Talk:Four Noble Truths

Could we change this to 'Four Truths of the Noble Ones'. I think by now it is clear to be more accurate.--Hankop (talk) 13:21, 8 November 2018 (CET) OK with me, but I'll let translators take the final decision. We can put 4 Noble Truths and 4 Realities of the Aryas in an Alternative Translations section towards the end of the article.--Sébastien (talk) 20:26, 9 November 2018 (CET)

Actually, I just noticed even 84.000 has not been able to resolve this. Dharmachakra, in The Sūtra of the Wheel of Dharma, says in the glossary:

Truth of noble beings: The four truths that the Buddha realized: suffering, origin, cessation, and path. They are named “truths of noble beings” since only “noble beings” with knowledge of reality can understand them.

They are probably following Chandrakirti (I have just added that citation).

However, Padmakara, in their recent translation of The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom in Ten Thousand Lines, has Four noble truths in the glossary, without any justification. --Hankop (talk) 11:18, 13 November 2018 (CET)

The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism says in the very first line

Although the term “four noble truths” is well established in English-language works on Buddhism, it is a misleading translation of the original Sanskrit and Pāli terms. The term translated as “noble” (ĀRYA) refers not to the truths themselves, but to those who understand them; thus, the compound may more accurately, if less euphoniously, be rendered as “four truths [known by the spiritually] noble”; they are four facts known to be true by those “noble ones” with insight into the nature of reality, but not known by ordinary beings (PṚTHAGJANA).--Hankop (talk) 11:27, 13 November 2018 (CET)

Alas this is yet another translation term that will stick with us and if we change it or experiment with it, many will just be confused. One option is always to list the Sanskrit (and Tibetan) terms if this re-interpretation is needed. Kent (talk) 19:25, 13 November 2018 (CET)