Love

To remove the word love from today’s Buddhist parlance, so often repeated by the most vocal Buddhist teachers of the late 20th-21rst century, will prove to be extremely difficult. In fact, we may say that in this respect Buddhism has already be colonized by the Greco-European culture that spread and grew especially among the population of North-America.
Yet “love” does not appear in Buddhist canonical texts although here too well-wishing early translators applied the word to cover the cargo they were to convey.

The Buddhist canon speaks of mettā. Mettā is popularly translated with “benevolence, loving-kindness, friendliness”, and/or “amity”.
In the 19th century Pastor Samuel Beal, residing in China and far removed from Buddhist scholars has nevertheless spent a large part of his time in self-study and translating Buddhist texts, thereby amply using the word “love”. His translations were greedily adopted by Buddhists less well versed in their own culture and enamoured by Beal’s lovely books. Beal even gave a certain gatha (verse) the title “On love and Mercifullness [mettā]”.

We find Beal’s use of love and mercy in his “Texts from the Buddhist Canon: Commonly Known as Dhammapāda“, printed in 1878 by Trübner & Co Ltd, reprinted in 2007 by Routledge in London.

What could have inspired translators to employ the word love when coming accross mettā: universal friendliness or the below aññamaññan patibaddha citta? We don’t know; it’s a cultural thing; perhaps they wished to convey the loveliness of the texts and embellished these texts with lovely concepts belonging to their European culture.

There is this story about the mythical bird the Garudā (or Garulā) [Jātaka iii.188] where the text says: dve pi aññamaññan patibaddha citta ahesun. It is in a PTS-publication translated as “in love with each other”.

The voluminous PTS set of Jātaka were translated by R. Chalmers, W.H.D. Rouse, H.T. Francis, and E.B. Cowell (1895).

Aññamaññan (añña + [m]aññan) is not merely given as “reciprocal”, but in connection with the following patibaddha-citta (fettered in the bonds of) it becomes, according to translator, speaking from his own northern European background, “being in love”. Nevertheless, this is neither the literal translation nor the intention of the text, or rather, openly using a “being in love” is not in sync with the culture to which the text belongs; one remains discrete.
The text says: “fettered in the bonds of (patibaddha-citta) one another (aññamaññan)“, i.e. obsessed with one another — it can be love, it can be lust, it can be “politics”, etc.

A striking example of what in German is called “hineininterpretieren” is verse 5 of the Pāli Dhammapāda:

Na hi verena verani | sammantidha kudacanam | averena ca sammanti | esa dhammo sanantano.

Translation as literally as possible: “Truly, in this world hatred does not disappear through hatred. It weathers away in contact with non-hatred (averaná). This is the eternal truth (dhammo sanatano).”

In contact with the western world where the concept of love has very deep roots the sentence “… in contact with non-hatred” is mostly translated with something like “under influence of love”. But that is not what it says or what it means. Buddhism does not advise its followers to force themselves into a state of semi-love in order to establish friendliness and peace. It simply states that being your normal non-violent and well-intended self suffices to get along with all you meet.

Is love wrong? Of course love is not wrong. There is this lovely story about the father and mother of monk Nākula. They clung together like bird and feather as the saying goes. After we die, Nākulapita (Nākula’s father) asks, will the two of us be together again? Of course, replies Buddha, since you are so close in this life you will be close in the next.

Some would say that this is a romanticised late sutta, not a saying that really can be attributed to the historical Buddha. Well, prove it!
What we should remember though, is that even in this teaching about the old couple, the word love does not occur. Being close, being caring towards each other, having a strong reciprocity is what we will find reading the original text, not the romantic love as it came to be portrayed as of the 18th century in Europe.

Bujang in Malaysia

An article in the Malay Mail(1) of October 19, 2020 had the news about a new Museum Board dedicated to the museums in the Malaysian state of Kedah. One of the sites to be listed is that of the “Hindu-Buddhist archaeological site of North Serebang Perai” in the Bujang-valley it said, a site adjacent to an ancient port.

This Malay Mail article mentioned a “Pali inscription” and the memorial stone inscribed with the name of a certain Buddhagupta.

With regard to this Buddhist archeaological site(2) one should keep in mind that

a/ the earliest traces of this “Hindu-Buddhist” site date from the 5^th – 6^th Cent.(3)

b/ As usual Vaisnavite (Hindu) priests encroached on the Buddhist site and built a lingam and possibly additional buildings; the site nevertheless survived as a Buddhist monastery to at least the beginning of the 9^th Cent., see below

c/ The Pali language is used by the Theravada Buddhist monastics, not by the Hindu priesthood

d/ As of a certain time Theravada monastics may have followed the Chinese custom of erecting memorials for deceased members of the community

e/ The first Buddhist settlement on this Bujang location must have been a Theravada-presence from neighbouring Siam (Thailand)

f/ Up to this day we see how Thai and Srilankan monks succeed each other in the running of Buddhist institutions – different language and ceremonies prevent a succesful living together.

The name of Buddhagupta remained somewhat a mystery until I came across Prof. R.Choudhary’s “History of Bihar”.(4)

The particular section that deals with an Indian Pala king by the name of Dharmapala (end 8^th, beginning 9^th Cent.) runs as follows:

“Dharmapala was a Buddhist … He established the University of Vikramashila. … Ratna-kar[a]-shanti of Odantpur (Odantapura) was appointed Dwar-pandita (recruiter?) of Vikramashila. He was invited by the Ceylonese king and he went there to preach Buddhism. He wrote many books on Logic. … During the time of Dharmapala Buddhagupta was the head of the university.”

With the knowledge of these three names of Dharmapala, Ratnakarashanti and Buddhagupta, we are able to draw the triangle of Vikramashila – Ceylon – Bujang.

The Pala-empire had a trade or other post on the shore of the Bujang Valley. Dharmapala sent Ratnakarashanti to Ceylon. He, Ratnakarashanti, told Ceylonese monastics about the Pala-presence and a Buddhist vihara (monastery) in the lovely Bujang-valley. Some Srilankan monks went thither. Ratnakarashanti returned to Vikramashila and recounted his visit to Ceylon and how Ceylonese monks had decided to visit the Bujang monastery. Buddhagupta heard or read Ratnakarashanti’s travelogue and decided to go and visit Bujang for himself. Once there he must have been received with great pomp: the top brass of Vikramashila has come to visit us, humble monks. After Buddhagupta’s death — and he must have died in the Bujang-monastery or else he would not have received a memorial plaque or stele — the monks there erected a memorial in his honour and inscribed his name in stone.

With this knowledge an important piece of history of Buddhism in Malaysia could be established, thanks to Pr. Choudary.

1. http://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/10/19/penang-assembly-approves-law-to-regulate-states-museums/1914265.
2. https://wiki2.org/en/Seberang_Perai
3. http://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/2009/03/05/evidence-iron-smelting-discovered-malaysia/
4. History of Bihar, Prof. R. Choudhary, 1958, p.117

On Indian Sanskrit literature

Early May 2020 Sangham, resp. Srijan Talks uploaded a long exposé held by Mr. Bibek Debroy⁽¹⁾ on the subject of itihasa and its meaning. The subtext of this Youtube-file reads: “Itihasa has connotations of a timeless history, chronologically written description of important, special and public sector events of the person, society, country, chronological analysis of facts and events. Itihasa means ‘This is indeed what happened’. Itihasa came to be applied to the Ramāyan[a], the Mahābhārata and the Puránas which are part of our culture and history.”

In this same video Mr. Debroy explains a number of technical terms and he speaks about the Pune “critical edition” of the Rāmayāna in 80.000 slokas, and the Baroda “critical edition” of the Mahābhārata, “in size about 1/3 of the Rāmayāna”.

As far as ancient texts about legislation, jurisdiction and policy goes he explains how the Manu Sánghita “tells us about the most important 17 kinds of cases which the king should try in order of priority”. He explains how the funeral rites are given in the Garuda purána (translated by Ernest Wood and S.V. Subrahmanyam, an online file), and that “the way (hindu) temples are constructed”⁽²⁾ is given in the Matsu purána.

There is lots more of interesting information about the Sanskrit language, information that deserves a wider audience. For instance the word Padaga: tree (not in Monier-Williams) has the root “pi” (speak: “bhe”) for “drinking”. Therefore, he says, padaga has both “foot” (pada) and “pi”. Therefore the literal meaning of the word tree is “drinking with its feet”. Is this important? Yes, it reminds us of our duty to avert or overcome desertification.

Mr. Debroy furthermore explains how a certain Jayadeva has been the first poet, as to Western standards, rhyme-and-all, but that the Sanskrit poem is syllabical and has rhythm (beat) as its most important aspect.

Lastly we should know that Mr. Debroy has by now translated one⁽³⁾ of the main eighteen puránas, and plans to translate a further two. These are, or will be, the first translations by his hand into English. The above-mentioned Garuda purána is one of the other already translated texts.

(1) Bibek Debroy is an economist and was educated in Ramakrishna Mission School, Narendrapur; Presidency College, Kolkata; Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College, Cambridge. Presently, he is Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Member, NITI Aayog, Government of India. He has worked in Presidency College, Kolkata (1979-83), Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (1983-87); Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (1987-93); as the Director of a Ministry of Finance/UNDP project on legal reforms (1993-98); Department of Economic Affairs (1994-95); National Council of Applied Economic Research (1995-96); Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (1997-2005); PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (2005-06); and Centre for Policy Research (2007- 2015).
He has authored/edited several books, papers and popular articles and has also been a Consulting/Contributing Editor with several newspapers.

(2) Just as the staff of the East India Company called the island of Phuket “Junk Ceylon” (a junk is a particular kind of vessel, and the greenery of the island remined them of Ceylon [Sri Lanka]), so they had a joking “shaking the pagoda tree” in which sentence the “pagoda” in fact was/is the southern Indian Hindu temple.

(3) In three volumes. The puránas cover a wide range of teaching, astronomical, astrological, geographic, chronological, religious mythology and ethical discussion. One of Mr. Debroys critics deplores how the author omitted “all of the lunar dynastic lists”. Perhaps the next two translations will remedy this.

Virtuous and non-virtuous

Thesis: The Wite Lotus Society and the White Lotus Teachings – Reality and Label Promovendus Barend Joannes ter Haar

Title obtained in Leiden, 1989. Promotor Prof. E. Zurcher Prior assistance and guidance by prof. Kawakatsu Mamoru and Tomita Kenji of Kyushu University

Subject: White Lotus Teachings and Tradition in pré-republican China.

Chapter 2.2.1 of this thesis introduces the saying “chicai shimo”, “Eating vegetables and serving the devils” as follows:

“The phrase ‘eating … etc’ was always taken to imply rebellious intentions, … The phrase has been supposed to refer to Manichaean practices, because of the second part of the label, (shimo) ‘serving the devils’. It is not clear whether this usage of mo was inspired by its sound (homophone with mo in moni, the word for Mani, the Buddha of Light … etc.)”

Correction:

“Eating vegetables” means being a vegan. Being a vegan is being virtuous in the world of East-Asian Buddhism, and especially in that of the White Lotus Schools.
“Serving the devils” means being sly, having it behind one’s elbow.
In other words, this is a paraphrase of one of the historical Buddha’s sayings: wearing the robes, and pretending monkhood. I.e. it stands for a false pretense: someone pretends to be what he is not, or someone conceals his non-virtuous conduct.

To correct the misunderstanding around Mani and mo.
Mani was the godhead of Manicheism, not ‘the Buddha of Light”. “Buddha of Light” is one of the two epithets of  Amitābha Buddha, Omito-fo in Chinese.
The author furthermore mistook one Buddha for another: Amitābha (Buddha of Light) for Sakyamuni (historical Buddha).

Sinicizing the name of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni gives Shì jiā móu ní Fo.

To wrap it up: the entire thesis’ passage about the perceived connection between (White Lotus) Buddhism and Manicheism is utterly wrong. It is based upon an erroneous if not fantasized translation-interpretation of the chinese character mo.

Millenarian Teaching

Thesis: The Wite Lotus Society and the White Lotus Teachings – Reality and Label Promovendus Barend Joannes ter Haar
Title obtained in Leiden, 1989. Promotor Prof. E. Zurcher Prior assistance and guidance by prof. Kawakatsu Mamoru and Tomita Kenji of Kyushu University

Subject: White Lotus Teachings and Tradition in pré-republican China.

Unaware of the inclusion of large sections of beliefs or cultivations belonging to the White Lotus Teachings (bailianjiao) into Chinese Pure Land-teachings (jingtu), the promovendus stated in the first two chapters of his study that both Amidism and the cultivation on Maitreya, the Buddha of the future are manifestations of millennialism, to be understood in the Christian sense as an end to time and an end earth, as a saving of the believers into a parallel universe, and as a “second coming of Christ” as it is called – although it does not say where he comes since the world came to an end.
We may hold Matteo Ricci (ch. 6.1.2 in the thesis) responsible for introducing this concept of millenarian teaching.

Nor Amidism, nor “Maitreyism” are millenarian in that Western-Christian sense of the word. In neither teaching there is the preaching of an end of the world. The Buddhist Small Vehicle-manuscript, the Agañña sutta does speak of a “contracting” of the planet, followed by an “re-evolving”⁽¹⁾. Other texts mention a worldwide conflagration followed by a reinvigorating of the planet and either a coming of a “World Ruler” or of the next Buddha.

When there is mention of “millennialism” or “millenarian teaching” in the European sense it is understood as a belief by which the adherents are collectively saved just before a litteral and final end of the world takes place. The Amidists however follow an individual path by which this individual by his own determination-fixation on Buddha’s name and Buddhas Unconditional Compassion is accepted into the Pure Land where s/he continues to cultivate towards Buddhahood. In this latter view the world keeps turning be it without the individual who managed to step out.
Something similar goes for what we call Maitreyism: at the end of an era, when the Buddhist Teachings are lost and forgotten, the world is in disarray but does not come to an end. At that moment, it is believed, another Buddha appears, one in a long successions of Enlightened Ones who “turns the wheel” anew.

Both in the theory around the Christian-Western millenarian teaching and in other instances where East and West wish to meet, but cannot without in-depth research into words and concepts, we must come to the conclusion that here is a “discussion between the deaf”; both parties speak, but neither hears.

• (1) Contracting and expanding may be understood as the physical process in someone who goes hungry – his brains produce a “tunnel vision”, and starts eating again – the brains regain their former function. Especially this particular manuscript allows such an interpretation.
• The partly refurbished Pudu district in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, is named after the Chinese White Lotus monk Pudu (1255-1330). This district is that of working class Chinese immigrants, i.e. their descendants. During the first years of the 21rst Cent. the  Buddhist Temple in Jalan Pudu was raised to the ground to allow for city renovation. The bhikshuni (or bhikkhuni: nuns) of the Pudu temple belonged officially to the Jingtu (Pure Land) Tradition but still maintained White Lotus ideals while serving the surrounding population that held and holds the same ideals.
• Albert de Pouvourville, part of the French ambassadorial staff in Vietnam and China, publishes an article in “La Revue de Paris” of April 3, 1912.
  Besides being obsessed with categories such as Yellow Race (Chinese), White Race (Westerners), and Red Race (Indians) he maintains that the White Lotus Society is a consequence of a first and ancient concept of Triad: Heaven, Earth, Mankind. He fails to see this as one of the postulates of Confucianism but seems to have heard that the “first traces of it appeared already in the second Cent. BC.” He however fails to provide us with relevant sources.

Sampradaya

Where the Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon seems to have a correct set of translations of the word sampradāya the editor of one of the wikipedia-lemmata wrongly connects the word with the western concept of “identity”.
Sampradāya means tradition, religious origin, religious system. It does not mean religious identity. Identity is rather a static concept: one’s identity is that of a ginger-haired or that of an Inuit — can’t be altered. Sampradāya on the other hand is rather fluid. One’s sampradāya may at birth be, let’s say, Zoroastrianism. Later in life however one could leave this tradition to adhere to anonther one, to another sampradāya.

Hinduism and Buddhism

Article 25 of the Indian Constitution is the only article in which the word hinduism occurs. Explanation II says that “…, the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.” 

Hariprasad N delivered on October 1, 2018 what he calls the essentials of Hinduism (https://medium.com/@pranasutra/the-essential-practices-of-hinduism-2478ebe8b19e).

He quotes a Hindu saint by the name of Sri Vaid ji with this list of 9 essentials:

1. Belief in the existence of a superior divine force — call it paramatma, parashakti or any other name.
2. The individual being having the freedom to perform karmas, but being subject to a limitation.
3. Karma theory  —  the fact that the result of actions is not in the individual’s hands.
4. Both the divine and the human being eternal. The divine is all powerful while the individual is limited in capability.
5. The sentient and insentient composed of Prakriti. These are distinct from the Divine.
6. An individual is evaluated on the basis of his guna (conduct), karma and swabhava (intrinsic nature)
7. Behaving with others just as they would like others to behave with the self.
8. The ten attributes of dharma  —  dhairya, kshama, dama, indriya nigraha, asteya, shuchi, satya, akrodha, dhi and vidya.
9. Each individual accepting things only on the basis of knowledge, logic and natural laws.

The early Buddhist teachings agree with a few of these hindu-essentials, and are adverse to some others.
What Buddhists and Hindus agree on are points 7 and 9. All other points are contested by the Buddhists, either wholy, such as points 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8, or partially such as points 3 and 6.

The distinctions between the two systems are rather large in number. Nevertheless both communities respect each other as well as other systems such as the Abrahamic faiths, and both communities leave each other, and other schools of thought, the space to breathe — which is quite extraordinary considering overt or covert endeavours of especially the Abrahamic systems that go on to woo people over with false information, to destroy the dharmic systems from within with unwholesome adaptations of practices, or challenge the dharmic systems from the outside.

SEVERAL MIDDLE WAYS I

To this day several Indians who make an effort to render the vastness of the religio-philosophical traditions on that continent state that in this respect historicity is of no importance. Where the mantra is said to be a primordial sound, meaning or word that occupied the universe before all else, whatever religio-philosophical idea came to be after that has to be understood as such, in its own right, without any basis in prior knowledge or teachings.

When ploughing through the vast collection of canonical texts belonging to the old schools of Buddhism we cannot but recognize that the historical Buddha (Sakyamuni, Gáutama, or Gótama) in his teachings did challenge prior religio-philosophical thoughts.

To give but the pré-Hindu Rgveda as an example, there we will not find any teachings on the self (atman), but quite a lot on the natural phenomena that influenced life of mankind on that continent. The Rgveda deïfies these natural phenomena and approaches them as if they were gods, deities. In later centuries Buddha will challenge these thoughts. He clearly discarded nature worship, discarding at the same time the priestly nature worshipper who acts as a go-between, between the ordinary man and woman and that which they wished to venerate.

The author of the Rgveda, the first known Veda of pré-Hinduism, held the element FIRE (agni) in high esteem. Following Ralph T. Griffith’s translations (1896) the Rgveda says: ”I Laud Agni, the chosen Priest, God, minister of sacrifice, …” Here we see how agni is both presented as the phenomenon that it is: fire, as well as the foremost under the priest who make sacrifices in the name of the population.

An entire chapter in the Rgveda is dedicated to the factor WIND (vayu). Vayu is lauded with words such as ”Váyu, thy penetrating stream goes forth unto the worshipper, …”. In this verse wind (vayu) is represented as a godhead, none other than an avatar of the god Indra.

The same goes for the element of WATER. Hymn IX is dedicated to this element with: “Ye, Waters, are beneficent: so help ye us to energy / That we may look on great delight.”

The next chapter discusses Buddha’s response to these Vedic concepts: https://4465bj.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/several-middle-ways-ii/

SEVERAL MIDDLE WAYS II

Buddha tended to interiorise the natural elements and so takes away their godliness and the need to venerate them.
(In the Pāli Middle Discourses 140, The Analysis of the Elements, it says:

“This person has six elements.’ … There are these six elements: the elements of earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness.”
Buddha goes on to explain how these six constitute a being and how they are inseparable. Take one away and all other disappear, i.e. the being dies. That is to say that in one stroke of the pen – as it were – he discarded the practice of certain ascetics who strove to “free” the mind from the body in order to a pure mind enter total liberation (moksha).

As for the separate elements. The Rgveda author may have lived in a climate zone where WIND (vayu) was a very important factor in the climate of his region because centuries later wind is all but absent in the early Buddhist teachings, it seems to have been transformed into “air” as one of the above-stated six elements that constitute a being.

But on FIRE and WATER Buddha had his thing to say.
Surrounded by raw recruits who previously followed a fire worshipper Buddha and his monks stand on top of a hill and look down on an enormous wildfire in de woods below. The former fire worshippers are restless; their world view is caving in right before their feet. Buddha perceives the disarray and says, according to the early Pāli Fire Sutta:

“(Man’s mind is) Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, ageing and death, with sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair.”

This turning concepts around, this reverting the gaze back from the external world to the inner world, will become one of the main traits of Buddha’s teachings for in the equally Pāli Sutta the “Uda-kárahada sutta” it says: “There are four kinds of sheets of WATER: (1) flat (uttāna) but deep in appearance (obhāsa); (2) deep but flat in appearance; (3) flat and flat in appearance; (4) deep and deep in appearance. So also, there are four classes of people: handsome in appearance but shallow in mind; not handsome in appearance but deep in knowledge; neither handsome nor wise; both handsome and wise.”
(tr. Gunapála Piyaséna Malála-sékera)

Elsewhere we find a passage where Buddha makes fun of ascetics who in the near freezing cold spend an entire night in jumping in and climbing out a river: you only get ill, this way.

Cont.: https://4465bj.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/several-middle-ways-iii/

SEVERAL MIDDLE WAYS III

What has this to do with the concept of the Middle Way? In refuting the Vedic teachings on the elements as sacro-saint, Buddha presents another set of thoughts that will form the core of his teachings. Not the worshipping of elements/gods is central here, but a developing of the moral, and hence intellectual being.
The well known first teaching, the Setting in motion the Wheel of the Dhamma/Dharma Buddha says:

“… And what, monks, is that MIDDLE WAY awakened to by the Tathāgata (Buddha), which gives rise to vision … which leads to Nibbāna (enlightenment)? It is this noble eightfold path; that is: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This, bhikkhus, is that middle way awakened to by the Tathāgata, which gives rise to vision, which gives rise to knowledge, which leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna. …”

Cont.: https://4465bj.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/several-middle-ways-iv/

SEVERAL MIDDLE WAYS IV

Centuries after the historical Buddha, who was born centuries after the writing of the Rgveda, the scholar-monk Nāgārjuna appeared. He was one of the scholars who studied and taught at Nalanda in northern India, the then largest Buddhist centre of learning. He appeared at a time when the old school, Hīnayāna, later transformed into Theravāda, had major problems with new Dharma-interpretations that would eventually lead to what is now known as the separation between Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna. And we may conclude that Nāgārjuna was one of the driving forces behind this philosophical renovation or alteration or elucidation of old teachings.
He too wished to state a MIDDLE WAY but may have felt that he could not possibly just repeat Buddha’s words that had become so eagerly claimed by the old school, for he was the new guy on the block and new guys have new things to say.

Nāgārjuna therefore had to come up with innovative ideas that would bring as many old-school monk-students as possible to his side. As Nāgārjuna developed a radical line of thought on the subject of emptiness (sunyā or sunyatā) he reached back to find ancient sayings on the subject that would give his new words some acquired age.

One has the impression that he could not find adequate roots for it in the Vedas. The Nasadiya Sukta (Rv.10.129, mantra 2) says:

“Na mrutyura āsīd amrtam na tarhi na rātryā ahna āsīt praketah |
ānīd avātam svadhayā tad ekam tasmād dhānyan na parah kim canāsa || 2 ||”

(After Ralph T.H. Griffith’s translation which deviates severely from the original text and content):
“There was neither death nor immortality. Nor was there the torch of night and day. It (sva) (⁽¹⁾ breathed windlessly; it (sva) was it. There was that (sva), only that.”

As we may be aware, this Vedic nothingness has nothing to do with the absence of substance or ens in beings and things. It speaks about the primordial, completely empty universe in which even the word/sound (Skr.: vak) was as yet absent.

⁽¹⁾Sva as a form of svabhāva, own-being, which Griffith,educated with a Bible at hand which first lines indeed have some similarity with the mantra here presented, understood as deity, God’s face on earth as Christians would like to see it. There may be no other example in his translations where Griffith so brazenly inserts a Vedic mantra into the Christian theology:
“Then there was neither death nor immortality Nor was there then the torch of night and day. The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining. There was that One then, and there was no other. In the beginning there was nothing. There was neither light nor darkness, neither the sun nor the moon, nor the earth, but one undivided nothingness.”
Griffith just simply adds a version of the Biblical verse to the mantra and connects it – one had already heard a few things about this weird and wonderful thing – with nothingness, a word of which we find no trace in this particular mantra.

Cont.: https://4465bj.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/several-middle-ways-v/