[Buddha-l] Pure Conversation vs koan

[Richard Hayes]

On Monday 30 July 2007 12:58, curt wrote:

> I recently read (somewhere....) that Indian philosophers have made use
> of dialog formats not unlike those of Plato (and other Greeks). Does
> anyone know if this is true (sorry if this is a dumb and/or obvious
> question)?

Not only philosophers but all writers of learned treatises tended to set up 
their treatises as a kind of dialogue between the writer and an imaginary 
interlocutor or set of interlocutors. Unlike a modern script for a play, the 
characters are not identified, but there are words and phrases that indicate 
a change of speaker. Commentators usually try to identify the interlocutor. 
So in modern translations of Sanskrit texts, it is common for translators to 
put the probable interlocutor in square brackets. So you might find a 
translation looking something like this:

[Follower of Yoga school]: God is used as an inspirational aid to the yogin.
[Buddhist;] God does not exist, and a non-existent being cannot inspire.
[Follower of Yoga school]: The very idea of God can inspire, even if the idea 
does not correspond to a reality.
[Buddhist]: A false idea leads only to delusion, not to inspiration.

A more literal rendering of the text of which that might be a translation 
would look something like this:

Some say that God is used as an inspiration aid to the yogin. We say that God 
does not exist, and a non-existent being canniot inspire. Others say that the 
very idea of God can inspire, even if the idea does not correspond to a 
reality. We say that a false idea leads only to delusion, not to inspiration.

-- 
Richard