Cross-Cultural Translations: Buddhist Truth… Or Not

For the tradition at large, Buddhism’s truth claims are universally valid. As recorded in the canonical scriptures, Buddhism is understood as providing a collection of objectively true teachings. These, in turn, can be directly experienced and verified by anyone who wishes to wholly engage with them. Because the tradition’s claims carry universal validity, Buddhist truths can readily translate into any socio-cultural settings. In this perspective, the question is not whether there may be a Buddhist equivalent of the “translation principle.” Rather, this paper contends, we should consider what we mean by translation, from what perspective, and to whose benefit. Ultimately, we must distinguish two opposing approaches to cross-cultural translation: an emic Buddhist one, for which Buddhism is translatable because of its universalist claims; and an etic scholarly one, for which cross-cultural translation of Buddhist truths is incommensurable with a social-scientific approach to comparison.