# A Path to Freedom — translation and edition record

This edition adapts **Access to Insight, “A Path to Freedom: A Self-guided Tour of the Buddha’s Teachings.”** It covers all 36 HTML lessons linked within the original `/ptf/` collection. Books, complete suttas, the general index, glossary and other material outside that collection remain further-reading links. The guide is an anthology of selected passages, not a replacement for the complete suttas.

## Translation basis and review status

The Nepali and Hindi texts are translations **of this English guide**, including its editorial explanations and selected English translations of canonical passages. They are not described as direct translations from Pāli. The [sutta translation policy](../../TRANSLATION_POLICY.md) continues to govern the separate complete-sutta collection. This distinction is deliberate: translating the guide preserves the particular selection, interpretation and presentation that its reader requested.

Both languages were drafted with AI assistance for dharma.media and are awaiting the owner’s editorial review and, later, specialist review. `status: ai-draft` and `reviewedBy: null` remain in every translation record. Structural tests, source comparison and a second editorial pass do not amount to expert validation. No source author, translator, publisher or institution has endorsed this edition.

Each original heading, paragraph, list item, table cell, verse and citation has a stable source-unit ID and a complete corresponding text in both languages. Repeated instructions remain repeated; source ellipses remain ellipses. Speaker changes, bracketed editorial explanations, questions, conditions, negations, enumeration and bibliographic notes are preserved. Verse is translated in readable lines without inventing rhyme or dropping clauses. Pāli recitations supplied by the guide are rendered in Devanagari and retain their function as recitations, rather than being mislabeled as new translations.

English wording is retained, with normalized HTML/whitespace, paragraph identifiers, safer markup and local links for the 36 translated lessons. Rendering changes do not claim to correct the source. The source snapshot retains the original HTML, English text, source URL, retrieval date, SHA-256, source tree and license notice. Plain translated text is aligned at the paragraph or meaningful unit level; that is not a claim of one-to-one word alignment. English cross-reference links remain accessible when English is hidden.

## Terminology decisions

Meaning and context take priority over mechanically replacing English words. Technical vocabulary is kept consistent where the context supports it, and the original English remains available for comparison.

| English / Pāli context | Nepali and Hindi treatment |
| --- | --- |
| *dukkha*, stress, suffering | दुःख is broader than everyday sadness or mental “stress.” Physical pain and mental distress in enumerations are distinguished as शारीरिक पीडा/पीड़ा and मानसिक व्यथा. The guide’s discussion of the limits of English equivalents is fully translated. |
| *vedanā*, feeling | वेदना denotes the pleasant, painful or neither-pleasant-nor-painful tone of experience; it is not automatically translated as pain alone. |
| *saññā*, perception | संज्ञा: recognition/perception, distinguished from विज्ञान. |
| *viññāṇa*, consciousness | विज्ञान in its Buddhist sense of consciousness, not modern science. मनोविज्ञान in a six-sense enumeration means mind-consciousness, not the academic discipline of psychology. |
| *saṅkhāra*, fabrication; fabricated / unfabricated | संस्कार; संस्कृत / असंस्कृत according to context. “Fabrication” is not treated as lying or inventing a falsehood. “संस्कृत” here means conditioned/constructed, not the Sanskrit language. |
| *bhava*, becoming; non-becoming | भव and विभव, with context indicating continued existence/becoming or its negation. These are not generic self-improvement or a declaration that liberation is personal annihilation. |
| *taṇhā*, craving; *chanda*, desire | तृष्णा is not equated with every wholesome intention or willingness to practise. Desire is translated according to its object and role. |
| *kusala / akusala*, skillful / unskillful | कुशल / अकुशल in the ethical and liberative sense; not mere technical cleverness or lack of expertise. |
| *paññā*, discernment | प्रज्ञा or a contextually natural expression of understanding, never social discrimination. |
| *cetanā*, intention | चेतना in the sense of volition/intention; distinguished from विज्ञान (consciousness). |
| *upādāna*, clinging/sustenance | उपादान, retaining the source’s dual sense of grasping and providing fuel/support where it is explicit. |
| *upadhi*, acquisitions | उपधि: acquired supports/bases of attachment; not financial profit alone. |
| *āsava*, effluents, fermentations, taints | आस्रव; alternate English renderings are not turned into different Buddhist categories. |
| *nibbidā / virāga*, disenchantment / dispassion | निर्वेद / विराग: seeing through attraction and the fading of passion, rather than hatred, despair or emotional numbness. |
| *nekkhamma*, renunciation | नैष्क्रम्य / त्याग according to context; not simply abandoning responsibilities. |
| *vitakka / vicāra* in jhāna | वितर्क / विचार as distinct meditative functions; not argumentativeness or indiscriminate rumination. |
| *pīti / sukha*, rapture / pleasure | प्रीति / सुख, maintaining the distinction in the jhāna formulas. |
| *nibbāna*, Unbinding | निर्वाण, while the source’s fire/fuel simile preserves the sense of release from binding. It is not recast as an eternal soul, heavenly location or annihilation. |
| “Unprovoked is my release” in SN 56.11 | “मेरो मुक्ति अचल छ” / “मेरी मुक्ति अचल है”: unshakable release, avoiding the misleading colloquial sense of being unprovoked into an argument. |

The four alternatives in MN 72 are all retained as **not applicable**; none is substituted as the Buddha’s positive answer. The Udāna passages about the unconditioned remain deliberately restrained. The guide’s cosmology table is a historical doctrinal presentation; its prose is translated faithfully, including its qualifications and references. Dates in the Buddha biography retain the original **BE (Buddhist Era)** reference rather than being silently converted into BCE dates.

## Rights and attribution

Attribution is necessary but is not itself permission. The exact original lesson licenses were checked. Three guide pages (`index`, `dhamma--sila--uposatha`, `dhamma--sagga--loka`) carry **CC BY 4.0**; the other 33 carry **CC BY-NC 4.0**. These permit adaptations under their respective conditions. Each page’s copyright, license link, full source notice, revision/citation and modification statement are retained in the reading and printed edition.

The original guide includes quoted translations with additional rights. The [quotation-rights register](sources/quotation-rights.json) preserves 143 linked source records. Twelve BPS-style grants explicitly permit translations and other derivatives but require free distribution, preservation of the full grant and **no more than 50 copies when reprinting**. One additional custom grant (Kumara Bhikkhu) requires free distribution and retention of its full notice without that reprint limit. Those terms are not replaced by the guide page’s Creative Commons notice or this project’s license. Required original notices remain verbatim English even when interface text is shown in Nepali or Hindi.

Eight source citations have no hyperlink in ATI’s guide. They remain intact. Three identify book excerpts: Francis Story’s “Suffering” in *The Three Basic Facts of Existence*, volume II; Ñanamoli Thera’s *The Patimokkha*; and Nyanatiloka’s *Path to Deliverance*, pp. 65–66. For those exact excerpts the edition relies on the express license on the guide page and retains the bibliography. It makes **no claim that those complete books have the guide’s license**. Five other unlinked canonical references remain as ATI supplies them; a translator identity has not been invented for them.

The new Nepali/Hindi adaptation contributions are offered, to the extent rights exist, under the same CC license as the particular guide page, subject to all retained underlying quotation terms. The ancient teachings, facts and unprotectable generated output are not claimed as exclusive project property. © 2026 dharma.media applies only to project contributions in which rights exist. The existing sutta collection’s licenses are unchanged.

## Editorial maintenance

Edit the translation unit, not the archived English source. Keep the source ID, record the editor and date, and retain an edition history when a reviewed version is published. Review nuanced readings against the English and its cited discourse; document a correction or alternative interpretation rather than silently replacing ATI’s edition with another translator’s words. Do not mark the whole guide validated because one passage has been checked.

Printed lessons always include the whole selected lesson, selected languages and source appendix. Search filtering is a screen aid and does not remove paragraphs from print. Links to other books or suttas do not include those complete works in the printed guide lesson.

## Independent comparison notes: the Four Truths and related lessons

A second comparison pass on 30 October 2026 read all **281 source units in nine lessons**: the Four Noble Truths overview; the First Truth, dukkha and saṃsāra; the Second Truth, avijjā and taṇhā; and the Third Truth and nibbāna. Both target languages were checked against the retained English. This is an editorial check of drafts, not specialist validation.

- In the avijjā cessation formula, wording that inadvertently made ignorance itself “become dispassionate” was corrected to **अविद्याको अशेष विराग र निरोध** / **अविद्या के अशेष विराग और निरोध**. The full dependent-origination and cessation chains remain intact.
- Hindi “not getting what is wanted” now uses **चाहा हुआ न मिलना**, rather than limiting the wish to a material “object.” This also reads correctly in the following example of wishing not to be subject to birth, illness or death.
- The five clinging-aggregates sentence was clarified so that “stressful” describes the aggregates, without an ambiguous attachment to the preceding noun. In Iti 15, “conjoined” means being held by craving, not people being joined to one another.
- In Dhp 349–350, the “foul” contemplation is clarified as attention to the unattractive aspect (**अशुभभावना**); it does not instruct the reader to cultivate unwholesome qualities. In Ud 8.3, “become” is expressed as **अस्तित्वमा आएको** / **अस्तित्व में आए हुए** without adding a soul, a creator or a cosmological location.
- The fractions in SN 13.1 are explicit in Nepali: one hundredth, one thousandth and one hundred-thousandth. The source’s four rejected alternatives in MN 72 remain four rejected alternatives; none has been converted into a positive claim. Its fire-and-fuel illustration is preserved.
- The existing **अचल** rendering of “unprovoked” release was retained. Source ellipses, repetitions, variant English renderings of dukkha and the distinction between physical pain, mental distress and feeling were preserved. The independent reading found no missing unit or untranslated prose in these nine lessons.


## Citation exception: the MN 64 excerpt

The Third Truth overview, unit `dhamma--sacca--sacca3--index-0009`, cites **MN 64**, but its original hyperlink covers only “MN” and points to ATI's general Majjhima Nikāya index, not a particular translation. The rights register consequently records that linked index's own notice. **The index license is not treated as a license for every Majjhima Nikāya translation or as evidence of the excerpt's translator.** This edition preserves the original MN 64 citation and link, and relies narrowly on the Third Truth guide page's express adaptation grant for the quoted excerpt as presented there. No translator has been invented and no complete MN 64 translation is included by that link.

## Independent comparison notes: the Eightfold Path lessons

A separate comparison pass on 30 October 2026 read all **475 source units in twelve lessons**, in English and both target languages: the Fourth Truth overview; Right View, intentional action and admirable friendship; Right Resolve, Speech, Action, Livelihood, Effort, Mindfulness and Concentration; and jhāna. Titles and subtitles were also checked. This is an independent editorial reading of AI-assisted drafts, not certification by a language or Buddhist-studies specialist; `reviewedBy` remains null pending human review.

- The cool spring-water simile now says that water emerges from the spring (**मूलको पानी निस्किरहेको**), correcting a Nepali false friend that incorrectly suggested boiling. The bath-powder simile's vessel is brass (**पित्तल / पीतल**), not bronze. The source's own rain wording and all four jhāna formulas remain unchanged in substance.
- In Right Resolve, renunciation is **नैष्क्रम्य**, consistent with the guide's terminology, rather than the potentially misleading “departure” word निष्क्रमण. The two sets of three intentions remain distinct. Viveka in meditative passages retains its technical sense of seclusion; it is not substituted with social discrimination or mere intellectual judgment.
- The ancient-path illustration's Nepali tense and Hindi relative clauses were repaired. In Soṇa's story, subject/case agreement was corrected without changing the sequence of events, the comparison with a tuned instrument, or the distinction between excessive and insufficient effort.
- In the Dhammapada friendship verse, “constantly, constantly” now qualifies happiness and its repetition is preserved. It no longer reads as though occasional association with fools is the condition being recommended. The movement from false companions to wise friendship remains intact.
- The six criteria for speaking in MN 58, all sixteen breathing instructions in MN 118, the three stages of reflection before/during/after action in MN 61, the four kinds of action, the four right exertions, and the quoted distinctions between lay and renunciant conduct were checked without abridging their lists or importing an alternative source translation.
- Minor grammatical and idiomatic corrections were made where required. Every retained source unit has nonempty Nepali and Hindi text; quotations, source ellipses, verse line breaks, bibliographic credits and external-reading links remain represented. This completeness check does not by itself establish expert validation.

## Independent comparison notes: the introduction and gradual-training lessons

A separate comparison pass on 30 October 2026 read all **621 source units in fourteen lessons**, in English and both target languages: the guide introduction, refuge, Saṅgha, the Dhamma overview, generosity, virtue and the five/eight/ten precepts, uposatha, heaven and the thirty-one realms, drawbacks, and renunciation. This is editorial comparison of drafts, not human expert validation; `reviewedBy` remains null.

- The gradual-training overview now expresses the ocean's gradually deepening shelf as an intelligible physical image. “Penetration” of meaning or knowledge is rendered as deep understanding or realization, and the framework for organizing the teachings no longer uses a word meaning administrative management.
- The author's “healthy and trustworthy sense of self” describes an ordinary, practical understanding of oneself. It is expressed as **आफ्नो बारेमा स्वस्थ र भरोसायोग्य बुझाइ** / **अपने विषय में स्वस्थ और विश्वसनीय समझ**, avoiding the suggestion of metaphysical self-realization that आत्मबोध could introduce.
- The cosmology introduction now correctly says that **life in each realm** is temporary, rather than saying only that the realm itself is temporary. “Glory” in the names of the third-jhāna realms uses शोभा, distinct from the second-jhāna realms' radiance (आभा), rather than moral auspiciousness.
- In the renunciation passages, pursuing a theme means contemplating it; agitation in the fearful king's account means being troubled, rather than excited. The Ud 2.10 verse's inner lack of provocation is expressed as absence of क्षोभ. These changes do not add a metaphysical explanation to the verse.
- Hindi “clingable phenomena” now describes phenomena to which attachment can occur; it does not suggest they deserve attachment. Nepali anatomy and disease vocabulary was made more precise where needed: tendons are स्नायु, boils are पिलो, and defecation/urination are actions rather than their products.
- The full precept formulas, all repeated generosity/rebirth passages, the graduated examples of virtue, every listed realm, the narrator's cosmological claims, corpse-contemplation stages, and the disease list remain represented. The source author's historical and cosmological assertions remain attributed to the source and have not been silently replaced by a different doctrinal account. English source files and citation links were not altered.

## Independent comparison notes: the Buddha biography

Three separate comparison passes on 30 October 2026 covered all **421 source units** of the Buddha biography, comparing both target languages with the retained English. Forty-eight units received focused corrections. These are editorial draft reviews, not human specialist validation.

The review preserved the long Asita and Māra poems, all repeated meditation formulas, chronology, source ellipses, and the original Buddhist Era dates. Corrections clarify the teachers’ attainment formulas, nested negation in the neither-perception-nor-non-perception passage, the distinction between discipline and learning, and the repeated refrain about pain not occupying the mind. Nepali generosity expressions and Hindi subject agreement were improved. The source’s “vetch” was retained as a named pulse rather than assigned an unsupported botanical identity. Renunciation consistently uses नैष्क्रम्य where the technical term is intended. No missing passage was found in the comparison.

Together with the other comparison passes above, this covers all **1,798 units in all 36 lessons**. Completeness and this second model-assisted reading do not guarantee correctness; the owner and language/Buddhist-studies specialists should review these editions before they are marked validated. Translation files retain `status: ai-draft` and `reviewedBy: null`.

## Independent comparison notes: Buddha lesson, units 0201–0320

A second comparison pass on 30 October 2026 read all **120 units (4,732 English words)** in this portion of the Buddha lesson and both target translations. The range includes practical teaching, lay life, generosity and virtue, audiences across social groups, Sunīta's verse, other ascetics, Rāhula, Gotamī, and the opening of Nanda's account. This remains editorial checking of drafts, not expert validation.

- Renunciation is consistently **नैष्क्रम्य**, replacing निष्क्रमण, which can mean merely going out. The Ud 8.1 list makes the outer negation of the “neither perception nor non-perception” realm unambiguous; the passage does not affirm a self or a metaphysical place.
- The generosity formula now describes freely giving and enjoying magnanimity naturally in Nepali. It no longer suggests that “being magnanimous” means constructing a large mind. The full repeated lists and the distinction between present-life and future-life benefits remain intact.
- The instruction to Rāhula distinguishes the beauty-related sign that feeds passion from contemplation of the body's unattractive aspect (अशुभ). This avoids reading “foul” as an instruction to cultivate morally unwholesome states.
- Gotamī's Hindi narration uses feminine agreement. In Nanda's account, “approximately” modifies the number five hundred, and the “envy of the countryside” describes the young woman's beauty. Nepali wording of the Buddha's guarantee uses प्रत्याभूति rather than making the Buddha himself collateral.
- Source-specific imagery, including the fruit-tree-eater with its supplied commentary and the “dove-footed” nymphs, remains represented rather than being silently replaced by another edition. Verse form, the original claims and comparisons, repeated instructions, and source ellipses have been retained.