The Udana Translated from the Pali.

• Author: Hinuber, Oskar V.

This is the third translation of Udana into English. Masefield's is preceded by F. L. Woodward's (1935) and recently by J. D. Ireland's (1990). It is, in fact, the fourth translation, once the earliest, by K. Seidenstucker (1920), is added, which has escaped the attention of the translator, as did the important text-critical and exegetical notes by the same author: Das Udana, eine kanonische Schrift des Pali-Buddhismus (Leipzig, 1913).

The reason for Masefield's efforts is to provide a translation closely following the interpretation as given by the commentator Dhammapala in his Paramatthadipani, which has also been translated by Masefield (vol. I; Oxford, 1994). Consequently it would have been useful to point out systematically where the text changes, if modern and traditional interpretations are confronted. This, most unfortunately, has not been done. Still worse, the reader is neither always informed about modern interpretations nor about discussions on Dhammapala's understanding of the text, e.g., on upeccapi palayatam, Ud 51.17*, where Dhammapala glosses upecca sancicca, Ud-a 295.15, and Masefield, consequently, blindly follows this error: "when deliberately running away" (p. 92, with note 51!) instead of "jumping up and running away," without referring, e.g., to CPD, s.v. uppatati. Occasionally the commentary has been misunderstood; suriyo va . . ., Ud 3.5*, is glossed as yatha suriyo . . .; Ud-a 50.11 with the expected equivalence of (i)va and yatha. Unfortunately the commentary mentions by chance the word va: eva, which induces Masefield to believe that Dhammapala here takes va to be eva (p. 3, with note 14).

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