Why is "jīva" translated as "soul"?
score:0
I think Jiva is from Proto-Slavic *živъ or Proto-Indo-European *gzih₃wós akin to the slavic root "жив" or "живость" seen in Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Macedonian. Transliterated as "Zhiv" it is pronounced same as [jiv] in "jiva" and translates eg "Ладно, не беспокойтесь, он ещё жив. Alright, don't worry - he's still alive."
As i understand it Jiva denotes semantic properties of being alive, the living being, the life faculty and life as element.
I don't think there can be much justification for what the translators are doing but i can see how one would be compelled to do so without regard for the semantic properties of the term "soul" being a christian notion where it is made by god eternal.
Jiva is sometimes used in a similar expression to how one would use "soul" when asking: "Do you hold that soul is something inside one's head, looking out through one's eyes as if those were windows?"
A similar expression is found in QKM using jiva instead of soul. I personally don't think one should use the term soul because it is misleading.
Upvote:-1
Jiva can mean life, living being.
The ordinary always think "long life, long being and the soul still going on even after death" but the truth is the particles and minds are arising and vanishing trillion times per second. Nothing is long life and nothing big, it's all very small and living only a moment of trillion moments per sec.
It's always be same even in the past lives and the next lives. What we should do is meditate Jhana and recall the past to see the small and fast particles and mind arising and vanishing to see the truth "what we are? nothing. Where we go? nothing go. Why it still going on? because of Karma with craving, to be again, in the past which appear before the last death, it's arising and vanishing again and again, never ending suffering".
Upvote:1
Jiva can mean life or life force or soul, depending on context.
In the context of SN 12.35, it refers to soul.
If the soul and body are the same, then this refers to annihilationism, because when the body is destroyed, the soul is destroyed.
If the soul and body are different, then this refers to eternalism, because when the body is destroyed, the soul continues existing.
Instead, the Buddha taught the middle, which is dependent origination.
So, the term "soul" here is not used to affirm the existence of a soul, but it is used to refer to eternalism and annihilationism.
If there is the view, ‘The soul and the body are the same,’ there is no living of the holy life; and if there is the view, ‘The soul is one thing, the body is another,’ there is no living of the holy life. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle: ‘With ignorance as condition, volitional formations.’
SN 12.35 (Bodhi)
Upvote:1
"Jīva" was one of the terms used for "soul/self" by non-Buddhists. Therefore, since the Buddha very frequently addresses non-Buddhists and non-Buddhist ideas, he'll use "jīva" for "self" like they occasionally do in the Upanisads, Vedas, etc.
Here are two dictionary entries for "jīva," one from a Pali dictionary and one from a Sanskrit dictionary:
- Jīva, 1 (adj. -n.) (Sk. jīva, Idg. *gǔīǔos=Gr. bi/oQ, Lat. vīvus, Goth. quius, Ohg. queck, E. quick, Lith. gyvas) 1. the soul. Sabbe jīvā all the souls, enumerated with sattā pāṇā bhūta in the dialect used by the followers of Gosāla D. I, 53 (=DA. I, 161 jīvasaññī). “taṃ jīvaṃ taṃ sarīraṃ udāhu aññaṃ j. aññaṃ s. ” (is the body the soul, or is the body one thing and the soul another?) see D. I, 157, 188; II, 333, 336, 339; S. IV, 392 sq.; M. I, 157, 426 sq.; A. II, 41.—Also in this sense at Miln. 30, 54, 86.—Vin. IV, 34; S. III, 215, 258 sq.; IV, 286; V, 418; A. V, 31, 186, 193.—2. life, in yāvajīvaṃ as long as life lasts, for life, during (his) lifetime D. III, 133; Vin. I, 201; Dh. 64; J. II, 155; PvA. 76.
- The individual or personal soul enshrined in the human body and imparting to it life, motion and sensation (called jīvātman as opposed to paramātman the Supreme Soul); Y.3.131; Ms.12.22-23; सम्पद्यते गुणैर्मुक्तो जीवो जीवं विहाय माम् । जीवो जीवविनिर्मुक्तो गुणैश्चाशयसंभवैः (sampadyate guṇairmukto jīvo jīvaṃ vihāya mām | jīvo jīvavinirmukto guṇaiścāśayasaṃbhavaiḥ) || Bhāg.11.25.36. (here jīva = liṅgaśarīra).
More post
- 📝 Is secular Buddhism a religion?
- 📝 What are the limits of Buddhist compassion?
- 📝 Life of Buddha, to be taken seriously?
- 📝 Possibility of nothing but all-encompassing, absolute Nibbana without Samsara? If so, is sustainability possible (and how)?
- 📝 Do Buddhists talk about insides?
- 📝 What is the difference between Citta contemplation and Dhamma contemplation in Satipathana?
- 📝 What are some of the sutra's related to the Twelve Links (Nidanas)?
- 📝 Can a person live by the Dhamma and have another religion as well?
- 📝 Why are desires in The Five Hindrances only about "sensual" desires?
- 📝 Nirvana & the fall of the 5 Hinderances
- 📝 The Conditions of Lying in Fiction
- 📝 Question on Divisive Speech
- 📝 Is it the EARTH only Place that can give birth to a Buddha?
- 📝 Favourite Mahayana inspirational texts/treaties
- 📝 Can We Teach Animals the Dhamma?
- 📝 Linking Madhyamaka emptiness to Theravada emptiness through papanca
- 📝 Discrepancy between quality and consistency
- 📝 Questions regarding body scan during the contemplation of anatomical parts in Satipatthana
- 📝 Crippling fear of hellfire &, damnation, please help?
- 📝 What would be the motivation for an arahant to perform generous deeds?
- 📝 What is the perspective of the western buddhist cannon websites?
- 📝 To what extent do Zen students study Dhamma?
- 📝 Type of Meditation and Mood
- 📝 Meditation, compassion: How to handle people who dominate you in the office?
- 📝 Is there a future Buddha?
- 📝 Increases in Physical Energy, Virya
- 📝 3 deliverance 8 liberations and stages of enlightenment
- 📝 Why is the 16th Karmapa visualized rather than the 17th Karmapa in Karma Kagyu?
- 📝 The World • It Disintegrates
- 📝 When the Pali suttas say that it is not the "same" thing that is born and dies what do they mean?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why is the first lines of the Dhammapada twin verses sometimes translated using the word 'heart'?
- 📝 Why is "jīva" translated as "soul"?
- 📝 Why is Buddhism not Nihilism?
- 📝 Why do Buddhists believe there is no creator?
- 📝 If there's nobody to get enlightened, why bother?
- 📝 Why isn't there a Buddhist Bible?
- 📝 If Rebirth is not taken literally then why seek Enlightenment?
- 📝 Why should one develop compassion?
- 📝 Why are Jhanas controversial?
- 📝 Why not kill animals to hasten their rebirth?
- 📝 Why is meditation making me more angry?
- 📝 If Buddha stayed unanswered on this matter, why do his followers preach that soul doesn't exist?
- 📝 Why did the Buddha suffer before he died?
- 📝 Why are Buddhist concepts so difficult?
- 📝 Why does the Buddha call himself the Tathāgata?
- 📝 Why does insight lead to to compassion?
- 📝 Why is it hard to breathe naturally when meditating?
- 📝 Why is Buddha almost treated like a God in most Buddhist traditions?
- 📝 If there is no self, why do anything?
- 📝 Attachment is a poison. Why is attachment to the Buddha and to Buddhist philosophy not a problem?
- 📝 Why would anyone ever want to go to the heavens?
- 📝 Why is contributing to the market demand for meat not wrong?
- 📝 Why can't private buddhas just tell people what they did to achieve enlightenment
- 📝 Why can't we reason or logic our way to NIrvana?
- 📝 Why is Buddhism a venture of a limited few?
- 📝 Why the Buddha didn't originally allow ordination of women
- 📝 Why are Buddhas always Indian, male and human?
- 📝 Why did Mahayana leave out the Pali Canon?
- 📝 Why is mentally reproducing music so hard to control? How can it be counteracted?
- 📝 Why is the Buddha described as trackless?