[Buddha-l] MPNS & Buddha-nature (Lusthaus)

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 18:39 -0500, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> > (I recall Matilal telling
> > me once that it is next to impossible to translate Sanskrit
> > philosophical literature into Bengali!)
> 
> Was he thinking of navya-nyaaya or any garden variety Sanskrit philosophical
> text?

As I understood him, his comment was meant generally. Part of the
problem is that a good many Sanskrit philosophical terms have taken on
meanings in daily speech in vernacular languages that obscure the
meanings of the Sanskrit words. (I well recall an Indian student who
doubled over with laughter when I was giving a lecture on Indian logic
and kept using the word "lingam" for inferential mark.) 

As an aside, the problem just referred to was already present in
Sanskrit. Have you ever read the delightful ribald satire called
Ubhayaabhisaarikam? It is full of philosophers from the various schools
talking about philosophy, and the main character is a rake who manages
to find some sexual innuendo in everything they say. It's a wonderful
play. It depicts an experience that anyone who teaches philosophy to
sophomores experiences every day.

Matilal's claim, which I have no way of assessing without learning
Bengali, was that Bengali does not have a very rich philosophical
terminology, so part of what a translator of Sanskrit is faced with is
inventing new terminology to get certain philosophical ideas across. But
of course if one invents new terminology, it does not have an
established convention behind it, so no one knows what you're talking
about anyway. (For some reason, Jeffrey Hopkins just went running
through my mind.)

> I think the texts are translatable, though things are definitely lost.

Yes. Unfortunately, sometimes what is lost is the meaning. Fortunately,
that's not always so. If it were, all of us who translate would be
obliged to declare ourselves charlatans. (Actually, such a declaration
might not be so far off the mark.)

> Nagarjuna's exquisite, elegant, sophisticated, lucid poetry is lost in
> the convoluted English renditions.

His wonderful puns also get lost in the shuffle. They guy was one of the
great comic writers. Like a lot of comedians, he had some important
things to say through his buffoonery--things that probably could not be
said very well by playing straight.

> In MMK grammar dances.

In pretty well any Indian philosophical text grammar is the queen of the
ball. Everything turns on making subtle distinctions that can only with
the greatest of difficulty find expression in languages that Panini
never got around to describing. (As far as I know, the languages that
Panini never described includes every language but Sanskrit.)

> But his semantic sense can be largely captured. Similarly Kant in German is
> very picturesque, colorful, vivid imagery. Kemp Smith's rendition of the
> first critique captures the meaning, but turns it into colorless
> metaphysical abstraction. But there are plenty of English speakers/readers
> who know little or no German and yet understand Kant.

And there are plenty of native speakers of German who say they can read
Kant much more easily in English than in German. It could have to do
with the fact that Kemp Smith breaks most Kantian sentences into half a
dozen long but manageable English sentences.

> I've recently been looking at some Tibetan translations from Asanga,
> Vasubandhu and Bhavaviveka, and your observation is dead on target.

A target is a hell of a place to die.

> Basic terms which need to be differentiated in the Sanskrit get conflated and
> become indistinguishable in Tibetan; Chinese is often equally ambiguous and
> imprecise.

This semester I'm teaching a course in which we're using Garfield's
translation of the MMK. Garfield is a very smart guy and very skilled in
philosophical thinking, and he maintains regular contact with geshes of
the highest quality to help him sort through the Tibetan of Tsong kha
pa. The resulting work is brilliant in many ways, and I'm confident it
manages to capture Tsong kha pa quite well. But if one compares the
Sanskrit of, say, the second chapter of the MMK with what the Tibetans
made of it (and what Garfield made of that), it's simply a different
text. So you get three really interesting philosophical texts: the
original MMK, the Tibetan translations and commentaries and Garfield's
English. What these three texts have to do with each other is an
interesting brier patch in which to spend some quality time with a tar
baby.

By the way, I'm always glad to find out there are other scholars of
Buddhism who find the tathaagata-garbha an outrage against all reason
and all dharma. I have railed against that doctrine so much I'm almost
as sick of what I have to say about it as other poeple are sick of
hearing me say it. So it's refreshing to read someone else with the same
robust allergies and prejudices.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico