Method

When you wish to instruct, be brief, so that men’s minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.

Cicero

Translating any text is filled with many choices, pitfalls and challenges. In translation studies, there is generally two main approaches to translating a text, formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Most translations can be placed somewhere on a spectrum between one extreme of radical “word for word” metaphrasing and the other extreme of totally free paraphrasing.

English translations of the Buddhist Sutta Pitaka tend to lean towards the formal equivalence approach, which focuses on staying close to the grammatical structure of the original language. In some cases, this means staying close to the original format of the Pali syntax and in many cases, translating every single word into an English equivalent. This often leads to translations filled with difficult technical terminology which have no equivalent in standard English. They also tend to retain the repetition of numerous stock phrases. This makes for a reading experience that takes a lot of getting used to for most readers. This style of translation has been called by some scholars ‘Buddhist hybrid English’. It can be difficult to tackle, and is not appealing to the wide majority of Buddhists today. Predictably enough, they end up reading modern Buddhist literature instead of the words of the founder of their religion.

The goal of this site is to present Buddhist texts in simple, clear, and idiomatic English which is easy to read and straightforward. In other words, plain language. Robert Eagleson defines it as:

“clear, straightforward expression, using only as many words as are necessary. It is language that avoids obscurity, inflated vocabulary and convoluted sentence construction. It is not baby talk, nor is it a simplified version of the English language. Writers of plain English let their audience concentrate on the message instead of being distracted by complicated language. They make sure that their audience understands the message easily.”

The modern plain language movement began in the field of law, but similar ideals can be traced back all the way to the ancient Greek Attic Style of oratory which promoted a plain and unadorned style of composition. It has applications in the writing of philosophy, science and I believe, religious texts. Reflecting on how the Buddha sought to communicate the Dharma to people in their own dialect, instead of using the elite language of the Brahmins (i.e. Sanskrit), I believe that he would want us to use simple English to spread his teachings.

To achieve a plain English version of these complex texts, I have chosen to follow an approach which is more reliant on dynamic equivalence (also called functional equivalence). According to the linguist Eugene Nida, this is a “quality of a translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported into the receptor language that the response of the receptor is essentially like that of the original receptors.” This means that I have not translated each individual word into equivalent English words, but have focused on the idea communicated by each sentence or phrase and its function. As noted by indologist A.K. Warder, in Indian languages like Pali, it is the sentence, not the word, which is the primary unit of meaning. With this principle in mind, a Pali term might be rendered by various English words in different passages, especially if it is a term with a broad semantic field. Using this more functionally focused method, I have tried to translate the ideas contained in the suttas into concise, straight talk, while also retaining the feel of the original.

Normative transparency is another goal for this site, that is, language which reaches the widest possible audience. I have focused on using standard English terms for almost everything except a few Sanskrit terms, such as Buddha, and Dharma. The point is to use as little jargon as possible. However, since these texts do use a lot of unique terminology, a “terms” page has been added to the site. This also serves to explain individual translation choices.

I have analyzed each text using text analytics which test for readability using different scales. I have aimed for a reading level which is substantially easier than previous sutta translations. To provide an example of how my renditions are easier to read, compare the following scores of different translations of the well known “Bases of Mindfulness sutta” (MN 10) from readabilityformulas.com. Note, the higher the number, the more difficult a text is to read, except with the Flesch Reading Ease score (which has a higher number representing easier to read text).

Bhikkhu Analayo translation: Flesch Reading Ease score: 52.9; Gunning Fog: 13.5; Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.1 (11th grade); The Coleman-Liau Index: 9 (9th grade); The SMOG Index: 9.8 (10th grade).

Bhikkhu Thanissaro translation: Flesch Reading Ease score: 53.7, Gunning Fog: 13.9; Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.3 (11th grade); The Coleman-Liau Index: 8 (8th grade); The SMOG Index: 9.7 (10th grade).

Bhikkhu Sujato translation: Flesch Reading Ease score: 56.7; Gunning Fog: 13.7; Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9.6 (10th grade); The Coleman-Liau Index: 9 (9th grade); The SMOG Index: 10.2 (10th grade).

This site’s translation: Flesch Reading Ease score: 65.2; Gunning Fog: 11.2; Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.1 (8th grade); The Coleman-Liau Index: 9 (9th grade); The SMOG Index: 8.2 (8th grade).

I have worked to retain very little repetition and to keep sentences relatively short. Since most of the material here is based on dialogue, I modeled some the editing on contemporary English language dialogue writing. This means that the dialogues can be shorter than in other sutta translations. Since I focused on keeping the ideas intact, not the formal structure of the text, a lot of material which simply repeats what has already been said has been cut out. This can lead to a surprisingly shorter text. As an example, my rendition of “Turning the Dharma Wheel” has a word count of 504, compare with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation at 1,159 words.

This approach will no doubt be controversial to some, but since various translations which maintain the formal structure of the Pali already exist, there is no need for another that does the same. There is, I feel, the need for easier to read renditions of the suttas that retain the ideas of the original. I hope to have achieved this.

Whatever knowledge I have of the Dharma I owe to my teachers as well as the great modern scholars of Buddhist studies, which are too many to name. I am especially indebted to modern translators like Bhikkhu Analayo, B. Bodhi, B. Thanissaro, Rupert Gethin and especially Bhikkhu Sujato and the whole SuttaCentral team. My knowledge of Pali is quite sparse, so without their work and without the SuttaCentral website, this project would not exist.

The Buddha encouraged his students to spread the Dharma and to do so in their local language and dialects. I can only hope to have retained some of the wisdom and nobility of the words of the Buddha in the renditions of the suttas presented in this site. Ultimately, the best translation is the one people will actually read, and if some of the wisdom of the Buddha reaches new eyes, I will have succeeded.

Javier J. Fernandez-Viña

Direct all comments and questions to: jfv1212@gmail.com