Page 201 -

โครงการรวบรวมและจัดทําเอกสารวารสารอิเล็กทรอนิกส์ มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์

182 Humanities Journal Vol.24 No.2 (July-December 2017)

noun ‘a painting; picture’. (Buddhadatta Mahathera, 1957, p. 103) Any English
translation cannot help but obliterate these possible nuances of the Pali.

Another example of possible nuanced meanings in the original Pali in
verse 147 is the fourth word of the verse arukāyaṃ, which is a compound
noun: aru ‘sore(s)’ and kāyaṃ ‘heap.’ Another meaning of kāya is ‘body.’

Buddhadata’s dictionary gives three English equivalents: ‘a heap; a collection;
the body’. (Buddhadatta Mahathera, 1957, p. 82) This interplay between ‘heap’
and ‘body’ as possible referents in the Pali kāya is lost in the English translations
above in which the translations give mainly ‘mass’ or a circumlocution. Only
Raja has ‘body’ (‘…body full of wounds’). Since the verse is focused on the
impermanence of the body, the differing possible meanings of kāya in Pali is

unfortunately not possible in the English translations.

7. Conclusion

th
With the loosening of the bonds of Christianity, beginning in the 18
century CE, over the hearts and minds of and ways of thinking of increasing
numbers in the West of educated people and intellectuals, there has arisen

th
since the 19 century an increasing interest in Eastern philosophies and
religions, not least in Buddhism. However, the Christian background remains
strong in Western languages, including English.

Along with the weakening hold of Christianity, there is a new attraction
st
th
which has gained strength in the 20 century and into now the 21 century: an
individualistic consumer ethos, which has through advertising conveyed over all
the public media available gained enormous power over the consciousness
and outlook of Westerners, and increasingly others. This began in the United