s.4nt.org — Suttas, Side by Side · Help

A reading guide for the parallel sutta viewer at s.4nt.org.

What you're looking at

Each sutta page displays the original Pāli alongside one or more English translations in side-by-side columns,
aligned segment by segment.
The columns scroll together, so the same passage is always at the same height across all translations.

The columns

Switching translations

Each column has a dropdown at the top showing the current translator's name.
Click it to swap that column for a different translation — for example,
switch the right column from Sujato to Thanissaro, or back to Pāli.

Reordering columns

Columns can be dragged left or right.
Grab the small grip icon (⠿) in a column header and drag it to the position you want.
The reading layout adjusts instantly.

Adding and removing columns

• Click the + button at the far right of the column bar to add a new column.
• Click the × on any column header to remove it.

A typical starting layout is Pāli + one English translation.
You can expand to three (or more) columns to compare multiple translators directly.

Navigation

Table of contents

The ☰ button (top left) opens and closes the table of contents sidebar.
It shows every section of the sutta — you can click any entry to jump there instantly.

Within the sidebar: - The − and + buttons at the top collapse or expand all sections at once. - Individual sections can be folded with the small triangle button beside each heading. - Resize the sidebar: drag the vertical divider on its right edge (just left of the ☰ button) to make the table of contents wider or narrower. The width is remembered across pages. - Scrolling the list: hover over the contents and use your mouse wheel, or drag the scrollbar on its right edge.

Quick-jump box

The search box in the top bar (labelled with a placeholder like mn10, dn16…) accepts:

• A sutta ID — mn10, dn22 — to jump to a different sutta entirely.
• A segment reference — mn10:2.5 — to jump directly to that verse within the current page.
• Press Enter to jump. Your jump history is saved and shown as a dropdown.

In-text navigation

Click any section heading in the main text to scroll it into view.
Each row also has a subtle highlight on hover so you can track which verse the translator notes refer to.

Footnotes

Many translations include translator notes.
They appear as small superscript markers (¹ ² …)
inline in the text.
Footnotes open in a panel in the lower part of the left sidebar,
sharing that space with the table of contents above it.
When no note is showing, the panel collapses to a thin "Footnotes ▾" strip at the bottom of the sidebar.

Opening a footnote

There are three ways:

• Click a marker in the text to open that specific note.
• Click the "Footnotes ▾" strip and choose which translator's footnotes to show from the small menu.
• In a column's translator dropdown, pick "see their N footnotes" (shown only when that translator has notes on the current sutta).

Working with the panel

• 🦘 jumps the main text to the verse the note belongs to (the segment reference is shown in the button's tooltip).
• ◀ ▶ step to the previous / next note (shown only in single-note mode).
• all switches to "show-all" mode — the default — listing every note for that translator as one scrollable commentary; the step arrows hide, since every note is already visible.
• 📋 copies the note text to the clipboard.
• ✕ closes the panel (it collapses back to the strip).

Resizing the footnote panel

Drag the horizontal divider between the table of contents and the footnotes up or down to give each as much room as you like —
the split is remembered.

On narrow screens (phones), footnotes instead slide up from the bottom of the screen as a sheet.

⚙ Display settings

Click the ⚙ Settings button (top right) to open the settings panel.

The sutta index

The index page lists all suttas in the collection with:

• The sutta number, title, and vagga (chapter group).
• Translation badges showing which translations are available for each sutta.
• A 🔒 icon on suttas that have been proofread and locked.

Click any row to open that sutta's parallel viewer.

Reading offline

Every sutta page is fully self-contained — all text and styling is embedded in the HTML file.
If you save a page to your computer (File → Save Page As… in your browser), it will open and work completely offline, with no internet connection required.

Translations available

Each translation is reproduced from its original source site, under that source's own licence.
Where a source publishes authoritative or updated terms, those govern — please consult the linked site.

Additional translations are added as alignments are completed.

Proofreading & verbatim validation

The segment-by-segment alignment to SuttaCentral's Pāli numbering is done by AI, and a verbatim check —
automated against the original digital source translation — confirms that no wording was added, dropped, or changed.
(The verbatim check ignores whitespace added for display,
and normalizes some punctuation characters such as quotation marks and apostrophes.)

Sujato_corrected

This is identical to the unaltered Bhikkhu Sujato SC edition, with the following terms restored to Pāḷi:

• samādhi → keep as samādhi (not "immersion")
• jhāna → keep as jhāna (not "absorption")
• nibbāna → keep as Nibbāna (not "extinguishment" or "quenched")

And these English translations changed to align with genuine EBT:

• mettā → friendliness (not "love")
• ariyasāvaka → noble one's disciple (not "noble disciple")
• pīti → mental joy (not "rapture") — in jhāna context, to contrast with physical sukha
• sukha → physical pleasure (not "bliss") — in jhāna context; sukha vedanā in general encompasses both physical and mental
• sampajāno → lucidly-discerning (not "aware" or "situational awareness") — this is an inflection of the paññā (discernment/wisdom) faculty, not mere awareness
• vitakka-vicāra → directed verbal thoughts and pondering them (not "placing the mind and keeping it connected")

This is by no means a comprehensive set of corrections —
just some of the most egregious violations of core EBT principles.

Sujato's footnotes are unaltered and contain views incompatible with EBT.
Some are useful;
readers are encouraged to exercise discernment and critical thinking.

Bodhi-esque

A fresh English translation rendered directly from the Pāli in the style of Bhikkhu Bodhi —
his characteristic register and technical vocabulary (e.g. concentration for samādhi,
taints for āsava, with jhāna, Nibbāna, and Dhamma kept in Pāli).

• Generated, not aligned: produced segment-by-segment from SuttaCentral's segmented Pāli, not derived from any existing English edition.
• Copyright-clean: Bhikkhu Bodhi's own copyrighted translations are not used as input. Only a glossary of his preferred terms and a description of his style guide the output, so the result is an independent translation, not a reproduction.
• Model: generated with DeepSeek Flash (V4), June 2026.

As with any machine translation, it is a study aid, not an authoritative edition —
read it alongside the Pāli and the human translations.

EBT/LBT Classification Legend

Explanation

This system marks four categories along two axes:
chronological origin (early vs. late) and compliance with core EBT (benign vs. malignant).

• EBT (Early Buddhist Teachings) — material understood to derive from the earliest layer of the tradition, closer to the historical source.
• LBT (Late Buddhist Teachings) — material developed in later periods, building on or diverging from the earlier layer.
• ✅ Benign — content that is doctrinally consistent with core EBT, whether it's genuinely early material or a later elaboration that stays faithful to it.
• ⛔ Malignant — content that departs from or contradicts core EBT, whether misattributed as early when it isn't, or developed later in ways that undermine the earlier teaching.

The Four Categories

• ✅ EBT — genuine early material, compliant with core EBT (compliance here is closer to definitional, since this is the core)
• ⛔ EBT — material falsely claiming early/authoritative status, and/or not actually compliant with core EBT despite the label
• ✅ LBT — later development that remains compliant with core EBT; a legitimate extension, honestly presented as later
• ⛔ LBT — later material that departs from or contradicts core EBT, regardless of how it's presented

This gives a quick visual shorthand for sorting sources or claims by how faithfully they track the earliest teachings,
without needing to write out the full judgment each time.

Note on Terminology

"Benign" and "malignant" here are not value judgments on any particular sect, tradition, or its practitioners.
The terms are framed strictly in relation to genuine core EBT compliance,
and describe the effect that compliance or non-compliance would have on the outcome of practice for someone who intends to follow genuine EBT.
A teaching is "benign" if following it supports that intended outcome,
and "malignant" if following it undermines or diverts from that outcome —
regardless of the sincerity, tradition, or good faith of those who hold it.
This framing reflects the charter and goal of the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society (EBMPS):
preserving and clarifying genuine EBT for practitioners seeking it.

Tips for comparative study

• Two translations + Pāli is a productive default — three or more is more fun. The Pāli column lets you check the original word when two translators differ.
• Reorder columns with drag and drop so the translations you're comparing sit next to each other. Footnotes share the left sidebar, so put a translator's column toward the left, near its notes, when reading text and notes together.
• Segment numbers on (SC segment refs) makes it easy to note a verse number and find the same passage on suttacentral.net for commentaries or other translations.
• Footnote "all" mode works well for studying a short sutta in depth — you get the notes as a continuous commentary alongside the text.
• If you are comparing two English translations and want Pāli close at hand but less prominent, put Pāli in the middle and shrink it by making the browser window narrower — the outer columns stay readable while Pāli serves as an anchor reference.

About

s.4nt.org presents the discourses of the Pāli Canon — the earliest record of the Buddha's teaching —
with the original Pāli and one or more English translations side by side,
aligned segment by segment, so the same passage sits at the same height across every column.

The site is a project of the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society (EBMPS), at 4nt.org.

The pages are produced by a custom tool that re-aligns existing translations to SuttaCentral's segmented Pāli text one segment at a time —
"un-babbling" them back into a single, comparable structure.
Each page is fully self-contained:
saved to disk, it works offline with no server and no tracking.

See What you're looking at above for how to use the viewer.

Legal

The texts. Each translation is reproduced from its original source under that source's own licence —
see Translations available above for the source website and the specific terms of each.
Copyright in every translation remains with its respective author, translator, or publisher;
the texts are presented here for study and free distribution only, never for sale or commercial use.

The site. The site software and the original site material (layout, segment-alignment data,
and this guide) are produced by the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society and offered for non-commercial use.

Contact. For corrections, licensing questions, or to report an error,
write to the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society via 4nt.org.

This is a good-faith summary, not legal advice. Where it conflicts with the licence a source publishes for its own text, that licence governs.