Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 11.djvu/30

xxiv to which we are accustomed. On the other hand, however, the catchwords may sometimes have given rise to serious interpolations.

It is open to much doubt whether, in the numerous passages where such stock phrases and repetitions occur, the best mode of translation is to follow word for word the expressions found in the original (but only inserted there to perform a service no longer necessary), or to make use of contractions, the fact of their being so being duly pointed out, either in notes, or by some typographical expedient. Where, for instance, a long paragraph is devoted to what an elder of the Buddhist Order of Mendicants should do, or be, under certain given circumstances, and the whole paragraph is then repeated word for word, of an ordinary member, and of a nun, and of a lay-disciple, or of a religious woman , it would be possible to convey the whole sense intended, by translating that an elder of the Order, and an ordinary member, and a nun, and a lay-disciple of either sex, should do, or be, such and such things.

But every case of repetition is not so simple as this; such curtailing destroys at least the form and the emphasis of the originals; and it seemed more in accordance with the rules laid down in the prospectus to the Series of Translations from the Sacred Books of the East, of which this volume forms a part, to adhere in all cases strictly to the text. With the exception of the earlier chapters in the Book of the Great Decease, in which a few such contractions will be found mentioned in the notes, I have therefore reproduced almost all the repetitions. The result will not, I trust, be embarrassing to the reader who keeps constantly in mind the aim and origin of these stock phrases and repetitions, and does not allow the wearisome form in which they are presented to shut out from his view the logical sequence of the sometimes very striking ideas which these Suttas contain. I venture to go further and to maintain that it is not necessary or