kumārajīva's transliterations of the Lotus Sutra's dhāraṇīs. It is an excellent piece of scholarship. I ran into Daniel at the IABS 2014 in Vienna, and by the way, IABS 2017 is at the University of Toronto next year (in August I believe), for any thinking of coming.

We probably don't have a good word for the transmission process in English. When goīng from Gāndhārī to Chinese, I would call that a translation (as does Boucher in his article), but from one Prakrit to another, is not properly a translation, but a transformation. Normalization might work, but that suggests that there is a standard somewhere, which really doesn't exist. Just because Pāli survived (probably because it was exported to Sri Lanksa), doesn't mean it was the only (or even the principal) dialect in which the Buddha's teachings were transmitted - in fact, we know it wasn't, but the other dialects by and large didn't survive. The same goes for any non Indo-European languages (like Dravidian or Munda) that the teachings may have been translated into, during or shortly after the Buddha's ministry.

Derivation would be a good word (which Lamotte uses, see below) or transformation as Bechert uses.

My use of the word "translation" basically follows Norman who uses the word, while others, as you have noted, eschew the term; Bechert calls it "transference of text from one linguistic form to another, either in the form of a deliberate translation or agradual transformation in the oral tradition" (eine Übertragung der Texte aus einer sprachlichenForm in eine andere mit oder ohne Zwischenstufen, in Form einer bewußtvorgenommenen Übersetzung oder aber durch eine allmähliche Umsetzung inmündliche Überlieferung). I give some quotes below from these scholars, if you are interested in pursuing it.

Best wishes,

Bryan

K. R. Norman (," in Tadeusz Skorupski, ed., The BuddhistForum, Volume I (London, 1990), 34. Also found in Collected Papers 4 (Oxford: Pali TextSociety, 1993), 84. ) : “It cannot be emphasized too much that all theversions of canonical Hīnayāna Buddhist texts which we possess aretranslations, and even the earliest we possess are translations of some stillearlier version, now lost.”

H. Bechert
1980. "Allgemeine Bemerkungen zum Thema "DieSprache der ältesten buddhistischen Überlieferung." In Die Sprache derältesten buddhistischen Überlieferung, H. Bechert ed., Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften inGöttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Dritte Folge, Nr. 117:24-34. English version inBuddhist Studies Review, 8 1-2 (1991): 3-19.

: “Wir können davon ausgehen, daß kein uns erhaltenerkanonischer Text die Sprache des Buddha oder auch nur der ältestenbuddhistischen Überlieferung genau repräsentiert und daß dementsprechend die uns vorliegenden Textfassungenin irgendeiner Weise auf ältere Überlierferungsstufen in einer abweichenden sprachlichenForm beruhen, so daß wir annehmen müssen, daß eine Übertragung der Texte auseiner sprachlichen Form in eine andere - mit oder ohne Zwischenstufen, in Formeiner bewußt vorgenommenen Übersetzung oder aber durch eine allmählicheUmsetzung in mündliche Überlieferung - stattgefunden hat.” Translatedin Buddhist Studies Review, 8 1-2(1991), 6, as “We can proceed from the above on the assumption t hat none of thecanonical texts exactly reflects the language of the Buddha or even of theearliest Buddhist tradition and that accordingly, the various textual versionsare based in one way or another on earlier stages of the tradition couched in adifferent linguistic form. Thus we must further assume that there has been atransference of the texts from one linguistic form to another, with or withoutintermediate stages, either in the form of a deliberate translation or agradual transformation in the oral tradition.”

Lamotte uses more neutral terminology:

“Both [the S and P canons] were derivedfrom prototypes in a Magadhan dialect.” (History of Indian Buddhism from the origins to theŚaka Era, translated from the French by Sara Webb-Boin (Louvain-la-Neuve:Université Catholique de Louvain Institut Orientaliste, 1958, 1988), 587)

From: "Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 3:50 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata

Dear Bryan,

> If you want to look into it in more detail, I have just published an article on "The language of early Buddhism" in the Journal of South Asian Language and Linguistics 2016, page 1-41

Thank you for the thoughtful work!

I'd like to share the link to this article:
http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jsall.2016.3.issue-1/jsall-2016-0001/jsall-2016-0001.xml?format=INT

IMHO, calling this process a 'translation' can be misleading. Wouldn't it be more to the point to call this 'normalization'?

As Daniel Boucher writes:

"Some scholars believed that this transformation was a real "translation" of texts which at that time already existed as written literary texts. Others think - and I agree with them - that the transposition was no formalized translation. It was another kind of transformation from one dialect into another dialect, that took place in the course of a tradition, which was still an oral tradition, but had already entered the process of being formalized linguistically . . . .

However, these positions are not necessarily as sharply opposed as they might first appear. Norman has shown that these "translations" were often carried out by scribes who appl ied certain phonetic rules mechanically. Nevertheless, some of these transpositions led to hypercorrections and mistaken interpretations, suggesting that the movement between these dialects was not always clear even to learned scribes."

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/daniel.htm

Best wishes,

Dmytro

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 9:26 PM Dmytro Ivakhnenko aavuso@... [palistudy] <palistudy@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Dear Bryan,

> Yes, good question. It does seem unproblematic on the surface. But I think people felt that the surface meaning - tathā gata or tathā āgata, thus gone or thus come (in the way of all previous Buddhas) - was too strained, not natural, and as Norman says (as per Steve Collins' reference), quoting Thomas, "in its use in the scriptures there īs no trace of the Sanskrit meaning contained in tathā and gata".

IMHO, the popular English translation "thus gone" stems from the English translations of Mahayana literature.

Here's a excerpt from Mahaprajnaparamitasastra:

"Why is he called To t'o a k'ie t'o (tathāgata)?
1. He preaches the natures of the dharmas (dharmalakṣaṇa) in the way (tathā) that he has understood (gata) them.
2. In the way that the [previous] Buddhas have gone by the path of safety (yogakṣemamārga), thus (tathā) the [actual] Buddha is going (gata) and will not go on to new existences (punarbhāva).251
______
251 Cf. Sumaṅgala, I, p. 60-62 (second explanation)."

The interpretation "thus come" is embedded in the corresponding Chinese term 如來 or 如来 .

Careful study of Sutta and Atthakatha helps to sort out such interpretations as later ones. It is the interpretation "tathāni āgatoti tathāgato" which is given repeatedly in Atthakatha, and used in Suttanta.

Best wishes,
Dmytro

From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2016 7:21 AM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata

Thanks friends :)

It still seems confusing that the word might have come from Dravidian sources, esp. why Hurvitz seems so sure that it did, when it looks so familiarly Sanskritic. Bryan, why is tathaa gata or tathaa aagata unconvincing? It just doesn't seem like such a problematic word is all.

Best wishes,

Yuttadhammo

Dear Pali friends,

Here's my small study of explanations of this word in Sutta and Atthakatha, which points to the explanation: tathāni āgatoti tathāgato as the most substantiated,

http://dhamma.ru/forum/index.php?topic=724.0

with tathāni in the sense explaned in Tattha sutta:

‘‘Cattārimāni, bhikkhave, tathāni avitathāni anaññathāni. Katamāni cattāri? ‘Idaṃ dukkha’nti, bhikkhave, tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhasamudayo’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhanirodho’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ; ‘ayaṃ dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā’ti tathametaṃ avitathametaṃ anaññathametaṃ – imāni kho, bhikkhave, cattāri tathāni avitathāni anaññathāni.

Best wishes,

Dmytro

______________________________________________________________
> Od: "Steven Collins scollins951@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Komu: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
> Datum: 13.03.2016 06:41
> Předmět: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata
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On tathāgata see K.R.Norman, Collected Papers IV 162-63.

Steve Collins

From: "Bryan Levman bryan.levman@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: "palistudy@yahoogroups.com" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Tathāgata

Dear Ven. Yuttadhammo,

The etymology of the word has long been a problem which is why Hurvitz suggests its origin amongst the indigenous peoples of India (Dravidian or Munda, most likely, but we don't know all the language groups that existed at the time of the Indo Aryan immigration).

Hurvitz is only echoing a suggestion made by Schayer in 1935 and Thomas in 1937.

There are indeed a lot of non Indo-Aryan words in theTipiṭaka, some of which I discuss in my article in Buddhist Studies Review (2013: "Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures", p. 145-80). These are mainly place names and names of fauna and flora unfamiliar to the immigrants which were incorporated into the Indo-Aryan language. But there are also a lot of technical terms. The Buddha's funeral, for example, does not follow a "normal" Indo-Aryan practice but is based on indigenous customs.

In my thesis, I briefly discuss the problem of tathāgāta, which I attach for your info (it also contains the references above). There is also a short summary of the problems with the word in Mayrhofer's Etymological Dictionary (1963) on page 472.

Best wishes,

Bryan

From: "Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu yuttadhammo@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 5:23 PM
Subject: [palistudy] Tathāgata

Dear Friends,

I have just come across a curious passage in the introduction to a translation of the Lotus Sutra, by Leon Hurvitz:

"Without much doubt, tathāgata is a non-Indic word refurbished to have an Indic appearance long after it had come into current use among India's Buddhists."

I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight on the origin of this word as described in this quote - is the implication that it came from Proto-Indo-European?

Thanks,

Yuttadhammo

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