Rationale
The detailed reasoning and examples behind the Principles of Translation. This page is translated from the Russian original, which is kept more up to date and contains a few additional examples — see the Russian version.
Issues with Contextual Translation
To avoid confusion, the following terms are used: Systematic Translation (Consistent Terminology) is an approach strictly grounded in the direct definitions of terms found within the primary sources themselves (the Suttas and Vinaya). It resolutely adheres to the original text's "internal glossary." The verified meaning is applied consistently and universally across the entire corpus, preserving the underlying logic, coherence, and original structure of the Teaching. For any given Pali concept, the closest possible equivalent — a single English word or a word cluster — is selected. While systematic translation is not always feasible, it is the preferred method wherever possible.
Contextual Translation is an approach where the strict definitions provided by the primary sources are sidelined or ignored entirely. Consequently, the translation of a single word can vary drastically from one text to another. In these cases, the choice of terminology is driven not by the original's internal logic and glossary, but by established tradition, the translator's stylistic preferences, subjective interpretation, or the expectations of the audience.
Contextual translation was an appropriate path of least resistance for primary text translations when there were no English translations at all — but a number of problems arose as a result, including fundamental ones.
A case in point: in an imaginary text, word X is translated as "flying fox"; in another, word X is translated as "polo mallet." Contextual translation led to the word "bat" losing both its meanings, or acquiring unnecessary additional connotations.
Example 1, from translations:
anicc-ucchādana-parimaddana-bhedanaviddhaṁsanadhammassa
...body... subject to impermanence, deformation and abrasion, disintegration and dispersion.
And the second case:
ucchādana-parimaddana-nhāpanasambāhanaṁ
"But he agrees to have them rub, massage, bathe, knead him."
ucchādana (translated as "deformation" and "rubbing") — as with the word "bat" in the example above, the word's covering-related sense (smearing, covering, including as concealment — appropriate for the case of unreliability and disintegration) acquired an inappropriate meaning here, although it could have been verified and clarified. parimaddana (abrasion, massage) — a general word such as "kneading" (something being crumpled) would have been more appropriate.
Example 2, a fundamental problem:
dukkha — translated sometimes as pain, sometimes as suffering,1 led to the cause (pain) becoming less important, and the consequence (suffering) becoming the main goal of Liberation.
The fact that dukkha is directly defined in the Suttas is ignored almost everywhere, not only in English translations. dn22 gives the definition in the context of the Four Noble Truths in practice, mn141 gives the definition within the Four Noble Truths directly:
Katamañcāvuso, dukkhaṁ?
Yaṁ kho, āvuso, kāyikaṁ dukkhaṁ kāyikaṁ asātaṁ kāyasamphassajaṁ dukkhaṁ asātaṁ vedayitaṁ,
idaṁ vuccatāvuso: 'dukkhaṁ'.
And what, friends, is pain? That which, friends, is bodily pain, bodily discomfort, born of bodily contact, pain, discomfort felt — this is called, friends, "pain."
Katamañcāvuso, domanassaṁ?
Yaṁ kho, āvuso, cetasikaṁ dukkhaṁ cetasikaṁ asātaṁ manosamphassajaṁ dukkhaṁ asātaṁ vedayitaṁ,
idaṁ vuccatāvuso: 'domanassaṁ'.
And what, friends, is "suffering" (discontent, dissatisfaction)? That which, friends, is mental pain, mental discomfort, born of mental contact, pain, discomfort felt — this is called, friends, "suffering."
There is no definition of dukkha (pain) as "suffering" anywhere in the Suttas or Vinaya — on the contrary, "suffering" (domanassa) is defined through the concept of "mental" pain (dukkha).
In the case of bodily pain-discomfort, contextual translation was not even needed, since the word "pain" already has a meaning even more suitable than "suffering." In a figurative sense, "pain" is a problem, something requiring a solution, without the hyperbolic "loudness" of the word "suffering" — as in "this issue is my long-standing pain." The word "pain" thus covers all the necessary contexts and preserves the priority of bodily sensation over the reaction to that sensation (more on this below).
There are also fundamental problems arising from ignoring context, as with the word anta — end, edge, boundary, threshold, limit — which is erroneously translated, and continues to be translated, as "extreme," even contrary to the context of the very passage where it is so translated, not to mention other occurrences where such a meaning is entirely inapplicable:
Tatra kho bhagavā pañcavaggiye bhikkhū āmantesi:
Here the Blessed One addressed the group of five monks:
"Dveme, bhikkhave, antā pabbajitena na sevitabbā.
"Two ends, monks, should not be approached by one gone forth. ...
Ete kho, bhikkhave, ubho ante anupagamma majjhimā paṭipadā tathāgatena abhisambuddhā cakkhukaraṇī ñāṇakaraṇī upasamāya abhiññāya sambodhāya nibbānāya saṁvattati.
Not approaching, monks, these two ends, the Middle Practice realized by the Tathagata gives vision, gives knowledge, leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to awakening, to nibbana. (sn56.11)
A phenomenon can certainly have an intensity scale from minimum (end, boundary, edge, threshold) to maximum (edge, limit, extreme), and the word "end" can carry both the sense of "threshold" and of "limit" — but the word "extreme" hardly refers to the beginning, and is not even interpreted that way. Here the Buddha says the Middle Practice "does not approach," "does not come near" (anupagamma) either edge. If this were about extremes, it would imply that a certain range of involvement is allowed — until excessiveness is reached. The Buddha's Teaching points to not approaching even the threshold — to complete non-involvement, neither in desires nor in self-mortification, even in their minimal forms.
As a result of this distortion, the Teaching leading to maximum clarity and uncompromisingness — the Middle, in the sense of a center or balance beyond extreme points — acquired the properties of "mediocrity": the idea of a compromise where "a little indulgence in desires" or "a little self-restriction" is allowed, just not "too much." The Middle Practice is not "moderation in passions and self-mortification" — it is non-entry into either system of attachment. Such cases are therefore categorical distortions, not mere translation inaccuracies.
Cross-Verifiability of Consistent Terminology
In addition to consistent terminology, cross-verifiability and unidirectionality are easily traceable throughout the Buddha's Teaching, preserving principles including that the Tathagata's speech cannot be ambiguously contradictory (dvayagāminī), and conversely, that the Dhamma should be well-formulated (svākkhāto).
Example: dukkha is defined in mn141, dn22 and other suttas as bodily pain, bodily discomfort. There is no definition of dukkha as "suffering" in the Suttas or Vinaya — that is the result of contextual translation.
In the Four Noble Truths: soka-parideva-dukkha-domanass-upāyāsa — dukkha and domanassa are two direct definitions, bodily and mental pain and discomfort respectively, with the bodily one placed before the mental.
In the satipaṭṭhānas: kāyo vedana are the first two parts, citta (mind-state) is the third.
In the six elements (four great elements plus two): the four great elements are all "bodily" (mn28); viññāṇadhātu is ~mental, or more precisely the phenomenon that produces mentality.
In the five aggregates of clinging: rūpa vedana sañña saṅkhārā viññāṇa — ~matter, feeling of pleasant, pain, and neither-pain-nor-pleasant come first, and only then the ~mental phenomena.
In the six internal sense bases: cakkhu soto ghāna jivha kāyo mano — body is placed before mind-representation.
In dependent origination (sn12.2): avijjā has a precise definition — not knowing about pain (dukkha), etc. In the definition of saṅkhāras: body, speech, mind (body first). Viññāṇa — six types, kāyo mano — body comes before mind. nāma-rūpa — name-~matter, where "name" is vedanā, saññā, cetanā, phasso, manasikāro (feeling, perception, volition, contact, attention) — vedanā comes first, before the more ~mental phenomena such as cetanā and manasikāra. In other sequences of conditions where body and mind can be distinguished, the same principle holds as with viññāṇa: body or contact comes before mind or phenomenon (Dhamma).
In the types of activity (kamma): body, speech, mind (body first).
Based on this principle, bodily pain-discomfort can be understood to have always held first priority, even indirectly — not to mention in direct definitions — while "suffering, dissatisfaction," as a reaction to or opinion about what is happening, was on the contrary never a priority.
Semantic Divergence
The concept of Semantic Divergence (shift, mismatch) describes cases more subtle than false cognates2 and "false friends of the translator" — where a pair of words in two languages does have a genuinely similar meaning and is treated as equivalent, but the words have different semantic cores and cultural overtones, so native speakers of each language perceive them differently.
Example: Happiness (English) — a calm state of satisfaction, not necessarily a state of euphoria, ecstasy, or exaltation. Счастье (Russian) — an exalted experience of fullness, meaning of being, delight, and the highest degree of satisfaction. This is about the meaning of the words themselves, not the state of any particular person: for illustration only, happiness might be described as roughly 80% satisfaction/contentment and 20% intensive, vivid experience, whereas счастье is the reverse — an emotionally loud state 80% of the time, with 20% peace and measured being, if that is included in the sense of the word at all.
That is, the Pali word somanassa could, with a stretch, be described by the word happiness — but the word счастье would be inappropriate and contradictory, not to mention the word sukha, which has a fundamental meaning as the opposite of dukkha and is defined in the suttas as bodily pleasant:
Katamañca, bhikkhave, sukhindriyaṁ?
Yaṁ kho, bhikkhave, kāyikaṁ sukhaṁ, kāyikaṁ sātaṁ, kāyasamphassajaṁ sukhaṁ sātaṁ vedayitaṁ—
idaṁ vuccati, bhikkhave, sukhindriyaṁ.
And what, monks, is the faculty of pleasure? That which, monks, is bodily pleasure, bodily comfort, pleasure and comfort born of bodily contact felt — this is called, monks, the faculty of pleasure.
Katamañca, bhikkhave, somanassindriyaṁ?
Yaṁ kho, bhikkhave, cetasikaṁ sukhaṁ, cetasikaṁ sātaṁ, manosamphassajaṁ sukhaṁ sātaṁ vedayitaṁ—
idaṁ vuccati, bhikkhave, somanassindriyaṁ.
And what, monks, is the faculty of satisfaction? That which, monks, is mental pleasure, mental comfort, pleasure and comfort born of mind contact felt — this is called, monks, the faculty of satisfaction. (sn48.36)
With happiness the problem is as fundamental as with dukkha, though due to contextual translation the reader less often encounters sukha translated as bodily pleasant feeling. With taṇhā the case is more severe, and the problem larger, since the reader has no way to learn that taṇhā is not "thirst."
Taṇhā (Pali) or tṛṣṇā (Sanskrit) can indeed denote clinging, sticking, stickiness, grasping, and even a need to drink — but these are phenomena that can be pleasant, light, agreeable, and desirable, including in a figurative sense. Whereas "thirst" in English is a "loud" and mostly negative concept, even when used positively, as in "thirst for knowledge" or "thirst for travel" — the word itself is being discussed here, not whether wanting knowledge is good or not.
sn56.11 — if taṇhā were a full equivalent of the word "thirst," it should be either an unpleasant experience of dryness and dehydration, or a strong, often passionate striving, need, or craving, sharply focused on the result (thirst for life — preserving life and its quality at any cost; thirst for knowledge — the desire to obtain information or experience without regard for other benefits). But the definition of the Second Noble Truth states that taṇhā is accompanied (sahagata, literally "goes together with") by joy-pleasure and passion-enchantment — not "pursues joy and passion," as if lacking them, nor "connected with them," as a potential outcome upon obtaining them, but as if they were already present in the current experience. Judging by the metaphors of one exhausted by heat and thirst, tasinā would fit that case better (see below).
Tatratatrābhinandinī — delighting here-and-there, now this, now that — is inconsistent with the strong, one-directional, result-focused nature of the English word "thirst." A word like "wanting" would better convey this moderate, even pleasant, sense of desire — though that creates its own problem: both "thirst" and "wanting" produce a pleonasm when translating the common compound kāma-taṇhā, since kāma already means "desire" or "wanting," yielding either the redundant "desire-thirst" or the tautological "wanting-wanting."
An example of a more accurate and appropriate — though contextual, not systematic — translation of taṇhā than "thirst" can be found in the Chinese Taishō Tripiṭaka, where taṇhā is rendered as "love" (愛), as in "I love you" (我爱你, simplified Chinese):
何謂苦習？謂從愛故而令復有樂性，不離在在貪憙，欲愛、色愛、不色之愛，是習為苦。何謂苦盡？謂覺從愛復有所樂，婬念不受，不念無餘無婬，捨之無復禪，如是為習盡。
By setting aside the semantic fields of clinging, stickiness, dryness, or thirsting-for-liquid, the translators nevertheless preserved what matters most — the lightness of the concept and its association with joy-passion. In English "love" is somewhat closer to taṇhā than "thirst," especially in its connotations of desire or craving, though it still overstates the emotional positivity of the term.
Issues with Sanskritocentrism
Sanskritocentrism (pan-Sanskritism)3 is a non-optimal approach to understanding the Buddha's Teaching. The Buddha's Teaching exists in exhaustive completeness in Pali, but not in Sanskrit; it was also formulated in Pali chronologically earlier. Assuming that the conceptual base of Pali (Dhamma) and the Sanskrit (Hindu) base of sacred texts is identical is rash. Even within a single teaching or religion, divergences in the meaning of concepts are great enough to produce separate — sometimes hostile — movements, schools, and sects; yet two languages carrying the heritage of dozens of teachings, schools, and hundreds of sects are assumed to coincide down to subtleties and nuances.
The apparent absence of false cognates and "false friends of the translator" between the two languages is itself a good illustration of the unconvincingness of the pro-Sanskrit approach to Pali — as if someone had made the illogical equation: "if two languages have similar grammar and many related words, then the key concepts of their teachings must also be identical."
Atta and Atman are a vivid example of clearly existing divergence and non-interchangeability of meaning: Atta (essence, selfhood, ~autonomy, the everyday "I") in Pali, and Atman (the higher "Self") in Sanskrit. It is also enough to compare the 31 "body parts," as in dn22 — kesā lomā... vasā kheḷo siṅghāṇikā lasikā muttanti — to see how distant and incommensurable the meanings of seemingly similar Pali and Sanskrit words can be.
With this in mind, in cases where Pali texts genuinely lack context or examples, Sanskrit can still be used — provided this does not lead to contradictions like those listed below. If a definition of a concept exists in Pali but the Sanskrit meaning contradicts it, the latter is not applied.
Examples of terminological divergence: duḥkha, tṛṣṇā, kāma and karma may, in some cases, correspond to "suffering," "thirst," "sensual desire," and "action" within some teaching recorded in Sanskrit — but in Pali, had the Pali texts themselves been the primary basis for establishing these terms (rather than a literal transfer of meaning between the two languages), this would be unlikely.
Examples from Pali texts:
-
dukkha:- dn22 — the definition within the practical realization of the Four Noble Truths.
- mn141 — the definition within the Four Noble Truths:
soka-parideva-dukkha-domanass-upāyāsa— suffering [meaning 1], lamentation, pain, "suffering" [meaning 2], despair. If we speak of suffering in the direct sense, it is either soko — very strong bodily and mental pain, in which the experiencer:Those who missed the opportunity, they suffer, having fallen into hell —Khaṇātītā hi socantinirayamhi samappitāsuffers, languishes, cries, beats their breast weeping, falls into confusion — or domanassa in the figurative sense of "suffering," as mental pain.socati kilamati paridevati, urattāḷiṁ kandati, sammohaṁ āpajjati
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taṇhā: the two Pali terms taṇhā and tasinā4 — quite mechanically, without regard for their context of use in the Suttas — have been given full synonymous status with each other and with the Sanskrit tṛṣṇā, though given what was described above under "Semantic Divergence," this problem may not be about Sanskrit at all, but about translating both languages without regard for differences in meaning that can be gleaned from their descriptions. Still, mostly a "Sanskrit" problem is also present: the kinship of tṛṣṇā, taṇhā, and tasinā is explained by standard phonetic mutation (tṛṣṇā → taṇhā, of which there are only about three such words in the entire core of the Pali texts: kṛṣṇa → kaṇha, uṣṇa → uṇha; and the similarity of tṛṣṇā and tasinā — tṛ → t, ṣ → s, ṇā → nā — is likewise easy to trace). But phonetic mutation cannot guarantee that meaning is "transferred" too, especially when the "mutation" of one word supposedly gives both words fully identical meanings — much as claiming "dryish" and "drought" are complete synonyms because the word "dry" in some other language corresponds to both. Divergences in the meaning and use of Pali taṇhā and tasinā are easily traced in the texts below: taṇhā is used where the phenomenon is associated with joy and passion-enchantment, delighting here-and-there, while tasinā is used in cases of desert, heat, and exhaustion, in more extreme circumstances.- sn12.68 — describes circumstances suited to real, strong "thirst," and uses a derivative of tasinā, not taṇhā; but if this concerned the desire to drink, there would be a pleonasm with pipāsito ("thirsty, desiring to drink"). In any case, such a context does not fit "accompanied by joy-passion, delighting here-and-there," which is repeatedly said of taṇhā.
- snp3.2 — the same case: taṇhā is not used, tasina is, with the same tautology alongside pipāsā.
- an4.10 — also tasina, not taṇhā, and a tautology with pipāsā.
- an4.184 — if taṇhā were thirst, there would be a tautology with pipāso, which here clearly has a figurative meaning; when used literally, pipāso means "desire to drink."
- an3.76 and an3.77 — if taṇhā were thirst, this would be a misleading oxymoron: thirst as moisture and nourishment.
- sn44.9 — a logical contradiction: thirst (hunger for liquid) as nourishment.
- an10.62 — what would be the nourishment of thirst? Thirst is an absence, not a form of nourishment itself.
- iti109 — the river's flow is thirst; a state of water's absence is a flow of water.
- sn41.5 — a similar contradiction involving the flow of water.
- mn9 — from the accumulation of thirst comes accumulation of nourishment (logically it should be the reverse — from the disappearance of nourishment, an accumulation of thirst, or at least from the disappearance of thirst, an accumulation of nourishment).
- an4.199 — the phenomena listed here are so subtle that thirst could, if anything, be their result; calling "I am" and its further extensions "thirst" or currents thereof, in the sense of an "acute need for something," is very difficult — this passage concerns subtle, fundamental states inherent even in beings devoid of "thirst" in the ordinary sense of the word.
- an4.9 — thirst is not the source of pain, but either one type of pain, or conversely a striving to stop something unpleasant. Otherwise thirst for water would be the cause of the unpleasant sensation of dryness — but on the contrary, thirst as the striving to drink is the result of the unpleasant sensation of dryness.
- an6.61 — the phenomena listed here, including phasso, can be so subtle that there can be no talk of thirst in either a figurative or a direct sense, especially at moments of "quenched thirst" — yet these phenomena remain stitched together and held, whether or not there is "strong wanting."
In Pali texts, taṇhā has a more complex, subtler, and less "loud" meaning than the English word "thirst," in either its direct or figurative sense.
-
kāma:- an6.63 — desires as intention-blank-passion, not merely multipliers of desire (kāma-guṇas).
- an6.63 (continuation) — a desiring person obtains either good or not-good, but "sensual" desires would lead to not-good, as they would contain akusalamūla: lobha, dosa, and/or moha.
Puriso attha-kāmo hita-kāmo yogakkhema-kāmoti kho, bhikkhave, tathāgatassetaṁ adhivacanaṁ arahato sammāsambuddhassa.— "A person desiring good, desiring benefit, desiring protection from the yoke," monks, is a designation of the Tathagata, of the Arahant, of the Rightly Awakened One. (mn19) It would be inappropriate to assume the Tathagata compared himself to a person passionately desiring good for others, or for himself.
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kamma:- an4.237 — Right View, Right Mindfulness, and Right Samādhi do not fit the concept of "action" — perhaps, with a stretch, "activity" — but these are clearly far subtler phenomena than mere deed, work, or action.
- an4.238 — the mindfulness-awakening-aspect, rapture-awakening-aspect, tranquility-awakening-aspect, samādhi-awakening-aspect, and direct-seeing-awakening-aspect likewise do not fit the concept of action.
The texts above show that the Pali terms dukkha, taṇhā/tasinā, kāma, and kamma were never exact equivalents — either of their Sanskrit counterparts or of the standard English translations. Yet "suffering," "thirst," "sensual desire," and "action" remain the standard, universally used Buddhist terminology.