2015-10-26

Cur buddica latine?

Alexander Ricius has a page of various Japanese and Buddhist texts translated into Latin (and, uh, one H. P. Lovecraft story). Here's Hojoki seu EREMITORIVM:

Defluentes amnes cursu non cessant, quorum aqua vero pristina non exstat. In stagnante quae fluctat spuma modo solvitur, modo creatur, nec diu remanet umquam. Hujus mundi homines habitationesque non aliter esse constat.

Orsa de Sapientiae Excellentiae Corde, a.k.a. the Heart Sutra, is there too. As an old D&D player, it was a surprise to see Avalokiteśvara translated "Catoblepas," but okay, I guess the etymology fits.

I know what you're thinking: cur buddica latine? Ricius has an answer for you.

Magis etiam prodesse visum est antiquissimo aeternoque sermoni latino buddicas scripturas committere quam loquelarum multitudini. Post saeculum nemo legere velit hodiernam vulgarem eloquentiam; omnia denuo scribi debebunt ut istius aetatis novi homines sensus intellegant. At sermo latinus non mutabitur; quae hodie vertuntur, post annos mille legent docti, tam facile quam nunc apud nos legentur Boethius, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, Eginhardus.

I probably wouldn't have chosen Boethius as a paradigmatically facilis Latin author, but OK.

Popularity factor: 2

leoboiko:

> I know what you're thinking: cur buddica latine?

You know, that's, like, the last question that would ever occur to me. I mean, catoblepas.


Matt:

It's like they say -- some people look at what's been translated into Latin and ask "cur?", while others look at what hasn't been translated into Latin and ask either "cur non?" or "quid ni?" depending on which chapter of Wheelock's they have reached.

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