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Re: Dishonesty (was Re: The Bhagavad-Geeta - Chapter 12)
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To: alt-hindu@cis.ohio-state.edu
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Subject: Re: Dishonesty (was Re: The Bhagavad-Geeta - Chapter 12)
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From: vivek@cs.rice.edu (Vivek Sadananda Pai)
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Date: 27 Jul 1995 17:13:08 GMT
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Distribution: world
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From news@larry.rice.edu Thu Jul 27 13: 00:42 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
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References: <3v3nqb$jc0@babbage.ece.uc.edu>
In article <3v3nqb$jc0@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, Bon_Giovanni@earthspirit.org (Bon Giovanni) writes:
|> God cannot be identified with one name and one form.
|> He is all names and all forms.
|> All names are His. All forms are His.
|> Your name too is His. You are His forms.
|> -Sathya Sai Speaks Volume 10, page 8
John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith, his name is my name too...
- children's poem, perhaps Disney?
I offer the above not to mock anyone, because my nature is
not a mocking one, but simply to point out that the quote
you give above leads to some weird conclusions. If all
forms are His, and all names are His, then why pay so much
attention to the one form and one name who you quoted?
But onward...
|> >The implication of the
|> >entire post is that somehow the translation is warped and information
|> >is being withheld, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
|>
|> Implications are up to the reader, but for sure much information is
|> given very forthrightly. For example, in one verse, this is offered as
|> a word for word translation:
|>
|> "brahma--spiritual in nature;
|> "brahma--the Supreme;
|> "brahma--spiritual;
|> "brahmana--by the spirit soul;
|> "brahma--spiritual kingdom"
|>
|> Indeed, that is very, very informative.
|>
|> Nuf' said.
Well, out of curiosity, I decided to look in my local
dictionary for a very simple English word - "spirit".
After all, you suggest that the five word-for-word translations
offered by Srila Prabhupada are very, very informative, so
the following definition of the word spirit offered by
Merriam-Webster should also be very, very informative:
spir.it n [ME, fr. OF or L; OF, fr. L spiritus, lit., breath,
fr. spirare to blow, breathe] (13c)
1: an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical
organisms
2: a supernatural being or essence: as a cap: holy spirit
b: soul 2a
c: an often malevolent being that is bodiless but can become
visible; specif: ghost 2
d: a malevolent being that enters and possesses a human being
3: temper or disposition of
mind or outlook esp. when vigorous or animated <in high ~s>
4: the immaterial
intelligent or sentient part of a person
5 a: the activating or essential principle
influencing a person <acted in a ~ of helpfulness>
b: an inclination, impulse, or tendency of a specified kind: mood
6 a: a special attitude or frame of mind <the
money-making ~ was for a time driven back --J. A. Froude>
b: the feeling, quality, or disposition characterizing something
<undertaken in a ~ of fun>
7: a lively or brisk quality in a person or a person's actions
8: a person having a character or disposition of a specified nature
9: a mental disposition characterized by firmness or
assertiveness <denied the charge with ~>
10 a: distillate 1: as
(1): the liquid containing ethyl alcohol and water that is distilled
from an alcoholic liquid or mash--often used in pl.
(2): any of various volatile liquids obtained by distillation or
cracking (as of petroleum, shale, or wood)--often used in pl.
b: a usu. volatile organic solvent (as an alcohol, ester, or hydrocarbon)
11 a: prevailing tone or tendency <~ of the age>
b: general intent or real meaning <~ of the law>
12: an alcoholic solution of a volatile substance <~ of camphor>
13: enthusiastic loyalty <school ~>
14 cap, Christian Science: god 1b syn see courage
copyright 1994 Merriam-Webster, Inc. Used under fair use guidelines
Now why is it that such a small word has such a long list of
definitions? Could it be that words often have many uses?
I am reminded now of an early attempt at machine translation.
I believe that the US Gov't was funding an early computer
group to translate documents from Russian-to-English and
back. The hope, obviously, was to eliminate the need for
human translators.
A particular sentence was fed to the computer, which translated
it into Russian. The computer was then fed the Russian, and it
translated it back to English.
The original sentence was "The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak".
The resulting sentence? "The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten".
The computer didn't know which of the many possible words to use
when translating spirit, so it used "vodka". Likewise, it tried to
put the word "strong" into context, and since strong vodka is
prized in Russia, it decided that the vodka was good. Likewise,
flesh got translated to meat, and weak flesh became bad meat.
So, if you wanted to show how the various translations of
"brahma" seemed somehow odd, don't worry - the various
translations of spirit confused a computer about 30 years ago.
Luckily, a good spiritual master like Srila Prabhupada knows
how to translate the verses correctly, and we don't have to
rely on guesswork or computers.
Hopefully, this will put an end to this lingering debate.
-Vivek
