Updated and improved gender-neutral interpretation of the ancient Buddhist text, the Dhammapada.
From the Dhammapada Wikipedia article :
The Dhammapada (Pāli; Prakrit: धम्मपद Dhammapada;[1]) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures.[2] The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Khuddaka Nikaya, a division of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism.
My primary goal and initial motivation has been to update the F. Max Muller translation from Project Gutenberg to have gender neutral pronouns and language (they/them), rather than the he/him/his male-default used by almost all English translations published so far.
Buddhism is a religion for everyone, be they men, women or non-binary folks. The history of Women in Buddhism is not a smooth one, but equality in and outside the monastic tradition is the only version of this philosophy that makes sense to me as a student. I believe this seminal document should be read as addressing each individual personally and in a way that is directly applicable to their lives.
Additionally, the more I analize the original Pali poetry, and the direct poetic translation of Thanissaro Bikkhu (see below), the more it seems extremely unlikely that the original text references gender to a significant degree. The Pali Dhammapada is written in broad and abstract terms, and it seems that only in rendering it into English grammar, do all the references to "a man" and "his" become so precise in their gender-binarity and patriarchy.
As such I see no need to maintain male-centered language and pronoun use in the Dhammapada, and a free and open gender-neutral version is badly lacking.
In addition to the gendered-language changes, I may also incorporate some modern re-interpretations of the original Pali (i.e. alternate translations of key words or phrases) for the purposes of social justice or general clarity. I will avoid making such changes as much as possible though, because I am not an expert in Pali, Buddhism or translation. My goal is to keep the "authority" of the 1881 Pali to English translation in theological and linguistic matters, while cleaning up the gendered language which I consider a socio-political necessity.
To follow along with my work, please see the document dhammapada-comparative.md in this repository, which compares the original Pali with 3 free translations of each verse, along with my own versions.
My goal is to create a free Dhammapada that may be read by anyone in that it will be free, in that it will use clear, simple language, and in that it will speak to readers with pronouns that are not alienating based on gender.
I am using GitHub for this endeavor with the goal of having re-interprative transparency, so that any changes I make are clear and unambiguous to anyone who wants to audit my choices. Additionally, GitHub will allow other students to easily fork my copy and make their own edits, which I will certainly consider integrating back into my version via. pull requests if I recieve them.
In the long run I hope to re-record my version as a Librivox audiobook to compete with the current LibriVox versions of the Dhammapada (Version 1, Version 2) , which have many technical and stylistic issues in addition to the problematic male-centered pronoun usage.
Specific titles for this retranslation that I might use are "Social Justice Dhammapada", "Inclusive Dhammapada" or "Dhammapada 2018". All should give a sense of what I'm going for. Ultimately though, this is simply the Dhammapada, revised to use simple lanaguge that applies to a modern audience.
Translations and interpretive guides used as inspiration and for guidance in reworking the Dhammapada with the above goals:
- The Dhammapada: Verses and Stories. Translated by Daw Mya Tin, M.A. Edited by Editorial Committee, Burma Tipitaka Association, 1986.
- Invaluable not only as a freely-available, plain language alternative to Müller's translation, but also for it's original Pali versions of each verse and translation notes about the original Pali words.
- The inclusion of in-depth summaries of the fables that traditionally accompany each verse is also invaluable in interpreting their contextual meaning in real-world Buddhism.
- The Dhammapada, A Translation. Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 1997.
- The Thanissaro version is a fascinating take on the project of translating the Dhammapada, as explained in it's detailed and nuanced analysis of the text and it's intentions found in the introduction, which I highly recommend any student of the Dhammapada read, whether they consume the full translation or not.
- Thanissaro's attempts to honor the poetic construction and terseness of the original Pali is both aesthetically splendid and pedagogically useful when trying to understand the original Pali, unlike the other translations which, generally speaking, dispose of the original structure completely in favor of clarity.
- If there is one version of the Dhammapada I would recommend reading alongside mine (or Tin's, or Müller's for that matter) it would certainly be Thanissaro's, assuming you, like me, aren't able to read the original Pali.
- "Dhammapada Traditions and Translations." An essay by Peter Gerard Friedlander published in the Journal of Religious History, vol. 33, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 215-234. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9809.2009.00795.x.
- Not freely available unfortunately, but a useful resource I had access to.
- An interesting analysis of various translations, their origin stories and their defining properties, including the Müller version, which is seen as the pragmatic "parent" of the tradition of translating the Dhammapada.
- Provides useful context on the existing attempts to reform gender presentation within the Dhammapada, including references to both Geri Larkin’s 2003 "rendering", in which she alternates "he" and "she" in hopes of making the book more inclusive, and the 2005 retranslation by Gil Fronsdal, in which he opts to use both the gender neutral plural "they" in many cases, as well as alternating "he" and "she" in other cases.
Please note that while I am aware of the Larkin and Fronsdal versions mentioned above, I have not read them in detail, and they do not form a major source of inspiration for my amalgamation, which is specifically derivative of the various freely available works mentioned above.
The "gender neutrality" found within my version is, for better or worse, my own invention, based on English gender neutral language norms as I understand them.
Original starting point for this Dhammapada is the Project Gutenberg TXT version here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2017
Background info about the Gutenberg version
- Title: Dhammapada, a Collection of Verses; Being One of the Canonical Books of the Buddhists
- Author: Unknown
- Translator: Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max), 1823-1900
- Note: Transcribed from: The Sacred Books of the East, Translated by Various Oriental Scholars, Edited by F. Max Muller, Volume X, Part I. (The introduction, notes and index have been omitted.) See also PG#12894 and cf.: Path of virtue; Khuddakanikaya; Suttapitaka; Tipitaka
- Release Date: October 1, 2008 [EBook #2017]
- Last Updated: January 15, 2013
- Language: English
Note that while Project Gutenberg lists the author as "Unknown", the traditionally-assumed author of the Dhammapada is Siddhārtha Gautama himself, "the Buddha". That said, it was transcribed years after his death based on oral tradition, and thus those who worked on the transcription are no longer known.
For some reason, the Project Gutenberg page completely omits the release date of "The Sacred Books of the East" Vol X. Based on this archive.org copy of Vol X, it seems the original publishing date was 1881:
The overall multi-volumne "The Sacred Books of the East" "Revised" edition on Project Gutenberg, which seems to be the specific source for F. Max Muller's Dhammapada used on Project Gutenbert, states "1900" on it's first page.