[Buddha-l] liturgical languages

[curt]

Michel Clasquin wrote:

> curt wrote:
>
>> To be honest I just don't think that Western Buddhism
>> has yet produced the personell who are QUALIFIED to compete with such 
>> works of
>> art as the Morning Bell Chant in Sino-Korean, for example. That will 
>> require people
>> who are, first of all, fully enlightened, second of all, exceptional 
>> scholars, and third
>> of all, gifted poets.
>
>
> An excellent idea! Of course, we must be fair and consistent and apply 
> the same criteria to the authors of those 2000 year old chants.
>
> Now this means that if the author of a text is unknown, or if there is 
> the least doubt about authorship, we can discard that text. That 
> should take care of about 90 percent of all Buddhist writings .... 
> <snip snip snip> .......
>
> So, if we apply the same three criteria to ancient texts that you want 
> to apply to modern ones, it seems we have nothing left! Actually what 
> is left is emotional attachment and reverence for the old words and by 
> extension for their (supposed) authors. Nothing terribly wrong with 
> that (except that all attachments are eventually to be let go). 

Existing Buddhist liturgical texts (which are of course translations 
themselves) can
be evaluated using different crititera - among them being that old 
standy-by "the test
of time". Of course its possible that hundreds of millions of Buddhists 
have been
chanting "the wrong translation" for hundreds of years - but I am enough 
of a
Traditionalist to think that the burden of proof would lie on those 
casting aspersions,
not on those chanting the Heart Sutra. Then there is the synchronic 
equivalent to
the diachronic test of time - ie, how widely accepted a particular 
version is. In the
case of the Heart Sutra I believe that there is near universal 
acceptance of a standardized
Chinese version by Mahayana Buddhists throughout all of East Asia. An 
even stronger
case - both diachronic and synchronic - can be made in case of Pali 
texts used
for chanting throughout the Theravadin world. I don't know much about 
Vajrayana/
Tantric chanting (except that some of those chants celebrate drinking 
blood out
of the skulls of the enemies of the Dharma) - so I can't say anything 
about that.

As a young lad back in Indiana I learned "if it ain't broke don't fix 
it". I think its a
fair assumption that the existing chanting liturgies of the various 
Buddhist traditions
in Asia "work". Someone who wishes to replace that liturgy with their 
own poetry
or someone elses should not pretend that there is a level playing field 
in comparing
modern English translations with traditional liturgies. There ain't.

- Curt