The preliminary homage in the translated printing, the single line said three times.
- When chanted
- Chanted three times at the opening of a service; this is the printing that carries a Thai translation.
A note on this chant. The book prints this chant in Pali only, with no Thai translation. The English here is a working translation prepared for this edition — it is not the book's own, and has not yet been checked by a teacher.
Historical background
The third printing of this line in the book and the first with a Thai rendering beside it. It is set out three times in full, as in every other printing.
For most readers of the translated half this is the first place they will see, in their own language, what the sentence they have said all their lives actually means.
Meaning and purpose
The line contains no request and no doctrine: homage, and then the Blessed One under three epithets — fortunate, worthy, perfectly enlightened by himself.
The Thai has to make a choice the Pali does not force, which is how to render ตัสสะ — that one. The grammar keeps the Buddha at a distance, spoken of rather than spoken to, and a translation that smoothed it into an address would lose the whole posture of the sentence.
Three times, as everywhere. What the translated printing adds is that somebody saying it for the third time now knows what they have said twice.
The chant
As the book prints it: page 195 →
(หันทะ มะยัง พุทธัสสะ ภะคะวะโต ปุพพะภาคะนะมะการัง กะโรมะ เส.)
(Handa mayaṃ buddhassa bhagavato pubbabhāganamakāraṃ karoma se.)
Now let us make the preliminary homage to the Buddha, the Blessed One.
นะโม ตัสสะ ภะคะวะโต,
Namo tassa bhagavato,
ขอนอบน้อมแด่พระผู้มีพระภาคเจ้า พระองค์นั้น,
kɔ̌ɔ nɔ̂ɔp-nɔ́ɔm dɛ̀ɛ prá-pûu-mii-prá-pâak-jâo prá-oŋ nán,
Homage to that Blessed One,
อะระหะโต,
Arahato,
ซึ่งเป็นผู้ไกลจากกิเลส,
sʉ̂ŋ bpen pûu glai jàak gì-lèet,
who is far from defilement,
สัมมาสัมพุทธัสสะ.
Sammāsambuddhassa.
ตรัสรู้ชอบได้โดยพระองค์เอง.
dtràt-rúu chɔ̂ɔp dâai dooy prá-oŋ-eeŋ.
who awakened rightly by himself.