CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

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Javierfv1212
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CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by Javierfv1212 »

The Cities of Ten Thousand Buddhas translation committee has been working on an Avatamsaka translation and I was wondering how this compares to the Cleary translation? What are the differences between them? Can anyone who knows a bit of source language of this text comment on these translations?
:anjali:

As an example, here are Samantabhadra's verses from the very end of the Avatamsaka:

CTTBUSA Translation: http://www.cttbusa.org/avatamsaka/avatamsaka40new3.html

Cleary:
As many buddhas as there may be in any world
Throughout the ten directions, throughout past, present, and future,
I honor them all, without exception,
Pure in body, speech, and mind.
With as many bodies as atoms in all lands
I bow to all buddhas,
With a mind directed to all buddhas,
By the power of the vow of the practice of good.
In a single atom, Buddhas as many as atoms
Sit in the midst of enlightening beings;
So it is of all things in the cosmos—
I realize all are filled with buddhas.
I laud all the buddhas therein,
Expounding in all languages
The qualities of all buddhas,
With endless oceans of manifestations.
With the finest flowers, garlands,
Musical instruments, perfumes and parasols,
The finest lamps and incenses,
I make offerings to those buddhas.
With the finest clothes, fragrances,
And mountainous baskets of aromatic powders,
With the finest of all kinds of adornments
I make offerings to those buddhas.
Whatever be the best of offerings,
I produce them for all buddhas;
By the power of devotion to the practice of good,
I honor and serve all buddhas.
Whatever evil I may commit
Under the sway of passion, hatred, or folly,
Bodily, verbally, or mentally,
I confess it all.
And whatever the virtue of beings everywhere,
Hearers, saints, self-conquerors,
Enlightening beings and buddhas,
In all that I do rejoice.
And all the Lamps of the Worlds in the ten directions
Who have realized enlightenment and attain nonobstruction
I seek as guides, that they may turn
The supreme wheel of teaching.
And those who wish to manifest extinction
I petition respectfully to remain
For eons as many as atoms in the land
For the welfare and happiness of all beings.
By honor, service, and direction,
By appreciating, seeking, and requesting teachings,
Whatever good I have accumulated,
I dedicate it all to enlightenment.
May the buddhas of the past be honored,
As well as those now in the worlds of the ten directions,
And may those of the future be at ease,
Filled with joy, having realized enlightenment.
May all the lands of the ten directions
Be purified, supreme, and filled
With buddhas and enlightening beings
At the tree of enlightenment.
May all beings in the ten directions
By happy and well;
May all beings' righteous aim be successful,
May their hope be realized.
As I am carrying out enlightenment practice,
May I recall my lives in all states;
In every lifetime, as I die and am reborn,
May I always transcend the mundane.
Learning from all buddhas,
Fulfilling the practice of good,
I will practice pure conduct,
Always free from defect.
I will expound the Teaching
In the languages of gods and dragons,
In the languages of demons and humans,
And of all living beings.
May those engaged in the ways of transcendence
Not stray from enlightenment;
And may all evils to be inhibited
Be thoroughly extinguished.
I will traverse the paths of the world
Free from compulsion, affliction, and delusion,
Like a lotus unstained by water,
Like the sun and moon unattached in the sky.
Extinguishing all the miseries of bad states
And bringing all beings to happiness,
I will act for the welfare of all beings
In all lands everywhere.
According with the conduct of sentient beings
While fulfilling the practice of enlightenment,
And cultivating the practice of good,
Thus will I act throughout future eons.
May I always be in communion
With those who share my practice;
Physically, verbally, and mentally,
I will carry out vows as one practice.
And may I always be with my benefactors,
Who teach me the practice of good;
May I never displease them.
May I always see the buddhas face to face,
Surrounded by enlightening beings;
I will make fine offerings to them
Forever, unwearied.
Preserving the true teaching of buddhas,
Illumining the practice of enlightenment,
And purifying the practice of good,
I will practice for all future eons.
Migrating through all states of being,
Having acquired inexhaustible virtue and knowledge,
May I become an inexhaustible treasury of wisdom and means,
Concentration, liberation, and all virtues.
As I carry on the practice of enlightenment,
May I see the inconceivable buddhas sitting among enlightening beings
In the lands as numerous as atoms
That are in each atom.
Thus may I perceive the oceans
Of buddhas and lands of all times
In each point in the ten directions
As I practice for myriad eons.
May I ever penetrate the eloquence of buddhas,
The voices of all buddhas which adapt to mentalities,
The purity of articulation of all buddhas,
By the sounds of the ocean of tones in a single utterance.
Into those infinite voices
Of all buddhas of all times
May I enter by buddha-power,
Turning the wheel of teaching.
May I enter all eons
Of the future instantly,
And may I act in all eons
Of all times within an instant.
May I see all buddhas of all times
In one instant
And always enter their sphere
By the magical power of liberation.
May I produce the arrays of all lands
Of all times in an atom,
May I thus perceive all the arrays
Of buddha-lands in all the ten directions.
Learning the teachings of
The Lamps of the Worlds to come,
I visit all the Guides
Who have passed away to eternal rest.
By occult powers, swift in all ways,
By the power of knowledge, all-sided,
By the power of practice, with all virtues,
By the power of universal love,
By the power of goodness, all pure,
By the power of knowledge, unobstructed,
Gathering the power of enlightenment,
Clearing away the power of acts,
Destroying the power of afflictions,
Vitiating the power of demons,
May I fulfill all powers
Of the practice of good.
Purifying oceans of lands,
Liberating oceans of beings,
Observing oceans of truths,
Plumbing oceans of knowledge,
Perfecting oceans of practices,
Fulfilling oceans of vows,
Serving oceans of buddhas,
May I practice, untiring, for oceans of eons.
The lofty vows of enlightenment practice
Of the buddhas of past, present, and future
May I fulfill completely,
Practice what is good, and realize enlightenment.
All who share in the practice
Of the sage of Universal Good,
The foremost offspring of all buddhas,
I name them good.
Pure in body, speech, and mind,
Pure in conduct, with a pure land,
As the sage is named Good,
May I become thus equally.
May I carry out the vow of Manjushri
To totally purify the practice of good;
Tireless through all future ages,
May I fulfill all those tasks.
May there be no limits to practice,
And no limit to virtues;
Persisting in infinite practices,
I know all their miraculous creations.
As long as the earth exists,
As long as all beings exist,
As long as acts and afflictions exist,
So long will my vow remain.
Let me give the buddhas all worlds
In the ten directions adorned with jewels,
Let me give celestials and humans supreme happiness
For eons as many as atoms
Those who develop respect and devotion
On hearing this supreme dedication,
Seeking supreme enlightenment,
Will be most blessed.
They will have abandoned all evils
And all bad associates
And will quickly see Infinite Light,
If they have this vow of enlightening practice.
Great is their gain, worthwhile their life,
Auspicious their birth as humans;
They will soon be like
The universally good enlightening being.
Those who have committed hellish crimes
Under the sway of ignorance
Will quickly put an end to them all
When this practice of good is expounded.
Endowed with knowledge, distinction, and nobility,
Invulnerable to false teachers and demons,
They will be honored
By all in the triple world.
They will quickly go to the
Tree of enlightenment
And sit there for the benefit
Of all living beings;
They will realize enlightenment,
Turn the wheel of teaching,
And conquer the devil
And all its cohorts.
Buddha knows those who hold this vow to practice good,
Who cause it to be told of and taught;
The fruit of this is supreme enlightenment—
Do not entertain any doubt.
As the hero Manjushri knows, so too does Universal Good;
As I learn from them I dedicate all this virtue.
By the supreme dedication praised by the buddhas of all times
I dedicate all this virtue to the practice of highest good.
Acting in accord with the time, may I remove all obstructions,
May I see Infinite Light face to face and go to the land of bliss.
There, may all these vows be complete;
Having fulfilled them, I will work for the weal of all beings in the world.
Let me abide in the circle of that buddha, born in a beautiful lotus,
And receive the prophecy of buddhahood there in the presence
Of the buddha of Infinite Light.
Having received the prophecy there, with millions of emanations
I will work for the weal of beings everywhere, by the power of Buddha.
By whatever virtue I accumulate, having invoked the vow to practice good,
May the pure aspiration of the world he at once all fulfilled.
By the endless surpassing blessing realized from dedication
To the practice of good,
May worldlings submerged in the torrent of passion
Go to the higher realm of Infinite Light.
It is quite impossible to find the Buddha anywhere other than in one's own mind.
A person who is ignorant of this may seek externally,
but how is it possible to find oneself through seeking anywhere other than in oneself?
Someone who seeks their own nature externally is like a fool who, giving a performance in the middle of a crowd, forgets who he is and then seeks everywhere else to find himself.
— Padmasambhava

Visit my site: https://sites.google.com/view/abhayajana/
udawa
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by udawa »

Can't help you with the source languages, unfortunately. But for the Gaṇḍa­vyūha, it might be helpful to look at another, very recent translation, freely available on the 84000 website. The translation is by the excellent Peter Alan Roberts and it includes extensive textual notes (something notably lacking in Cleary).
https://read.84000.co/translation/toh44-45.html
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by Zhen Li »

Both CTTB and Cleary translations have their virtues and drawbacks. I agree that the 84000 one is now probably the most reliable translation for the 10 Stages and Gandavyuha now. As for the notes, 84000 notes are not going to help the average reader, since it's usually just noting variants in different versions. There will inevitably be small differences that every translator will prefer another way, but all three do their job sufficiently and 84000 does it well.

When I read Cleary's Avatamsaka years ago, I read it alongside the Chinese. It's not bad at all. The Chinese isn't so difficult in my opinion, so there's not a lot of space for problems. The main advantage of Cleary's translation is that it is more fluent/natural to read. The CTTB translations come off as a bit clunky to me, and the way it is laid out on the webpage and divided into little sections is unattractive. Both have the drawback that they don't know where they want to use Sanskrit or English. Cleary has "Universally Good Enlightening Being" for Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, and CTTB has "Tathagata Measureless Light" but elsewhere "Measureless Light Buddha" for Amitābha, but oddly uses kshetra-land for every "land." Neither has notes to indicate edition page numbers or difficulties in interpretation, and both need better editing for formatting, spelling, terminology, etc. Though with a 1641 page (or "webpage") sūtra, this is surely forgivable. That anyone actually did it deserves heaps of praise and "sādhu sādhus."

I think if one is looking for a print version, Cleary's is the easiest to use because it's all in one volume. CTTB separates chapters into multiple volumes, which are not necessarily thick. So, I wonder whether it is just a matter of publishing chapter by chapter as they are finished, just so they're out there, or whether this is a merchandising strategy—the ones for sale online are impossibly expensive. So, Cleary's, despite also being costly itself, is definitely more realistic financially. 84000 doesn't print their sūtras, but they have open copyright, so you can just use a print-on-demand service to get the two sections that they have, probably for cheaper than the CTTB versions of those two sections.
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by udawa »

Zhen Li wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 5:00 am Both CTTB and Cleary translations have their virtues and drawbacks. I agree that the 84000 one is now probably the most reliable translation for the 10 Stages and Gandavyuha now. As for the notes, 84000 notes are not going to help the average reader, since it's usually just noting variants in different versions. There will inevitably be small differences that every translator will prefer another way, but all three do their job sufficiently and 84000 does it well.

When I read Cleary's Avatamsaka years ago, I read it alongside the Chinese. It's not bad at all. The Chinese isn't so difficult in my opinion, so there's not a lot of space for problems. The main advantage of Cleary's translation is that it is more fluent/natural to read. The CTTB translations come off as a bit clunky to me, and the way it is laid out on the webpage and divided into little sections is unattractive. Both have the drawback that they don't know where they want to use Sanskrit or English. Cleary has "Universally Good Enlightening Being" for Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, and CTTB has "Tathagata Measureless Light" but elsewhere "Measureless Light Buddha" for Amitābha, but oddly uses kshetra-land for every "land." Neither has notes to indicate edition page numbers or difficulties in interpretation, and both need better editing for formatting, spelling, terminology, etc. Though with a 1641 page (or "webpage") sūtra, this is surely forgivable. That anyone actually did it deserves heaps of praise and "sādhu sādhus."

I think if one is looking for a print version, Cleary's is the easiest to use because it's all in one volume. CTTB separates chapters into multiple volumes, which are not necessarily thick. So, I wonder whether it is just a matter of publishing chapter by chapter as they are finished, just so they're out there, or whether this is a merchandising strategy—the ones for sale online are impossibly expensive. So, Cleary's, despite also being costly itself, is definitely more realistic financially. 84000 doesn't print their sūtras, but they have open copyright, so you can just use a print-on-demand service to get the two sections that they have, probably for cheaper than the CTTB versions of those two sections.
I bow to your knowledge of Chinese here. The only version I've read much of is the Cleary translation. My issue with Cleary is the lack of notes or explanation of terms, along with some arguably terrible translation choices (the awkward 'enlightening beings' is used throughout for bodhisattva). The one volume Shambhala complete edition runs to some 1,600 pages in small type - a tremendous feat of translation, and hats off to Thomas Cleary for making this wonderful text available in English. But the glossary provided runs to 11 pages and gives you no idea of the original Buddhist terms he is glossing.

I do wonder who the 'average reader' is for mahayana texts like the Gaṇḍa­vyūha? Maybe it's just me, but I get frustrated when translators render common Buddhist technical terms into English (which is ok in itself) without providing notes or glossary entries, so that I can work out what the original term is. I can see that many of the 84000 notes are about textual variants. But quite a few others are both helpful and informative, I would have thought.

Two completely random examples:

Tathāgata
* de bshin gshegs pa
* དེ་བཤིན་གཤེགས་པ།
* tathāgata
A title of for a buddha. Gata, although literally meaning “gone,” is a past-passive participle used to describe a state or condition of existence. As buddhahood is indescribable it means “one who is thus.”

or

Kumbhāṇḍa
* grul bum
* གྲུལ་བུམ།
* kumbhāṇḍa
Dwarf spirits said to have either large stomachs or huge pot-sized testicles.

To be fair, it is much easier to provide notes and explanations in a digital edition.
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by Zhen Li »

udawa wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:56 pm Maybe it's just me, but I get frustrated when translators render common Buddhist technical terms into English (which is ok in itself) without providing notes or glossary entries, so that I can work out what the original term is.

To be fair, it is much easier to provide notes and explanations in a digital edition.
Yes, I find the terminological ambiguity is often the issue with translations in general. 84000 has achieved a good thing. Also, when there are mistakes, they can quickly edit and update the text online, which is not the case with print only publicaitons.

With regard to notes, I looked at a few of Cleary's other translations, and it seems like it's just something he didn't do. I liked his glossary, but I agree that it's hard to link to the text. Often there were words that were ambiguous in the text, and I expected a term in the glossary, but didn't find anything.

Sometimes, publishers demand no or few notes. BDK apparently does this. I am not fond of that practice. I find that not having any notes tends to give the impression of a translation being a kind of flawless and canonical holy text that has no room for critique. As for the general readers of sūtras, I think these won't hinder reading much unless they are taking up half the page like in some academic translations. Funnily enough, the text I'm currently editing, the Tathāgataguhya, has some notes from the translator Dharmarakṣa.
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by udawa »

Zhen Li wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 4:06 am
udawa wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:56 pm Maybe it's just me, but I get frustrated when translators render common Buddhist technical terms into English (which is ok in itself) without providing notes or glossary entries, so that I can work out what the original term is.

To be fair, it is much easier to provide notes and explanations in a digital edition.
Yes, I find the terminological ambiguity is often the issue with translations in general. 84000 has achieved a good thing. Also, when there are mistakes, they can quickly edit and update the text online, which is not the case with print only publicaitons.

With regard to notes, I looked at a few of Cleary's other translations, and it seems like it's just something he didn't do. I liked his glossary, but I agree that it's hard to link to the text. Often there were words that were ambiguous in the text, and I expected a term in the glossary, but didn't find anything.

Sometimes, publishers demand no or few notes. BDK apparently does this. I am not fond of that practice. I find that not having any notes tends to give the impression of a translation being a kind of flawless and canonical holy text that has no room for critique. As for the general readers of sūtras, I think these won't hinder reading much unless they are taking up half the page like in some academic translations. Funnily enough, the text I'm currently editing, the Tathāgataguhya, has some notes from the translator Dharmarakṣa.
Yes, I think that's right. Since we will never get contemporary translators to agree to use a standardised set for translations of Buddhist terms into English (indeed how would such a thing be compiled, or agreed?) I think the approach generally taken in the 84000 project is the best way forward, i.e. to use the sanskrit original for commonly used terms, and to provide notes and glossaries where technical terms are translated. As you say, there are many examples in Cleary where you just want to know what term he is translating, because of ambiguity. I think it comes back to this idea of the 'average reader' of such translations. Cleary clearly thought that the inherent power and majesty of the text would be enough to carry the reader along and Robert Thurman seems to agree (see below). I simply wonder if there are many (any?) such readers. If you are reading these texts as a Buddhist practitioner I would have thought you'd want rather more from a translation. I certainly do. And I'm by no means a 'Buddhist Studies expert'
Some of the “Buddhist Studies experts” have made a big fuss about Cleary’s lack of such apparatus. But I find that a marvelous case of completely missing the point. Cleary has published a separate volume, Entry Into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1983), that could serve as his own introduction and commentary to the Sutra, in which his interpretations are supported by his excellent translations of the greatest Chinese Flower Ornament school philosophers. He is elegant enough to let the sutra stand on its own in this publication. Heavily annotating it would be like putting icing on icing, like drawing illustrations of waves in the waters of the ocean.
Taken from a review in Tricycle https://tricycle.org/magazine/flower-or ... scripture/
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by Zhen Li »

udawa wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:39 am Yes, I think that's right. Since we will never get contemporary translators to agree to use a standardised set for translations of Buddhist terms into English (indeed how would such a thing be compiled, or agreed?) I think the approach generally taken in the 84000 project is the best way forward, i.e. to use the sanskrit original for commonly used terms, and to provide notes and glossaries where technical terms are translated. As you say, there are many examples in Cleary where you just want to know what term he is translating, because of ambiguity. I think it comes back to this idea of the 'average reader' of such translations. Cleary clearly thought that the inherent power and majesty of the text would be enough to carry the reader along and Robert Thurman seems to agree (see below). I simply wonder if there are many (any?) such readers. If you are reading these texts as a Buddhist practitioner I would have thought you'd want rather more from a translation. I certainly do. And I'm by no means a 'Buddhist Studies expert'
Some of the “Buddhist Studies experts” have made a big fuss about Cleary’s lack of such apparatus. But I find that a marvelous case of completely missing the point. Cleary has published a separate volume, Entry Into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1983), that could serve as his own introduction and commentary to the Sutra, in which his interpretations are supported by his excellent translations of the greatest Chinese Flower Ornament school philosophers. He is elegant enough to let the sutra stand on its own in this publication. Heavily annotating it would be like putting icing on icing, like drawing illustrations of waves in the waters of the ocean.
Taken from a review in Tricycle https://tricycle.org/magazine/flower-or ... scripture/
Thurman received flak for some of his own translations, including from Jan Nattier, so I think he is definitely in favour of being sympathetic to those who undertake the difficult and sometimes thankless task. I don't think that Cleary's study solves the problem that people are addressing. The point is that in translating something like this, one almost never has a page, let alone a chapter, without serious interpretative difficulties. One needs to trust the reader to be able to see that you are aware of potential issues without expecting that they are going to lose faith in the text or you as a translator along the way. Moreover, the point with terminology is important both to scholars (who might be learned experts in Sanskrit or Tibetan but not know a word of Chinese and want to have a point of reference), and general readers. That being said, a "heavy annotation" is really not necessary, and is kind of the opposite extreme—something which, also, would result in a translation of that size never being finished. So yes, 84000 is great for what it's doing. One of course needs to keep in mind that the Sanskrit and Tibetan that they used as a source is not going to be identical to Cleary's source text, but I think that's not a big issue with this sutra.
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by udawa »

Zhen Li wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 3:12 pm Thurman received flak for some of his own translations, including from Jan Nattier, so I think he is definitely in favour of being sympathetic to those who undertake the difficult and sometimes thankless task. I don't think that Cleary's study solves the problem that people are addressing. The point is that in translating something like this, one almost never has a page, let alone a chapter, without serious interpretative difficulties. One needs to trust the reader to be able to see that you are aware of potential issues without expecting that they are going to lose faith in the text or you as a translator along the way. Moreover, the point with terminology is important both to scholars (who might be learned experts in Sanskrit or Tibetan but not know a word of Chinese and want to have a point of reference), and general readers. That being said, a "heavy annotation" is really not necessary, and is kind of the opposite extreme—something which, also, would result in a translation of that size never being finished. So yes, 84000 is great for what it's doing. One of course needs to keep in mind that the Sanskrit and Tibetan that they used as a source is not going to be identical to Cleary's source text, but I think that's not a big issue with this sutra.
I'm not entirely surprised. I seem to remember that Thurman translates ḍākinī as 'angel' in at least one of his translations! He can be quite engaging though. I remember listening to a radio programme he made for the BBC about the Buddha, many years ago now. At one point he recited the 'Ye dharma hetu..' verse, without any real explanation, saying it was 'for luck!' Which made me laugh. Of course underlying that simple sounding 'for luck' are all the underlying complexities of pratītyasamutpāda, nidāna and the idea of adhiṣṭhāna and pranidhana etc. Just as in these unannotated translations I suppose.

I do like a footnote, but take the point about heavy annotation. I'm happy to put up with Sanskrit in brackets, after the translation - e.g. Dwarf Spirit (kumbhāṇḍa), as was fairly common a few decades back. But I acknowledge that I'm in a minority here.
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Re: CTTBUSA Avatamsaka vs Cleary translation

Post by Javierfv1212 »

Zhen Li wrote: Wed Dec 08, 2021 5:00 am Both CTTB and Cleary translations have their virtues and drawbacks. ...So, Cleary's, despite also being costly itself, is definitely more realistic financially. 84000 doesn't print their sūtras, but they have open copyright, so you can just use a print-on-demand service to get the two sections that they have, probably for cheaper than the CTTB versions of those two sections.
Thanks this was helpful!
It is quite impossible to find the Buddha anywhere other than in one's own mind.
A person who is ignorant of this may seek externally,
but how is it possible to find oneself through seeking anywhere other than in oneself?
Someone who seeks their own nature externally is like a fool who, giving a performance in the middle of a crowd, forgets who he is and then seeks everywhere else to find himself.
— Padmasambhava

Visit my site: https://sites.google.com/view/abhayajana/
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