[Give Ear]

Translating Pali Negative Opposites

In the case of the translation of Pali negative opposites, we need to remember that a fundamental principle in this system is intentional not-doing. With this in mind you will see that translating the literal not-something to some word implying doing something would be both a mistranslation and a perversion of the Dhamma.

In this system we go from that which is
to that which no longer is;
not to some other thing that is.

We take a misleading liberty with our translations of negatives into positive opposites, and we short-change English by not making much instuctive use of the negative opposite as we could.