Bhattkale Upatthite Example of a Mistranslation in Pali Canon

Author(s): Yajima Michihiko
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

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अनुसन्धान ५१
Bhattakāle upatthite: An Example of a “Mistranslation” in the Pāli Canon
Yajima Michihiko
The phrase from the Pāli canon to be considered here was once the subject of some discussion in the debate surrounding H. Oldenberg's “Akhyāna theory.” To be more precise, the discussion was not about the interpretation of the phrase per se, but concerned, so to speak, its contextual congruity. In the following, I will first briefly review Oldenberg's and R.O. Francke's arguments and then offer a fresh perspective for the solution of a yet unresolved problem.
The Pāli Jātakas preserve ancient Indian prosimetric literature in its ancient form, and it goes without saying that they served as important evidence in support of Oldenberg's Ākhyāna theory. But the prose sections preserved in the commentaries are quite late in origin and do not preserve the original prose of the early Akhyānas. This was self-evident to Oldenberg, but Francke refused to accept this temporal gap between the verse and prose of the Jātakas, and considered the relationship between the two to be quite close. As an example illustrative of this close relationship, he cites two Jātakas (5 539: Mahājanaka-jataka and J 507: Mahāpolabhana-jataka) which both contain the phrase with which we are here concerned.
In J 5391 the Mahāsatta enters the town of Thūņa, begging for alms, and comes to the house of an arrow-maker. This section is in prose, and it is followed by a verse (v. 163), the first line of which reads: "In the house of an arrow-maker (kotthake usukārassa) when mealtime had arrived (bhattakāle upatthite).” This would appear to be a subordinate clause, but there is no main clause, and it does not constitute a proper sentence. It was this "incompleteness” with which Francke took issue, In the case of J 507,2 on the other hand, the phrase