Translator’s Preface

Originally I made this translation for my own instruction because the only published version was then no longer obtainable. So it was not done with any intention at all of publication; but rather it grew together out of notes made on some of the book’s passages. By the end of 1953 it had been completed, more or less, and put aside. Early in the following year a suggestion to publish it was put to me, and I eventually agreed, though not without a good deal of hesitation. Reasons for agreeing, however, seemed not entirely lacking. The only previous English version of this remarkable work had long been out of print. Justification too could in some degree be founded on the rather different angle from which this version is made.

Over a year was then spent in typing out the manuscript during which time, and since, a good deal of revision has taken place, the intention of the revision being always to propitiate the demon of inaccuracy and at the same time to make the translation perspicuous and the translator inconspicuous. Had publication been delayed, it might well have been more polished. Nevertheless the work of polishing is probably endless. Somewhere a halt must be made.

A guiding principle—the foremost, in fact—has throughout been avoidance of misrepresentation or distortion; for the ideal translation (which has yet to be made) should, like a looking glass, not discolour or blur or warp the original which it reflects. Literalness, however, on the one hand and considerations of clarity and style on the other make irreconcilable claims on a translator, who has to choose and to compromise. Vindication of his choice is sometimes difficult.

I have dealt at the end of the Introduction with some particular problems. Not, however, with all of them or completely; for the space allotted to an introduction is limited.

Much that is circumstantial has now changed since the Buddha discovered and made known his liberating doctrine 2,500 years ago, and likewise since this work was composed some nine centuries later. On the other hand, the Truth he discovered has remained untouched by all that circumstantial change. Old cosmologies give place to new; but the questions of consciousness, of pain and death, of responsibility for acts, and of what should be looked to in the scale it values as the highest of all, remain. Reasons for the perennial freshness of the Buddha’s teaching—of his handling of these questions—are several, but not least among them is its independence of any particular cosmology. Established as it is for its foundation on the self-evident insecurity of the human situation (the truth of suffering), the structure of the Four Noble Truths provides an unfailing standard of value, unique in its simplicity, its completeness and its ethical purity, by means of which any situation can be assessed and a profitable choice made.

Now I should like to make acknowledgements, as follows, to all those without whose help this translation would never have been begun, persisted with or completed.

To the venerable Ñāṇatiloka Mahāthera (from whom I first learned Pali) for his most kind consent to check the draft manuscript. However, although he had actually read through the first two chapters, a long spell of illness unfortunately prevented him from continuing with this himself.

To the venerable Soma Thera for his unfailing assistance both in helping me to gain familiarity with the often difficult Pali idiom of the Commentaries and to get something of the feel—as it were, “from inside”—of Pali literature against its Indian background. Failing that, no translation would ever have been made: I cannot tell how far I have been able to express any of it in the rendering.

To the venerable Nyanaponika Thera, German pupil of the venerable Ñāṇatiloka Mahāthera, for very kindly undertaking to check the whole manuscript in detail with the venerable Ñāṇatiloka Mahāthera’s German translation (I knowing no German).

To all those with whom I have had discussions on the Dhamma, which have been many and have contributed to the clearing up of not a few unclear points.

Lastly, and what is mentioned last bears its own special emphasis, it has been an act of singular merit on the part of Mr. A. Semage, of Colombo, to undertake to publish this translation.

Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu,
Vesākhamāse, 2499: May, 1956

Island Hermitage
Dodanduwa, Sri Lanka