Fixing the Sutta Titles
Sutta titles need to all be contained on a single line. This will require some work to get the file ready.
First, we need to delete the chapter and section titles. We are not using them. You may be able to remove them through search and replace. But BE CAREFUL! Many times the section title is the same as a sutta title and we don’t want to delete those.
Then we need to combine the Pali line and the English line.
Each title needs to start with the letter code for the citation. In the example below, it is SN. For the SN and AN, next will come the chapter number. In this example it is 55. Then we remove the period after the citation, add a colon after the Pali name, remove the number on the English line and then combine the lines together. Presto!
Then this is what we end up with:
Then finally, we need to mark this line as Heading 1 in the word processing software. This may work differently in different software.
So it is like this:
- Letter abbreviation
- Space
- Chapter number (for SN & AN)
- Period (for SN & AN)
- Sutta number
- Space
- Pali title
- Colon
- Space
- English title
- AND mark as heading 1
Fixing Quotation Marks
The SuttaCentral translations use non-standard quotation mark styles, so we need to fix this. The rule that they are breaking is:
If the same speaker continues from paragraph 1 to paragraph 2, do not put a close quote at the end of paragraph 1.
Here is an example where the speaker is different for each paragraph:
Here is an example where the same speaker continues through three paragraphs:
This is extremely common in the suttas, because an entire sutta could involve only the Supreme Buddha speaking.
Here is a page from the Middle Length Discourses where you can see paragraphs starting with an open-quote mark, but none of the paragraphs end with one. That’s because it’s all the Buddha talking.
If you have any doubts, please ask.
Nested quotation marks
As you are fixing the quotation marks according to the above rule, you will notice that sometimes the Buddha is actually quoting someone when a new paragraph starts. You will know this because the paragraph starts with a single open quotation mark. When there is a quotation within a quotation, the quotation inside uses single quote marks:
This can get complicated, because there are times when there is a quotation within a quotation within a quotation. In that case they just alternate between double and single
“… ‘… “… ‘…’ …” …’ …”
Tricky!! When in doubt, ask. As a general rule, there will never be a situation where a paragraph starts with a single open quote. In that situation there will always have been someone reporting this speech, therefore there needs to be a double quote in front of it.
NOTE: Do not put a space between double and single quotation marks. It’s true that it will just look like three single marks. Don’t worry.