Indian Logic Forum

JohnW · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:39 pm Post subject: Russian and French translations

Hi Plamen!

i have at last obtained the French translation i mentioned some weeks ago. i was confident i had at last found what i needed to at least formulate my questions better. Unfortunately, the translation does not contain Ck's autocommentary. For some reason the translators of this French edition decided not to give the auto-commentary: they preferred to publish what they call something like a "condensed paraphrase of the [combined] commentaries of Chandrakirti and Tsongkhapa, with explanatory comments by Yonten Gyatso on certain points" ("le prГ©sent commentaire est, dans sa majeure partie, une paraphrase rГ©sumГ©e des exГ©gГЁses de Ch et Tsongkhapa comprenant la glose de M. Yonten Gyatso sur des points de dГ©tail"). And there's no indication of who wrote what: they seem to have constructed their own commentary from these three sources.

i'm now looking for de la VallГ©e Poussin's 1907 translation (up to Ch. 6, st. 166 or so).

So: i wish i could give you something to compare the Russian translation with, but that will have to wait. i did have a few questions, translation-wise: 1) i understood you to say that there was no indication of the (supposed) Sanskrit original in the Russian translation, and that the terms you give were the ones you yourself reconstructed from the translation. Is that correct? 2) i'm supposing also that the original Tibetan was not indicated (is that true?). 3) Was the text you translated printed before stanza 14, or after it?

In the French translation i have (which i'll call MA/YG [under the direction of Yonten Gyatso]), there are a number of sentences that correspond roughly to your rendering of the Russian. The differences could easily be accounted for by the fact that MA/YG doesn't necessarily translate Ck's original text.

If you know how i could obtain an English (or French, or even German, Spanish or Italian) translation of Ck's auto-commentary, please let me know.

All the best,
j

JohnW · Last edited by JohnW on Wed May 24, 2006 1:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi Plamen!

i have been meaning to ask you a specific question about the Russian translation of the Madhyamakavatara-bhasya that you found. Huntington translates a sentence from that commentary that he applies to 6:14, line one: "That is, because of [its] quality of being other" [MAB 89 (B indicating Ck's Bhasya); quoted in Huntington 1989: 228d]. Does the Russian translation contain a similar statement? Or is it translated differently?

All the best,
john

Plamen · Posted: Wed May 24, 2006 4:07 am Post subject:

Yes, there is:

Because it is different. It is not what can be perceived or inferred, hence it does not exist.
- p. 98 of the Russian translation.

JohnW

Interesting! Some questions immediately come to my mind:

1) The first sentence you quote ("Because it is different") sounds to me as if it could be the general justification for the conclusion drawn, which would render it more or less equivalent to line 4: Because "all non-causes as well are different [from that effect]" (Huntington's translation). Huntington, on the other hand, implies that the statement he quotes ("That is, because of [its] quality of being other") is a clarification of the meaning of the expression "arising in dependence on another" (line 1). The difference in placement of that statement makes all the difference: in the first case (as line 4) it's a seemingly arbitrary justification, rendering the syllogism invalid; and in the second case (as line 1) it's a premise that misrepresents the thesis of other-production, rendering the argument useless. Is there any way to place this statement (and understand it) so that it fits correctly into a logically valid argument that applies to the thesis of other-production?

2) What is the "it" in the second sentence: "It is not what can be perceived or inferred, hence it does not exist"? On the face of it, this "it" appears (to me) to refer to the "it" of the first sentence, which i take to mean "the cause" (or "the effect": it doesn't matter which, since 'difference' is a symmetrical relation). But then i wonder: why can't the cause (or the effect) be perceived? Ck says a flame is a cause, and a flame is certainly visible. (Perhaps not! This line of reasoning can be pursued later.) That prompts me to assume that Ck must be referring to the cause *as cause*, not as whatever object it might be (like a flame): he's referring to the relationship of causality, not to the objects, like a flame, that might enter into such a relationship. If that's the case, then Ck is saying that cause and effect do not exist (i.e. neither one exists, since one cannot exist without the other). And if that's true, then he cannot say that a flame produces darkness, since that would imply that the flame was a cause, and he has just said that there is no such thing. Is that what Ck is doing in 6:14?

3) But if the second "it" means 'the object *as cause*,' then it (= the object as cause) is *not* different, since it does not and cannot exist. (i'm following the convention that demands we refrain as much as possible from making statements about the necessarily non-existent, even though we can of course talk about it at great length--which reminds me that i need to reread Plato's _Parmenides_ in this context--and that we remind ourselves and each other that no statement about the necessarily non-existent has any positive application to any possible object.) Is Candrakirti simply playing with words here? How would you evaluate the Russian translation you have?

All this reminds me how hard it is to work on a text that i cannot read, through translations i have not yet seen. i apologize to you if my questions and comments are missing the mark because of these limitations. And i thank you for your patience.