[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 32, Issue 17

[Piya Tan]

"Misguided man" is another possible translation. Another interesting
clsoe translation might be TS Eliot's  "Hollow Men" (where "empty men"
is also mentioned). I wonder if Eliot knew of mogha,purisa. He alluded
to the Fire Sermon, though.

Piya Tan


On 10/20/07, Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 20:36 -0400, Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> > Richard wrote, in response to Joy:
>
> > > I don't recall any such instances. The Buddha told some people they
> had
> > > misunderstood him, but he did not shame them or ridicule them or speak
> of
> > > them as jerks and idiots. Or so I recall from what I have read. I
> wasn't
> > > actually there.
> >
> > Does calling someone a "fool" in front of the whole assembly count?
>
> No. Saying that someone has misunderstood something hardly counts as an
> instance of shaming them. I have read (oddly enough, only from Brahmin
> writers) that the only people humiliated in public by the Buddha were
> men of low caste. The favorite example of this public humiliation is the
> Mahatanhasakhaya sutta, where the unhappy recipient of the Buddha's
> humiliation was a fisherman's son. But that sutta is my prime example of
> the Buddha correcting someone for misunderstanding him, and not calling
> them anything like a jerk or an idiot. The phrase used was
> "moghapurisa," which just means "mistaken man" or "confused person."
>
> --
> Richard Hayes
> Department of Philosophy
> University of New Mexico
>
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