[Buddha-l] The arrow: its removal and examination

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 27 June 2007 12:33, Alberto Todeschini wrote:

> While on the subject of translating, how would you translate
> 'kulaputra'? I know what it means and I have looked it up in
> dictionaries, but I haven't quite found a stylish, satisfying rendering.

I carefully avoid translating texts that have that term in them. That's how I 
got into the business of translating works on Buddhist logic and 
epistemology. Not a kulaputra to be found among logicians!

The stock translation, of course, is "son of a good family." The connotation 
is someone who has joined the good "family" of Buddhist converts and has left 
the bad biological family behind, (Conversion, si! natural family, no!)

Edward Conze, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheekily, suggested that a kulaputra 
is someone from a good (that is, a wealthy) family who has converted to 
Buddhism. So that would suggest "Buddhist convert with deep pockets" as a 
good translation. Unfortunately, that translation would give the false 
impression that Indian Mahayana Buddhists had some money-grubbing 
materialists in the midst (no doubt, immigrants from America).

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes