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March 01, 2001
The Three Treasures: The
Translation of Sangha, Buddhist Order, Into Chinese and
Japanese
By Shin Yatomi
SGI-USA Vice Study Department Leader
On the morning of October 6, 1536, an Englishman was strangled
and burned at the stake in Belgium after sixteen months
of imprisonment. William Tyndale was charged with translating
the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek texts into
English—against the will of the Roman Catholic authorities.
After his death, his name was largely forgotten, but his
translation survived the relentless book burnings instigated
by the bishop of London and eventually became the basis
of the King James version to reach millions of English-speaking
readers until today. Tyndale?s enemies, including Sir
Thomas More, vehemently attacked his new and daring translations
of some key biblical terms. Tyndale translated, for example,
the Greek words ekklesia as “congregation”
instead of “church” and presbyter as “elder”
instead of “priest,” and he was correct.1
Scrolls and dictionaries—these were not the only
things the translators of sacred texts had to deal with
in the past; they also had to listen to (or choose to
ignore) the voices of those dressed in holy robes. As
we see in Tyndale?s tragic death, the translation of sacred
texts has been often a source of controversy involving
religious authority, and Buddhism is no exception in this
regard.
As many Buddhist texts in Pali and Sanskrit were translated
into Chinese in the early centuries of the Common Era,
the original meanings of some words were obscured in the
process—sometimes deliberately to suit the translating
monks? or their superiors? personal motives and circumstances.
One such mistranslated word is sangha (also spelled samgha),
which meant the Buddhist Order in the context of Buddhist
scriptures. During Shakyamuni?s time, the same term described
a number of political groups and trade guilds; it was
also applied to religious groups.2 The general notion
of the sangha included the four groups of Buddhists: monks
(bhiksu), nuns (bhiksuni), laymen (upasaka) and laywomen
(upasika).3 When it is used in early Buddhist texts, however,
the term usually refers to the two types of religious
orders: the order of monks (bhiksu-sangha) and the order
of nuns (bhiksuni-sangha). The Buddhist Order was often
called samagra-sangha or “harmonious order.”
It was thought that members of the sangha should practice
in harmony since they share the same goal of attaining
enlightenment.4Sangha was translated into Chinese as seng-chia.
(To be precise, this was a transliteration of the word
sangha.) Seng, the Chinese abbreviation of seng-chia,
eventually came to mean an individual monk instead of
the community of the Buddha?s disciples. In India, an
individual monk was referred to as bhikkhu or bhiksu.
In Buddhist texts, the usage of the term sangha was strictly
distinguished from that of bhikkhu or bhiksu. The sangha
was considered one of the three treasures of Buddhism
along with the Buddha and the Dharma (i.e., the Buddhist
Law or teaching), but an individual monk was never considered
an object of veneration as an element of the three treasures.
I-Ching (635–713), a Chinese Buddhist scholar, after
visiting many Buddhist sites in India, pointed out to
Chinese Buddhists this misapplication of the term sangha
to individuals.5 Many scholars acknowledged the error,
but they insisted on continuing to use the term to refer
to an individual priest or monk. This misuse of the term
was accepted by the Japanese when Buddhism took root in
Japan, as well. The Japanese term so, the Japanese pronunciation
of the Chinese seng of seng-chia, came to signify an individual
priest. As a result, this mistranslation significantly
altered the concept of the three treasures in China and
Japan. Particularly in Japan, the term was misused to
promote reverence toward an individual priest. It is this
misinterpretation that Nichiren Shoshu has been leaning
on to dogmatically define its high priest as being part
of the three treasures.6 As discussed earlier, the treasure
of the sangha originally referred to the Buddhist Order,
which, in the broadest sense, included all Buddhists,
both monks and lay believers. The sangha was revered especially
after Shakyamuni?s death precisely because the Buddhist
community as a whole fulfilled the important role of preserving
and spreading the Buddha?s teaching.
In light of those historical facts, I feel the components
of the three treasures would best be expressed as the
Buddha, the Dharma and the sangha in order to emphasize
the original meaning and intent of the concept. The “Law”
or the “Teaching” for the Dharma, and the
“Order” or “Community” for the
sangha may be used if English terms are preferred. In
terms of etymology and common usage, the word “order”
is more associated with ecclesiastical or monastic hierarchy;
the word “organization,” which we often use
to describe the SGI, was originally related to the vital
functions of a living body but now sounds bit inorganic
and cold; the word community, however, still retains a
sense of the Lain word communitas or fellowship, which
is akin to the spirit of samagra-sangha or “harmonious
order.” But translating the treasure of the sangha
as “the treasure of the priesthood” would
be, I feel, a diminution of the original term, and “the
Treasure of the Priest”7 an outright distortion.
I am pleased that in the recently published The Writings
of Nichiren Daishonin, the treasure of sangha is translated
as the treasure of the “Buddhist Order,” not
“Priest” as in the previous editions of The
Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin.
I welcome this translation of sangha. There is no doubt
that the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood?s excommunication
of the SGI in 1991 ultimately afforded such freedom for
the translators and editors to make such improvements.
The priesthood probably meant the excommunication to “exclude”
the SGI from “communion” with the high priest,
but it ironically put the SGI closer to the true teaching
of Buddhism. The SGI is certainly not the first to adopt
“the Buddhist Order” as an English translation
of sangha; in one sense, however, it took us thirteen
centuries to correct the mistranslation of sangha noticed
by I-Ching. Some may feel reluctant to change the accustomed
usage of the word even if it is wrong, but it is never
too late to correct a past mistake. The effort is worthwhile
especially when we think of the nameless, faithful translators
who long ago risked their lives to spread Buddhism, as
Tyndale did for Christianity.
(This essay is partly based on the author?s previous essay
“Do We Need Priests?: A Historical Perspective on
the Early Buddhist Order” published in Living Buddhism,
October 1999, pp. 5–15.)
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1. David Daniell. “Introduction.”
Tyndale?s New Testament. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989. p. xxix.
2. Akira Hirakawa. A History of Indian Buddhism: From
Sakyamuni to Early Mahayana. Translated and edited by
Paul Groner. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998. p. 62.
3. Ibid., p. 62.
4. Ibid., p. 60.
5. Hajime Nakamura. Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples:
India, China, Tibet and Japan. Edited by Philip P. Wiener.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1964. p. 259.
6. Nichiren Shoshu promotes the absolute obedience to
the high priest, using the concept of the three treasures.
For example, “The Treasure of the Priest (s) was
first received by Nikko Shonin through the Bestowal of
the Living Essence of the Law by the Daishonin, and after
that, the Pure Law was passed down to each successive
High Priest in the lineage of the Heritage, spanning the
generations up until the present day. . . . In short,
with perfectly sincere faith and self-imposed, strict
obedience, we should hold the High Priest?s instruction
in deepest reverence . . .” Quoted from Dai-Nichiren
(Special Edition): On the Soka Gakkai Problem—The
Correct Way of Faith in Nichiren Shoshu, published by
the Nichiren Shoshu Bureau of Religious Affairs, pp. 13–14.
7. In Nichiren Shoshu, the treasure of the sangha is translated
as “the Treasure of the Priest.” See, for
example, Dai-Nichiren (Special Edition): On the Soka Gakkai
Problem—The Correct Way of Faith in Nichiren Shoshu,
published by the Nichiren Shoshu Bureau of Religious Affairs,
pp. 10-16. William Tyndale, translator of the Bible into
English. |
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