Talk:Pali Canon

Comments

Hey Peter--

Nice work on this article; I think it's coming along nicely. Despite having done Sanskrit for a few years (and some Pali in there too) I'm really not qualified to comment on the content of this article. I did have a few comments about style and presentation.

1. I think it would be helpful to have a footnote expanding on the "three approaches" in the 'Authorship and Date' section-- just giving the names of some major scholars and works. A statement in the body of the text about which approach-- if any-- prevails would be helpful as well. (There are a few other points where you refer to unnamed scholars; I think it would be helpful to flesh these references out.)

2. There are a few points where you refer to things a bit too allusively for the general reader. I think the 'Canon' section could use some clarification to explain why these different canonical lists are important, or what importance each is accorded. As it is, you just jump in with a list of the different lists of canonical works. Similarly, the 'Role' section is interesting, but is also a bit compressed.

Hope this helps! I look forward to reading more. Brian P. Long 20:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

1. OK, I've added a note on the 3 approaches. Is that the sort of thing you're thinking of? I can't actually say for sure which prevails, though I suspect the 3rd, the middle of the road. (Which itself contains a wide variety of detailed views.) Which other references were you saying should be added?
2. I probably can't add much on the canon. Scholars just don't seem to have bothered studying the point much. I've already stretched about as far as I can go without original research (and even that would add only a bit of speculation; it really needs research into some rather obscure sources I haven't got access to). I'll have to think about the Role section. I can no doubt add more detail here if appropriate.

Peter Jackson 10:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Self-promotion?

Just had occasion to look at this policy, and I seem to have broken it: the paper cited in note 7 is mine.

Also, the meaning of "associated" in the context of websites is not explained. I'm a member of the Pali Text Society, and do work for them, though only on a freelance basis, not as an employee (though I live in hope). I've no connexion with the website as such. Peter Jackson 10:49, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, I've rewritten to remove the citation. It's now somewhat less informative, but still useful. Peter Jackson 18:25, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Encouragement

Peter, I wanted you to know that I've consulted this page several times in recent years, as I began plowing through some of the modern translations of the Pali Canon (esp. those by Maurice Walshe and Bhikku Bodhi). Thanks for how much you've put into this article. I'd like to spend more time with it, if I could ever get the time.Pat Palmer (talk) 01:09, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Can I tinker with presentation of names?

Would it be okay if I tinkered with the presentation of names in the article? Possible examples:

• Dīghanikāya could be shown as Dīgha Nikāya (Long Discourses)
• Majjhimanikāya could be shown as Majjhima Nikāya (Middle Length Discourses)
• Saṃyuttanikāya could be shown as Saṃyutta Nikāya (Connected Discourses)
• Aṅguttaranikāya could be shown as Aṅguttara Nikāya (Numerical Discourses)

Please let me know. I don't want to trample on the good work already done, more interested in prettifying for readability.Pat Palmer (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Well obviously, I couldn't wait to get started. But let me know if you don't welcome that.Pat Palmer (talk) 19:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I think we should be consistent. I remember discussing this on WP many years ago. I couldn't find much consistency either in WP articles or in Google searches. The way you've done it is pitaka hyphen lc, nikaya space cap. I don't know whether you have any particular reason for the distinction. There's also the question of diacritics. What I eventually did over there was to use unpointed forms most of the time, but give the pointed form parenthetically after first occurrence, and maybe other important places. We're supposed to be a scholarly site, so I tended to use pointed forms here more. I'm not sure whether you're changing that. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:38, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Peter. I have only two concerns about naming, which are consistency and best readability for people who (like me, probably) have mild dyslexia. Having one big concatenated phrase, with no italics or bold for the names, is a little harder for me personally to read. It's your call though. If you decide you want them a certain way, which requires any transition, I'd be glad to help with the mechanics of that. Including, if it be the case, reverting the experimental changes I did make. I'm fine with it.Pat Palmer (talk) 10:59, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

OK, what do you think of how I've done it now? Peter Jackson (talk) 09:45, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Sutta Pitaka is perfectly readable. If everyone always includes "Pitaka" in the actual title, one of Sutta-Pitaka, or Sutta Pitaka, or Sutta Pitaka might be even better. Pat Palmer (talk) 14:32, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to worry about typefaces. I'm just concerning myself with slightly more substantial matters: capitals, spaces, hyphens, diacritical points. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:26, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Once again, it's very inconsistent. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:41, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I've had a look through quite a number of recent scholars. They all write either Vinayapiṭaka or Vinaya-piṭaka. Maybe we should standardize everything on the latter for series like pitakas and nikayas. Doing it for all compounds might look odd. How often do you see Dhamma-pada? Peter Jackson (talk) 10:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Philosophy/purpose of the article?

I noticed this sentence in particular at the bottom of the contents section: "Professor Freiberger argues that Western scholars have projected a Western paradigm of a "canon" onto Theravada, but it does not fit.[29]" This struck me as something that we might emphasize elsewhere, and earlier, in the article. When I first started reading from the Pali Canon, I was trying to find out just what the heck it is, and I ran across (in notes of various translations) these discussions about how the lessons should be, could be, or originally were, organized and grouped. And it is not just a trivial topic. I'm wondering here about how to emphasize this a little more in the article. My vision of what's growing here is something that would help a newby like I was (and still am) to find their way into the literature. I wanted to read whatever I could get (in English) that was as close to what the Buddha had said, with less interpretation by middle persons, and it seems like the Pali Canon was the earliest written account of the Buddha's teachings.Pat Palmer (talk) 19:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

My German is very rusty so I haven't attempted to plough through Freiberger's paper properly. Putting it my way, scholars are tending to follow a modern Western concept of canon. In ancient and mediaeval times the Bible was fuzzy, as it still is in the East, but printing and the Reformation resulted in a situation in the West where each denomination has a clearly defined canon (see Books of the Bible for more). Western scholars seem to be projecting this picture eastwards. Turnour came across somewhere a list of books in the Pali Canon (though he didn't use that name then) and published it in 1833 as the contents of "the" Canon. He doesn't give any source, nor does any subsequent scholar as far as I've been able to discover. They simply assume there's just one Canon in spite of ever increasing evidence to the contrary. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:47, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Have you read my article at [1]? That might be the sort of thing you're looking for. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks much for this link. Will try to read it soon!Pat Palmer (talk) 11:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

For your amusement only, I came across this photo of "a complete Tipiṭaka" that someone in Thailand had/has in their home: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tipitaka. Just like Christians in the U.S. usually have a Bible lying around, but about 100 times larger, he he. Well, it hit my funny bone, anyway.Pat Palmer (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I hope discussions like this will help you articulate your vision for the new-look CZ. One thing for now. Somewhere it says the target audience is college level (unless you've changed that already). Maybe you're wanting to retarget towards the general reader. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:52, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I've roughed out an overhaul, but it needs a lot of tidying up and filling in. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:47, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Translated titles

We need to make clear what these are. There's a difference between translations of the Pali titles and titles of translations, which are often not literal. (This is not confined to Pali. An example I came across here a while back is Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, often referred to in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (probably because of the film), which is not a translation of the French title.) Dīghanikāya doesn't mean Long Discourses, it means Collection of Long. We should make clear what's what, and also consistently give one, the other, both, or neither, throughout. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:47, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

On further thought, it's more complicated, as some things have more than one translation title, while others have none. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:22, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

I ran into the same issue for Theodor Fontane. Many different English translations have been used for the title of given single novel such as Irrungen Wirrungen. No easy answer came to mind. I left the novels for Fontane filed by their German names only.Pat Palmer (talk) 04:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

"Lessons"

It's not clear whether you're using this in the educational or the liturgical sense. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:50, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Did I write "lessons"? Not fond of the word either. Would "discussions" be any better? Please just modify it to whatever you think best.Pat Palmer (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I've put it back to "discourses", which is the standard term. A bit more detail is given just before. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

"the tradition"

In this sentence (of the opening paragraph for this article): "In the tradition itself, "Tipiṭaka", or vernacular equivalent...", does "the tradition" refer to Theravada Buddhism? If so, can we just say that? I've seen this "the tradition" language here and there and am a little fuzzy about what is intended.Pat Palmer (talk) 23:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing I need to know: what might not be clear to the lay reader? Peter Jackson (talk) 10:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Cf. my last remark in #Philosophy/purpose of the article? above. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Wondering WHICH parts?

For "According to Professor von Hinüber, some of the canon was composed after Pali ceased to be a living language." (Footnote 44) I'm busting to get an idea of WHICH parts of the canon he thought were composed later. If it's easy. If not, at least this pointer is there.Pat Palmer (talk) 13:05, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

What he specifically mentions in that passage is the short sections in the discussion of each Patimokkha rule listing the cases where there is no offence. I'm sure he, and likely many other scholars, would say the same of some other material, but that's what I've found the citation for. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Should we zap the Approved version of this article now?

Given the degree to which this article has grown, how would people feel about removing the Approved version of this article now?Pat Palmer (talk) 13:05, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

As I noted on its talk page, I no longer support that version, as I discovered when Lammerts' book came out that I'd misunderstood what he was saying in his paper.

There is a more general point, though. When citable versions were introduced here it was explained that their whole point was to be citable, i.e. have a permanent URL people could link to. That's a policy question for you and your advisors to consider. Peter Jackson (talk) 10:10, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I come late to this discussion, but it also affects some of my earlier articles that were approved under the old regime. I would favor some type of policy for replacement of previously Approved articles with updated versions also denoted as Approved in cases like this. To downgrade an update like Peter has produced seems unnecessary and counter-productive. This is splendid stuff! Roger A. Lohmann (talk) 16:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

That's a general policy matter you'd have to take up with Pat. As I understand it, there's no longer a mechanism for approvals. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:58, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Though there is the "Ready to read" category. Peter Jackson (talk) 09:59, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

What I've been doing is, zapping Approved versions of technical articles clearly out of date UNLESS the author is still around and doesn't want to, in which case, I leave it alone. I'm willing to do whatever Peter prefers. Definitely, this, and Pali Text Society, should go to "Ready to read". My personal preference would be to zap the Approved version, given that there is no crowd in here wreaking havoc on the main article and given that the main article continues to undergo expansion and improvement. But let me know what you prefer.Pat Palmer (talk) 15:47, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

By all means delete the Citable version and mark the two you mention as ready to read. I've nominated my own articles for that only where there's no WP article or only a brief one. Otherwise I leave them to the judgment of others. Peter Jackson (talk) 11:01, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I think I managed to delete the Citable version. I was initially confused because the empty "Citable version" subpage still shows up, but now I see that this is probably the normal thing.Pat Palmer (talk) 15:52, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Question on a PTS translation mentioned in the addendum

On the Addendum tab, under the Samyutta section, it lists:

• "Teachings of the Buddha: The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: a New Translation of the Saṃyutta nikāya, translated from the Pāli by Bhikkhu Bodhi, [2 volumes, later reprinted as 1,] Wisdom Publications, Boston [Mass.], 2000, ISBN 0-86171-331-1; the Pali Text Society also issues its own edition of this, which is its preferred translation"

I have the Bodhi translation and wanted to find "its preferred translation" on the Pali Text Society, but I was not able to locate that even after searching long. Can you identify which book it is on their website and provide a reference or link? Pat Palmer (talk) 07:58, 22 April 2023 (CDT)

The entry is at [2]. I agree the site is not very well organized. As far as I know, this edition is essentially identical to the Wisdom one. I haven't compared prices, but if you've already got that you needn't worry. When I say prefered translation, I'm simply expressing what's implicit in the Set at [3]. Peter Jackson (talk) 04:36, 24 April 2023 (CDT)

Thanks! Now I see that it's just a different printing of the Bodhi translation. I enjoyed the Bodhi translation very much in part for its extensive footnotes on translation issues. Pat Palmer (talk) 12:44, 24 April 2023 (CDT)