[Buddha-l] query about a term in Japanese zen, translated as "soul" in one text.

[Jo]

Hi Stan, Interesting--I know next to nothing about Japanese language and little about Zen in Japan. Richard cut my post by the way and substituted links to the Pali dictionary. Probably my email format does not agree with his.

 

You don't seem to have caught that I was deliberately enlarging the query to translation of terms as "soul" in the wider and older context. Sally mentioned that this term appears often, she wondered about its translation status, so  I thought it of interest that it also appears in major dictionaries written of course by westerners, and tried to reply to what Richard said about early Buddhism. 

 

Strikes me, reading yours here, that a better term for conveying the Indian idea of jiva would have been the GK. pneuma, because of the association in Indian thought with breath and spirituality and the non-material nature of the jiva. Also, didn't some early Christian writers use this term instead of "soul"? Maybe even Max Mueller used it as an analogy to some Skt terms; been a long time since I read anything by him so just guessing.

 

Didn't you use the wrong compound here: "This term connotes what 霊魂....", since you  compared it to the same? Did you mean to use 魂?

 

Joanna

_________________

 

 

Joanna,

 

I am not responding to your informative post, but responding to the original inquiry, presuming that it has yet to be answered.  The term translated as "soul" was most likely "tamashii" (魂).  This terms refers to the animating principle of a living being.  It can also connote the psyche or the spirit.  Since the advent of Christianity to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century A.D. a Sino-Japanese composite has also been used, "reikon" (霊魂).  This term connotes what 霊魂 connotes, and it can be used to translate "jiva."  "Rei" (霊) by itself can connote numen, spirit (pneuma).  I'll check some of my specifically Japanese Buddhist dictionaries for these terms.

 

Regards,

 

Stan Ziobro

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Jo < <mailto:jkirk at spro.net> jkirk at spro.net>

To: 'Buddhist discussion forum' < <mailto:buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>

Sent: Sun, Jan 15, 2012 11:51 am

Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] query about a term in Japanese zen, translated as "soul" in one text.

 

 

In my comments here I’m not referring to E. Asian Buddhists but to what we think r someone thinks the Buddha thought. 

 

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