Note 2 — PART II

Saranam. Wijesinha Mudaliar writes me: "This word has been hitherto very inappropriately and erroneously rendered Refuge, by European Pālī scholars, and thoughtlessly so accepted by native Pālī scholars. Neither Pālī etymology nor Buddhistic philosophy justifies the translation. Refuge, in the sense of a fleeing back or a place of shelter, is quite foreign to true Buddhism, which insists on every man working out his own emancipation. The root Sr in Samskrt (sara in Pālī) means to move, to go; so that Suranim would denote a moving, or he or that which goes before or with another—a Guide or Helper. I construe the passage thus: Gachchāmi, I go, Buddham, to Buddha Saranam, as my Guide. The translation of the Tisarana as the "Three Refuges," has given rise to much misapprehension, and has been made by anti-Buddhists a fertile pretext for taunting Buddhists with the absurdity of taking refuge in non-entities and believing in unrealities. The term refuge is more applicable to Nirvāna, of which Saranam is a synonym. The High Priest Sumangala also calls my attention to the fact that the Pālī root Sara has the secondary meaning of killing, or that which destroys. Buddham saranam gachchhāmi might thus be rendered "I go to Buddha, the Law, and the Order, as the destroyers of my fears—the first by his preaching, the second by its axiomatic truth, the third by their various examples and precepts."