DHAMMA

In his later translations Ven. Nānamoli appears to have set himself two goals: to render virtually every Pali word into English (arahant and bodhisatta are rare exceptions); and to do so in obedience to a very rigorous standard of consistency. In effect the principle that guided his work was: one Pali word, one corresponding English word. This principle he also applied to his treatment of the multiplex word dhamma, of which he wrote elsewhere that "the need for unity in the rendering is so great as to be almost desperate" (Minor Readings and Illustrator, p. 331). He chose as his root rendering the word "idea," which he attempted to deploy for the Pali word in all its diverse occurrences. Even when dhamma is used in the suttas to signify the Buddha's teaching, he still remained faithful to his choice by translating it "the True Idea."

Needless to say, this experiment was not successful. Recognising this, Ven. Khantipālo, in his edition of the ninety suttas, opted instead to retain the Pali word in most of its occurrences.

This decision, however, seems to have been unnecessary when the relinquishing of the demand for strict consistency allows for smooth and reliable translation without loss of meaning. While the many different uses of the Pali word dhamma may originally have had some underlying connection of meaning, by the time of the Pali Canon such connection had already receded so far into the background as to be virtually irrelevant to the understanding of the texts. The commentaries ascribe at least ten different contextual meanings to the word as it occurs in the Canon and they do not try to read any philosophical significance into this variability of application. The goal of lucid translation therefore seems to require that the word be rendered differently according to its context, which generally makes the intended meaning clear.

In revising Ven. Nānamoli's translation I have retained the Pali word Dhamma only when it refers to the Buddha's teaching, or in several cases to a rival teaching with which the Buddha's is contrasted (as at MN 11.13 and MN 104.2). In its other uses the context has been allowed to decide the rendering. Thus when dhamma occurs in the plural as a general ontological reference term it has been rendered "things" (as at MN 1.2 and MN 2.5). When it acquires a more technical nuance, in the sense either of the phenomena of existence or of mental constituents, it has been rendered "states" (as at MN 64.9 and MN 111.4). This term, however, must be divested of its overtone of staticity, dhammas being events within a dynamic process, and it must also not be taken to refer to some persisting entity that undergoes the states, entities themselves being nothing but connected series of dhammas. The last two meanings of dhamma are not always separable in the texts and sometimes naturalness of English diction had to be used as the factor for deciding which should be selected.

As the fourth foundation of mindfulness and as the sixth external sense base (ayatana), dhamma has been rendered "mindobjects" (even here "ideas" is too narrow). In still other contexts it has been rendered as factors (MN 10.5), qualities (MN 15.3, MN 48.6) and teachings (MN 46.2, MN 47.3). When used as a suffix it acquires the idiomatic sense of "to be subject to" and so it has been translated, e.g., viparinamadhamma as "subject to change."