s.4nt.org — Suttas, Side by Side · Help

A reading guide for the parallel sutta viewer at s.4nt.org.

What you're looking at

Each sutta page displays the original Pāli alongside one or more English translations in side-by-side columns,
aligned segment by segment.
The columns scroll together, so the same passage is always at the same height across all translations.

The columns

Switching translations

Each column has a dropdown at the top showing the current translator's name.
Click it to swap that column for a different translation — for example,
switch the right column from Sujato to Thanissaro, or back to Pāli.

Reordering columns

Columns can be dragged left or right.
Grab the small grip icon (⠿) in a column header and drag it to the position you want.
The reading layout adjusts instantly.

Adding and removing columns

• Click the + button at the far right of the column bar to add a new column.
• Click the × on any column header to remove it.

A typical starting layout is Pāli + one English translation.
You can expand to three (or more) columns to compare multiple translators directly.

Navigation

Table of contents

The ☰ button (top left) opens and closes the table of contents sidebar.
It shows every section of the sutta — you can click any entry to jump there instantly.

Within the sidebar: - The − and + buttons at the top collapse or expand all sections at once. - Individual sections can be folded with the small triangle button beside each heading. - Resize the sidebar: drag the vertical divider on its right edge (just left of the ☰ button) to make the table of contents wider or narrower. The width is remembered across pages. - Scrolling the list: hover over the contents and use your mouse wheel, or drag the scrollbar on its right edge.

Quick-jump box

The search box in the top bar (labelled with a placeholder like mn10, dn16…) accepts:

• A sutta ID — mn10, dn22 — to jump to a different sutta entirely.
• A segment reference — mn10:2.5 — to jump directly to that verse within the current page.
• Press Enter to jump. Your jump history is saved and shown as a dropdown.

In-text navigation

Click any section heading in the main text to scroll it into view.
Each row also has a subtle highlight on hover so you can track which verse the translator notes refer to.

Footnotes

Many translations include translator notes.
They appear as small superscript markers (¹ ² …)
inline in the text.
Footnotes open in a panel in the lower part of the left sidebar,
sharing that space with the table of contents above it.
When no note is showing, the panel collapses to a thin "Footnotes ▾" strip at the bottom of the sidebar.

Opening a footnote

There are three ways:

• Click a marker in the text to open that specific note.
• Click the "Footnotes ▾" strip and choose which translator's footnotes to show from the small menu.
• In a column's translator dropdown, pick "see their N footnotes" (shown only when that translator has notes on the current sutta).

Working with the panel

• 🦘 jumps the main text to the verse the note belongs to (the segment reference is shown in the button's tooltip).
• ◀ ▶ step to the previous / next note (shown only in single-note mode).
• all switches to "show-all" mode — the default — listing every note for that translator as one scrollable commentary; the step arrows hide, since every note is already visible.
• 📋 copies the note text to the clipboard.
• ✕ closes the panel (it collapses back to the strip).

Resizing the footnote panel

Drag the horizontal divider between the table of contents and the footnotes up or down to give each as much room as you like —
the split is remembered.

On narrow screens (phones), footnotes instead slide up from the bottom of the screen as a sheet.

⚙ Display settings

Click the ⚙ Settings button (top right) to open the settings panel.

The sutta index

The index page lists all suttas in the collection with:

• The sutta number, title, and vagga (chapter group).
• Translation badges showing which translations are available for each sutta.
• A 🔒 icon on suttas that have been proofread and locked.

Click any row to open that sutta's parallel viewer.

Reading offline

Every sutta page is fully self-contained — all text and styling is embedded in the HTML file.
If you save a page to your computer (File → Save Page As… in your browser), it will open and work completely offline, with no internet connection required.

Translations available

Each translation is reproduced from its original source site, under that source's own licence.
Where a source publishes authoritative or updated terms, those govern — please consult the linked site.

Additional translations are added as alignments are completed.

Proofreading & verbatim validation

The segment-by-segment alignment to SuttaCentral's Pāli numbering is done by AI, and a verbatim check —
automated against the original digital source translation — confirms that no wording was added, dropped, or changed.
(The verbatim check ignores whitespace added for display,
and normalizes some punctuation characters such as quotation marks and apostrophes.)

Sujato_corrected

This is identical to the unaltered Bhikkhu Sujato SC edition, with the following terms restored to Pāḷi:

• samādhi → keep as samādhi (not "immersion")
• jhāna → keep as jhāna (not "absorption")
• nibbāna → keep as Nibbāna (not "extinguishment" or "quenched")

And these English translations changed to align with genuine EBT:

• mettā → friendliness (not "love")
• ariyasāvaka → noble one's disciple (not "noble disciple")
• pīti → mental joy (not "rapture") — in jhāna context, to contrast with physical sukha
• sukha → physical pleasure (not "bliss") — in jhāna context; sukha vedanā in general encompasses both physical and mental
• sampajāno → lucidly-discerning (not "aware" or "situational awareness") — this is an inflection of the paññā (discernment/wisdom) faculty, not mere awareness
• vitakka-vicāra → directed verbal thoughts and pondering them (not "placing the mind and keeping it connected")

This is by no means a comprehensive set of corrections —
just some of the most egregious violations of core EBT principles.

Sujato's footnotes are unaltered and contain views incompatible with EBT.
Some are useful;
readers are encouraged to exercise discernment and critical thinking.

Pāli Editions

The site offers Pāli itself in more than one form:

• SC — SuttaCentral's segmented Mahāsaṅgīti Tipiṭaka edition. This is the default Pāli column and the alignment spine every translation on the site is matched to, segment by segment. Per SuttaCentral's own publication record, the text is drawn from The Buddhist Era 2500 Great International Council Pāḷi Tipiṭaka (40-volume Roman-script edition, B.E. 2548 / 2005), prepared by the Mahāsaṅgīti Tipiṭaka Buddhavasse 2500 for the M.L. Maniratana Bunnag Dhamma Society Fund. It is based on the Vipassanā Research Institute's Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana CD-ROM edition (B.E. 2537–2542, tipitaka.org), fully proofread and recited four times between 2000–2002 and 2006–2007 to verify every Pāḷi sound and correct printing errors from the original 40-volume edition, with the 1958 Myanmar Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition as primary reference and 18 additional national-script editions consulted for cross-checking. SuttaCentral extracted this Pāli text from the Mahāsaṅgīti edition's source XML, making only minor editorial changes to numbering and punctuation — no changes to the text itself. (Source · SC edition page · publication scpub64.)

• Siam (Thai script) — the Royal Thai (Siam / Syāmaraṭṭha) recension of the Pāli canon, in its native Thai script, digitized from the printed 2015 Royal Thai Tipiṭaka edition by the D-Tipiṭaka project. It is a separate manuscript lineage from the Mahāsaṅgīti edition used elsewhere on the site, so occasional wording differences between the two columns reflect the editions themselves, not translation error.

• Siam (IAST) — the same Royal Thai text, transliterated word-for-word into IAST (roman-script Pāli) for readers who don't read Thai script.

Both Siam columns are matched to the SC Pāli segment-by-segment by an automatic, deterministic text-matching process —
not by AI and not by a human editor — so the displayed text is always taken verbatim from the source;
a handful of passages (mostly verse/gāthā sections,
where word order differs more between editions) may show a shorter or blank match at a given segment rather than an invented one.

AI Translations

Translations generated by an artificial intelligence model directly from the source language,
rather than adapted or ported from any existing English edition.

Bodhi-esque

A fresh English translation rendered directly from the Pāli in the style of Bhikkhu Bodhi —
his characteristic register and technical vocabulary (e.g. concentration for samādhi,
taints for āsava, with jhāna, Nibbāna, and Dhamma kept in Pāli).

• Generated, not aligned: produced segment-by-segment from SuttaCentral's segmented Pāli, not derived from any existing English edition.
• Copyright-clean: Bhikkhu Bodhi's own copyrighted translations are not used as input. Only a glossary of his preferred terms and a description of his style guide the output, so the result is an independent translation, not a reproduction.
• Model: generated with DeepSeek Flash (V4), June 2026.

As with any machine translation, it is a study aid, not an authoritative edition —
read it alongside the Pāli and the human translations.

DeepSeek — Line by Line

Generated with DeepSeek V4 Flash (June 2026),
translating from the source language into plain English one line at a time.
This guarantees full coverage:
every line of the source has a corresponding line of translation, with no gaps or skipped material.

DeepSeek — V4 Flash (Paragraph Chunking)

Also generated with DeepSeek V4 Flash (June 2026), but unlike the line-by-line version above,
larger chunks — typically full paragraphs — are given to the model at once.
The intention is that additional context produces a more natural, better-informed translation.
The tradeoff is weaker alignment:
the output doesn't map to the source line-for-line as precisely as the line-by-line version does.

Standard Disclaimers Apply

As with any AI-generated content, these translations should not be taken as authoritative on their own.
Always cross-check against reliable human translations and, where possible, the source language itself.

Why Allow AI Translations At All?

Given that AI translation carries a real risk of error, mistranslation, or subtle distortion,
it may seem odd for an EBT-focused site to include it rather than relying solely on established scholarly translations —
so it's worth explaining why AI-generated translations are included here.
Several reasons:

1. Full coverage — Many collections and individual suttas have no existing English translation at all, or their only existing translation is old, inconsistent, or poor enough that a modern AI model gets the core meaning across more accurately.
2. Speed relative to scholarship — Quality human translation is scarce and slow; a single translator may spend years on a single collection. AI translation offers an interim, clearly-labeled option while proper scholarly work catches up.
3. Independent cross-check — Even where a good human translation already exists, an independently generated AI version offers a second data point, useful for spotting translator bias, inconsistency, or error by comparison — not as a replacement.
4. Consistency across a large corpus — A single model applying consistent methodology and terminology across a huge collection can surface patterns that would be difficult for multiple human translators, working independently across different eras and styles, to maintain.
5. Transparency over omission — Clearly labeling material as AI-generated, along with the standard disclaimers, discloses the risk openly rather than hiding it — it's a labeled tool a reader can weigh accordingly, not a replacement presented as authoritative.

In short:
AI translations don't replace the human scholarly record — they fill its gaps,
sit alongside it as a cross-check, and are labeled honestly as what they are.

EBT/LBT Classification Legend

Explanation

This system marks four categories along two axes:
chronological origin (early vs. late) and compliance with core EBT (benign vs. malignant).

• EBT (Early Buddhist Teachings) — material understood to derive from the earliest layer of the tradition, closer to the historical source.
• LBT (Late Buddhist Teachings) — material developed in later periods, building on or diverging from the earlier layer.
• ✅ Benign — content that is doctrinally consistent with core EBT, whether it's genuinely early material or a later elaboration that stays faithful to it.
• ⛔ Malignant — content that departs from or contradicts core EBT, whether misattributed as early when it isn't, or developed later in ways that undermine the earlier teaching.

The Four Categories

• ✅ EBT — genuine early material, compliant with core EBT (compliance here is closer to definitional, since this is the core)
• ⛔ EBT — material falsely claiming early/authoritative status, and/or not actually compliant with core EBT despite the label
• ✅ LBT — later development that remains compliant with core EBT; a legitimate extension, honestly presented as later
• ⛔ LBT — later material that departs from or contradicts core EBT, regardless of how it's presented

This gives a quick visual shorthand for sorting sources or claims by how faithfully they track the earliest teachings,
without needing to write out the full judgment each time.

Note on Terminology

"Benign" and "malignant" here are not value judgments on any particular sect, tradition, or its practitioners.
The terms are framed strictly in relation to genuine core EBT compliance,
and describe the effect that compliance or non-compliance would have on the outcome of practice for someone who intends to follow genuine EBT.
A teaching is "benign" if following it supports that intended outcome,
and "malignant" if following it undermines or diverts from that outcome —
regardless of the sincerity, tradition, or good faith of those who hold it.
This framing reflects the charter and goal of the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society (EBMPS):
preserving and clarifying genuine EBT for practitioners seeking it.

Why Include Malignant Material at All?

Given that the explicit purpose of this site is to preserve and clarify genuine Early Buddhist Teachings,
it may seem counterintuitive — even contradictory —
to devote space to material that the classification system itself labels malignant,
so it's worth explaining directly why that material is included here rather than simply excluded.
Several reasons:

1. Partial genuine content — Many ⛔-classified sources still contain some percentage of authentic, useful EBT material embedded within them. Excluding the whole text would mean losing that genuine content along with the corrupted portions.

2. Tracing corruption — Studying malignant material lets us trace how, when, and where deviation from core EBT entered the tradition — valuable for understanding the historical process of doctrinal drift, not just its end products.

3. Discernment training — Seeing a malignant text alongside the genuine EBT it diverges from is often the fastest way to learn the difference. Discernment is built through contrast, not by reading only "correct" material in isolation.

4. Meeting practitioners where they are — Many people already treat certain ⛔-classified texts as authoritative, because that's what their tradition handed them. Engaging directly with those specific texts — rather than ignoring them — is the only way to actually reach practitioners working from them.

5. Credibility of the classification system — A system that only ever produces ✅ ratings would look like a rubber stamp. Publicly classifying and explaining malignant material demonstrates that the criteria are being applied consistently, not selectively deployed to flatter the tradition.

6. Harm reduction over blanket avoidance — Simply telling someone "don't read that text" rarely works once they've already encountered it elsewhere. Precisely flagging which parts are corrupted — rather than a blanket condemnation — lets someone already engaging with the material salvage what's genuine and discard what isn't.

7. Inoculation against future distortions — Studying known patterns of corruption gives practitioners a template for recognizing new or unclassified material that follows similar patterns, rather than requiring every text to be pre-vetted for them.

8. Scholarly completeness — If EBMPS is to function as a serious reference rather than a curated devotional reading list, it needs to represent the actual landscape of Buddhist literature — not a filtered subset. Omitting malignant material would leave the archive incomplete and less useful for genuine comparative study.

In short:
classifying malignant material isn't an endorsement of it —
it's part of how genuine EBT gets preserved, taught, and defended.

Canonical Precedent: Suttas That Contrast Wrong and Right

Several suttas already use a contrastive method — pairing wrong and right views,
factors, or practices — to illuminate what is correct.
This gives canonical precedent for the classification approach used here.

Directly paired wrong/right formulations

• MN 117 (Mahācattārīsaka Sutta) — explicitly pairs wrong view/wrong path factors against right view/right path factors, including the mundane-vs-transcendent right view distinction.
• SN 45.8 (Vibhaṅga Sutta) — analytical definitions of the eightfold path factors; often read alongside MN 117, which builds on this kind of analysis.
• AN 10.103 / AN 10.104 (Micchatta Sutta, "Wrongness") paired with AN 10.105 / AN 10.106 (Sammatta Sutta, "Rightness") — the ten wrong factors (wrong view through wrong liberation) set directly against the ten right factors.
• MN 9 (Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta) — Sāriputta's exposition of right view, built through repeated wrong-understanding/right-understanding contrasts across many topics (the unwholesome/wholesome, nutriment, dependent origination, and more).

Corruption / counterfeiting of the teaching itself

• SN 16.13 (Saddhammapaṭirūpaka Sutta) — the "counterfeit Dhamma" text; Kassapa asks the Buddha why the true Dhamma doesn't last, and the Buddha explains how a counterfeit version arises and displaces it. Likely the single most directly relevant sutta to this project's premise.
• AN 4.180 (Mahāpadesa Sutta), also found in DN 16 — the "Four Great References," criteria for testing whether something attributed to the Buddha should be accepted as genuine by checking it against the Sutta and Vinaya. This is essentially the canonical precedent for doing an EBT/LBT classification at all.
• MN 22 (Alagaddupama Sutta) — the snake-simile sutta on wrongly grasped vs. rightly grasped Dhamma; warns about misusing or misapplying the teaching even when the source material is genuine.

Wrong practice/view systems contrasted with the genuine path

• DN 2 (Sāmaññaphala Sutta) — surveys six contemporary teachers' wrong doctrines before presenting the Buddha's gradual training, using the contrast to illuminate what's distinct about right practice.
• DN 1 (Brahmajāla Sutta) — catalogs 62 wrong views as a way of mapping the terrain around right view.
• MN 76 (Sandaka Sutta) — contrasts four kinds of flawed holy life with the genuine one.
• MN 8 (Sallekha Sutta) — a long list of paired wholesome/unwholesome states used to define "effacement."

Tips for comparative study

• Two translations + Pāli is a productive default — three or more is more fun. The Pāli column lets you check the original word when two translators differ.
• Reorder columns with drag and drop so the translations you're comparing sit next to each other. Footnotes share the left sidebar, so put a translator's column toward the left, near its notes, when reading text and notes together.
• Segment numbers on (SC segment refs) makes it easy to note a verse number and find the same passage on suttacentral.net for commentaries or other translations.
• Footnote "all" mode works well for studying a short sutta in depth — you get the notes as a continuous commentary alongside the text.
• If you are comparing two English translations and want Pāli close at hand but less prominent, put Pāli in the middle and shrink it by making the browser window narrower — the outer columns stay readable while Pāli serves as an anchor reference.

About

s.4nt.org presents the discourses of the Pāli Canon — the earliest record of the Buddha's teaching —
with the original Pāli and one or more English translations side by side,
aligned segment by segment, so the same passage sits at the same height across every column.

The site is a project of the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society (EBMPS), at 4nt.org.

The pages are produced by a custom tool that re-aligns existing translations to SuttaCentral's segmented Pāli text one segment at a time —
"un-babbling" them back into a single, comparable structure.
Each page is fully self-contained:
saved to disk, it works offline with no server and no tracking.

See What you're looking at above for how to use the viewer.

Legal

The texts. Each translation is reproduced from its original source under that source's own licence —
see Translations available above for the source website and the specific terms of each.
Copyright in every translation remains with its respective author, translator, or publisher;
the texts are presented here for study and free distribution only, never for sale or commercial use.

The site. The site software and the original site material (layout, segment-alignment data,
and this guide) are produced by the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society and offered for non-commercial use.

Contact. For corrections, licensing questions, or to report an error,
write to the Early Buddhism Meditation Preservation Society via 4nt.org.

This is a good-faith summary, not legal advice. Where it conflicts with the licence a source publishes for its own text, that licence governs.