Just a sharing on this "Gospel of Buddha" writtien in King James Bible style by Paul Carus, a German-American writer.
http://reluctant-messenger.com/gospel_buddha/chapter_02.htm
When I saw this translation like over 5 years ago (I was like 14 or 15 then?) I thought it was pretty nice and would appeal to certain Westerners.
But when I saw this translation again this year, I found out that it was a horrible translation that totally mistranslates large chunks of texts and generally very poor quality. Also, the author is imposing his eternalistic Hindu view skewed towards immortality and atman onto the Pali texts - totally misunderstanding what 'Nirvana' means (it does NOT mean 'immortality' nor does it mean 'annihilation of self' - both extremes are specifically rejected by Buddha).
Note that I have no problems with people translating Buddhist texts with a Christian flavour, it's just that this particular translator had an exceedingly bad understanding of the core Buddhist doctrines.
Therefore my suggestions is still to stick to the translations at www.accesstoinsight.org/
I thought it was good work about buddhism coming from west. Thanks for the sharing, shall look up at the link.
Originally posted by *=Optimus=*:I thought it was good work about buddhism coming from west. Thanks for the sharing, shall look up at the link.
Almost all the English translations are 'coming from west' and done by ang mohs. Just that the more trustworthy and accurate ones are at AccessToInsight...