[Buddha-l] Saantideva (Re: Pudgalavada)

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the sanskrit and your translation

>A resident Tibetologist might help with the sense of the Tibetan, but 
>it might also be useful to check the relevant Sanskrit. Not to imply 
>that the extant Sanskrit will recapitulate precisely what the Tibetan 
>translators had in front of them, and not to imply that Tibetan 
>translations aren't worth consulting as well, but ¡¡¨¡ntideva didn't 
>compose his texts in Tibetan, after all. 
 
>The Sanskrit of the verse under discussion, in the edition I have 
>ready to hand, reads as follows: 
 
>yan na k¨¡ye na c¨¡nyatra na mi¡¡ra¡¡ na p¡¡thak kvacit / 
>tan na ki¡¡cid ata¡¡ sattv¨¡¡¡ prak¡¡ty¨¡ parinirv¡¡tt¨¡¡¡ // 
> 
>A rough translation of the above might be: 
 
>"That which is neither in the body nor elsewhere, neither mixed nor 
>separate with respect to some [locus], 
>Is nothing. Hence, sentient beings are fundamentally (or naturally: 
>prak¡¡ty¨¡) nirv¨¡¡¡ic." 

I still have a problem with "That which ... is nothing". The Tibetan "gar" means "where" and can be short for "gar yang" "anywhere". With a negation this becomes nowhere, exists nowhere, your locus. For me this is very different from "nothing". Especially since it would make the sentence a sort of contradiction in terms. "There is this something, but in reality it is nothing" Does the sanskrit actually imply a hard "nothing"? I agree with Victor Hugo on this point : Il n'y a pas de néant. Zéro n'existe pas. Tout est quelque chose.Rien n'est rien.  
 
Joy