[HN Gopher] Her Mind Freed: The inspired utterances of Buddhist ...
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       Her Mind Freed: The inspired utterances of Buddhist nuns
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2021-04-07 19:37 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.laphamsquarterly.org)
        
       | teraflop wrote:
       | This article is particularly noteworthy in the context of a more
       | recent "translation" of the same poems, _The First Free Women_ ,
       | which attracted a lot of criticism from Buddhists for being
       | largely invented (by a male author) rather than translated:
       | https://lokanta.github.io/2021/01/21/curious-case/
        
         | detcader wrote:
         | Interesting, I have been hearing of this book for the past year
         | or so and I appreciate this new information; I wonder if any
         | female scholars have expressed interest in translating it?
        
         | epilys wrote:
         | Reminds me of 'English as She is Spoke', a 19th century
         | Portuguese-english phrase book that was also an invented
         | translation
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_She_Is_Spoke
        
         | Mediterraneo10 wrote:
         | Shambhala is an odd publisher. On one hand, it has produced a
         | few editions of classical Asian texts that are almost (but
         | never quite) of equal quality to a scholarly press - Cleary's
         | translation of the _Avatamsakasutra_ comes to mind. On the
         | other hand, Shambhala have put out many supposed translations
         | of classics that are just the fanciful imagination of the
         | translator (who in some cases doesn't actually have any
         | training in the source language), but they sure sound hip and
         | so they sell well to naive buyers.
        
           | aarpmcgee wrote:
           | I'm curious. Can you offer any names of such translations?
        
             | Mediterraneo10 wrote:
             | Of renderings instead of actual translations? One of the
             | most notorious examples is Coleman Barks' "translations" of
             | Rumi that Shambhala put out. Barks does not actually know
             | Persian, and his versions of Rumi are based on existing
             | English translations along with his own personal
             | inspirations.
        
       | mtalantikite wrote:
       | I have a copy of this author's translations of the Therigatha and
       | really enjoyed it both for it's insight and historical importance
       | (this looks to be a new paperback release of that older one).
       | That some Buddhist communities don't have female sadhaks never
       | really made sense to me, as it always felt clear that the Buddha
       | taught women regardless of social position, and the Therigatha
       | highlights that. It has poems from women across the spectrum,
       | from high caste women from wealthy families to former sex
       | workers.
       | 
       | A monk some friends of mine ordained with when we were young and
       | out of college has a translation of some of the Therigatha for
       | those interested (pdf warning)
       | https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/Theragat...
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-08 23:01 UTC)