Tuesday 31 August 2010

Chapter 30

More than half-way through this, the final chapter. Again there is something of a translation style change. A number of sections are quite minimal and rely heavily upon narrative to clarify meanings. Also there have been a couple of phrases whose wording is relatively unique given the overall lexis of the text. In fact I would have thought that Karashima would have picked these up an added them into his glossary. The first is the occurrence of 薩和薩 which is usually a transliteration if the skt. sarvasattva, 'all beings'. In the text this doesn't make sense and the only possible meaning could be 'bodhisattva and bodhisattva'. The context being the writing down of the prajnaparamita sutra. It is an absurdity that all beings would do such a thing. Next to cause me to pause and think was 諦. This usually translated as 'truth' as in the Four Noble Truths (四諦). But no, we have 諦念 and  諦受. Here 諦 has the rarer literary meaning of 'something to think about', which is really what is implied in 四諦. In practice, this 諦 is not pondering, but taking care over something. Also 念 is not simply to think, but to recall.

Whilst Karashima's T224 glosses have no reference to 諦, his glosses on Dharamaraksha's Lotus Sutra did have 諦觀 and 諦聽: 'to observe minutely' and 'listen carefully'.

After modifying my text I sent a comment to the DDBT for the 諦 entry to add an additional meaning.

With some luck and peace and quiet I should have Chapt.30 finished by this time tomorrow night.

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