Karaniya Sutta

[Suk Harian]

TheMettā Sutta is the name used for two Buddhist discourses (Pali: sutta) found in the Pali Canon. The one, more often chanted by Theravadin monks, is also referred to as Karaṇīyamettā Sutta after the opening word, Karaṇīyam, "(This is what) should be done."[1] It is found in the Suttanipāta (Sn 1.8) and Khuddakapāṭha (Khp 9). It is ten verses in length and it extols both the virtuous qualities and the meditative development of mettā (Pali), traditionally translated as "loving kindness"[2] or "friendliness".[3] Additionally, Thanissaro Bhikkhu's translation,[4] "goodwill", underscores that the practice is used to develop wishes for unconditional goodwill towards the object of the wish.

According to post-canonical Sutta Nipāta commentary, the background story for the Mettā Sutta is that a group of monks were frightened by the earth devas in the forest where the Buddha had sent them to meditate. When the monks sought the Buddha's advice in dealing with the situation, the Buddha taught the monks the Mettā Sutta as an antidote to overcome their fear. The monks recited the sutta and radiated loving-kindness. Their good-will placated the earth devas to be at ease and stay quiet as well.[5][6]

While the Buddha was staying at Savatthi, a band of monks, having received subjects of meditation from the master, proceeded to a forest to spend the rainy season (vassana). The tree deities inhabiting this forest were worried by their arrival, as they had to descend from tree abodes and dwell on the ground. They hoped, however, the monks would leave soon; but finding that the monks would stay the vassana period of three months, harassed them in diverse ways, during the night with the intention of scaring them away.

Living under such conditions being impossible, the monks went to the Master and informed him of their difficulties. Thereon the Buddha instructed them in the Metta sutta and advised their return equipped with this sutta for their protection.

The monks went back to the forest, and practicing the instruction conveyed, permeated the whole atmosphere with their radiant thoughts of metta or loving-kindness. The deities so affected by this power of love, henceforth allowed them to meditate in peace.

1. "He who is skilled in (working out his own) well being, and who wishes to attain that state of Calm (Nibbana) should act thus: he should be dexterous, upright, exceedingly upright, obedient, gentle, and humble.

I am having trouble pulling up on the search function all the EBTs available in Hindi translation. I can see that it says that 0.6% of the suttas available on Sutta Central are translated into Hindi, but the link to to the translator (Ven. Sankrityayan) is not hyper linked.

While I have a more general interest in this matter, I am also looking for a good translation in Hindi of the Karaniya Metta Sutta specifcally. Any tips would be welcome. When I pull up the sutta here, I do not see a Hindi option, unless I missed something?

Hi @Upayadhi,

I have about ten of MN suttas translated but not published yet. Getting them proofread is a bit of slow process because it depends on finding someone to volunteer their time and effort.

If you would like to read these newer Hindi translations or better yet, proofread them, please let me know.

It should be easier now because @Snowbird has a tool to create a nice document out of Bilara translations.

Thanks for the reminder though. I have been meaning to push the ones completed to published branch.

Thanks @Snowbird. This tool is a gem! and a huge convenience. I have tried it out and have sent out my translations for proofreading and comments to friends using this tool.

Let us hope the Bilara upgrade project goes smoothly and the necessary donations are received in timely fashion!

Indo-Aryan (Sanskritic/Prakritic) Hindi is Hindi.

Adding Farsi (Iranic) loanwords to pure-Hindi makes it Urdu. The more Farsi loanwords used, the closer the language gets to Urdu and the less Hindi it becomes.

Using Indo-Aryan (sanskritic/prakritic) vocabulary instead of Farsi vocabulary may be less comprehensible for people of Pakistani heritage (or Urdu-speakers in India) but they may perhaps use an Urdu translation rather than a Hindi translation.

My suggestion is to avoid Farsi expressions if possible when translating (or reading) Pali texts to Hindi - simply for the reason that both Sanskrit and Pali vocabulary have etymological connections to Hindi (non-Farsi) vocabulary, and meanings thus flow undistorted for the most part.

All the words in the Hindi sentence originate from Sanskrit or Prakrit. Whereas in the Urdu sentence, the words naya, ki, ko, unke, ne, se and samjhaya (i.e basic verbs and propositions) are from Sanskrit, whereas Daur, siyaasi, tehreek, tajveez, mukhalifat, tarjuman, tafseel (more complex ideas) come from Perso-Arabic.

In Sanskrit & Pali, the above Hindi sentence can perhaps be translated as:

Sanskrit : nava-yuga-pakṣasya pravaktā prastāva-virodhasya vistāra-vyākhyānam akarot

Pali: nava-yuga-pakkhassa pavattā pavāda-virodhassa vitthāra-byākaraṇaṃ akari

When you compare these to the Hindi - you can see how etymologically, syntactically & semantically close the words and sentences are - while the Farsi vocabulary in Urdu would make the translation effectively opaque.

The "Metta Sutta" (also known as the "Karaṇīya Metta Sutta")[1] is a Buddhist discourse (Pali: sutta; Sanskrit: sutra) that is thousands of years old. Sources useful for dating this discourse include the 2,400-year-old Pali Canon, a 1,500-year-old Buddhist commentary, and more recent scholarship regarding these verses. While none of these sources can lead to an incontrovertible conclusion as to this discourse's origins, they allow one to understand analytically some of the strengths and weaknesses of various hypotheses.

The Pali Canon is composed of three "baskets" or collections: discipline (Vinaya Piṭaka), discourses (Sutta Piṭaka), and analysis (Abhidhamma Piṭaka). According to the texts themselves, the Vinaya Piṭaka and Sutta Piṭaka are from the time of the historical Buddha (ca. 5th c. BC). According to the texts, during the Buddha's lifetime, discourses were memorized and recited with a complete recitation of all recalled discourses occurring soon after his death. For centuries afterwards, this oral tradition was systematically perpetuated by monastics. These discourses were translated into different dialects and different redactions arose. The Pali Canon is believed to have been first written down in the first century BC.[2] Some scholars maintain that material was added to the Canon as late as the second century AD.[3]

The Metta Sutta is found in the Sutta Piṭaka's fifth and final collection, Khuddaka Nikāya. In this collection, this discourse is included in two different books: in the Khuddakapaṭha (Khp 9), and in the Sutta Nipāta (Sn 1.8). The Khuddakapaṭha is fairly unique in the Pali Canon in that it is, for the most part, a brief compendium based on other canonical material. Thus, the inclusion of the Metta Sutta in this compendium suggests that the discourse may have originally been part of the Sutta Nipāta and then subsequently incorporated into the Khuddakapaṭha; moreover, it underlines this discourse's preceived value to ancient redactors.

In the Pali Canon, most discourses involve instruction explicitly attributed to the Buddha or one of his disciples. Unlike these aforementioned discourses (although typical of many discourses in the Sutta Nipāta), the Metta Sutta itself does not directly attribute its words to either the Buddha or anyone else. That is, the Metta Sutta text itself does not identify its own speaker.

While it is not necessarily apparent to English readers, this discourse is written in a poetic meter (for more information on this meter, see the "Primer on Pali versification"). This naturally gives rise to the question: Is it possible that the historical Buddha actually articulated a discourse in verse form? Looking solely at the Pali Canon, one finds that there are numerous discourses in verse form that are directly attributed to the Buddha.[4] In addition, there are canonical references to some followers of the Buddha as having been former poets and actors, thus indicating that there were contemporaries of the Buddha who were at least capable of composing verse professionally.[5][6] Thus, based solely on the canonical texts, nothing obviously precludes one from hypothesizing that the Buddha could compose verse.

Several centuries after the Buddha's passing, the Pali commentaries were written down (approx. ca. 5th to 10th c. AD). Traditionally, the commentaries are said to be based on an oral tradition or on no longer extant Sinhala commentaries that are alleged to go back in part to the time when the Pali Canon was first introduced to Sri Lanka (ca. 2nd c. BC).

According to the Sutta Nipāta's Pali commentary (Paramatthajotikā II, traditionally ascribed to 5th c. CE commentator Buddhaghosa), this sutta's verses were first taught by the Buddha to monks who were trying to live and meditate in an inhospitable forest. (For more information on the commentarial account, see the external references below.) At this time, it is the association of this discourse's words with the Buddha himself in the Pali commentaries that is the oldest, extant, written attribution of this text to the Buddha.

Modern scholarly assessments that attempt to date parts of the Canon typically take into account the language used in the text (since Pali evolved as a language over time) and comparisons of the Pali texts with non-Pali texts (for instance, hypothesizing that the common material among these sources might have sprung from some proto-text while the non-common texts might have been later, unique additions).

While much of the material in the Khuddaka Nikāya (for instance, particularly the Khuddakapaṭha, which is believed to have possibly been a didactic manual for novice monks) is generally assessed to have been added centuries after the historical Buddha's passing, many scholars consider parts of this collection (such as the Sutta Nipāta's fourth and fifth chapters) to be among the oldest parts of the Canon. Based on the aforementioned tools of historical assessment, at this time, there is no definitive identification of when the Metta Sutta per se was composed.

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