Saturday 3 July 2010

Daoxing,chaps. 20/21

I was aware that a few of the chapter of my earlier translation of the Daoxing were, lets say, a little shaky. In fact I'd lost track of what they were, that is, until this week. I've been working on writing up a brief synopsis of each chapter, the core ideas discussed, what happens and so on. This week I got up to Chapter 20, Sakrodevanmindra and Chapter 21, Pride. Urgh! Looking at some of the mis-translation there I must have put these together half-dazed at 3 in the morning! It was a few years ago when I tackled these however, and I must admit that since then my understanding of the purport of the text has expanded considerably. I can see why I got to a particulular point at those times however decided to simply move on. One of the issues concerned is perhaps the original team member that worked on the text. Historical accounts explain how a number of translators worked with Lokaksema to produce the Daoxing but, of course, there's no account of who translated what. This can only be guessed at on the basis of changes in translation style. Anyway, I think that the current version is fine and I hope to complete the synopsis tomorrow.

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