Linguistic Gap Analysis — Mark 1–16

0. Method and Scope

This analysis works chapter-by-chapter concern outward to doctrine-by-doctrine synthesis, but is organized here by the four PRD-required deliverables:

1. Doctrine vocabulary matrix — for each of the eight curriculum doctrines: available Bodo terms, their weaknesses, and the recommended strategy.
2. Missing vocabulary vs. crowded semantic neighborhoods — where Bodo simply lacks a term (a conceptual gap to be taught) versus where a term exists but is already “occupied” by Bathouism, Kherai-puja practice, or Brahma Dharma reform usage (a fencing problem).
3. Transliteration vs. paraphrase decisions — a decision log with reasoning for every term where this choice was live.
4. Ranked list of highest-risk ambiguities — the terms most likely to produce doctrinal drift if Phase 2 translators are not tightly constrained, ranked and justified.

Every recommendation below is consistent with, and where applicable directly reuses, translation_memory.json and is compatible with the term entries already logged in the Mark extension of bible_term_registry.json and analysis/08_core_glossary.md.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

1.1 Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
ईश्वरनि गोरा (Son of God) [Romans TM — FIXED]	None in isolation; risk is external — collision with “Son of Man” (below) if translators are not disciplined about keeping the two titles visibly distinct across all 16 chapters.	Reuse exactly. Enforce a hard rule: ईश्वरनि गोरा is never substituted for मानसि गोरा and vice versa, even in paraphrase or summary text. Track both titles’ occurrences in a shared concordance during Phase 2 QA.
मानसि गोरा (Son of Man) — NEW / provisional	Bodo has no existing idiom carrying Daniel 7’s “one like a son of man” who receives everlasting dominion; a literal-sounding compound risks being heard as merely “a human being,” flattening the authority-and-glory sense Jesus intends when he uses this as his own preferred self-title, especially in suffering contexts (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-45).	Retain मानसि गोरा as a fixed formal title (capitalized functionally, i.e., always used as a set phrase, never inflected into ordinary “a son of a man” syntax). Require an accompanying teaching note at its first occurrence (2:10) establishing the Daniel 7 background, and repeat a short gloss at 8:31, 10:45, and 14:62 where the suffering-and-glory tension is sharpest.
सेवक (servant) — used for the Suffering-Servant background (Isaiah 53)	सेवक alone does not carry the Isaiah 53 “Suffering Servant” prophetic-office sense; it reads as a generic household-service word.	Do not attempt a single-word “Suffering Servant” title. Teach the doctrine compositely: सेवक (servant, ordinary word) + explicit reference to Isaiah 53 background + ransom/lytron vocabulary (§1.8) at 10:45, which is Mark’s own citation point. No new compound term should be manufactured for “Suffering Servant” as a stand-alone label; the concept is taught through the convergence of existing terms in one passage, not through a new noun.

1.2 The Kingdom of God Breaking In

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
ईश्वरनि राज्य (kingdom of God) [Romans TM — FIXED]	Contemporary Bodoland Territorial Region politics make राज्य (“kingdom/state/territory”) a live term for ethnic-political self-determination; hearers may default to a territorial-political frame.	Reuse exactly. Every occurrence in Mark (1:15; 4:11,26,30; 9:1,47; 10:14-15,23-25; 12:34; 14:25; 15:43) should be taught with explicit contrast to territorial/political kingdoms, reinforced sharply at 15:26 (“King of the Jews”) where the risk peaks.
”At hand” / “has come near” (ἤγγικεν, 1:15) — no existing fixed Bodo rendering	This is a temporal-theological claim (already-but-not-yet inbreaking) with no ready native category; Bathou religious time is cyclical/ritual-calendar-based (Kherai puja’s seasonal rhythm), not linear-eschatological.	Use a plain proximity verb (e.g., “गोदान जायो,” “has drawn near”) rather than inventing a technical compound; carry the doctrinal weight in teaching notes rather than in the lexical choice itself. Flag for native speaker confirmation of natural idiom.
जिहूदी नि राजा (King of the Jews, mocking title, 15:26) — NEW	Deliberate Markan irony (mockery title = truest confession) is a literary device that may be lost if translated too smoothly; if it reads as simply respectful, the irony collapses.	Preserve the title’s surface mocking register (an inscription meant as an insult) while the surrounding narrative framing (already established by 15:2,9,12,18) carries the dramatic irony. Do not soften the taunting tone of the placard itself.

1.3 Faith and Discipleship amid Fear

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
बिश्वास (faith) [Romans TM — FIXED]	Generic religious devotion/trust readable as transferable to Bathoubwrai or the Kherai pantheon unless the object is named.	Reuse exactly; enforce the Romans-package rule that the object of faith (Jesus, God) must be grammatically explicit in every occurrence, especially in the storm-and-fear narratives (4:40) and Bartimaeus (10:52), where “faith” and “fear” sit side by side.
बिश्वास गैया (unbelief) — NEW, negation of बिश्वास	Risk of over-resolving Mark’s carefully unresolved tension: the father’s cry “I believe; help my unbelief” (9:24) holds faith and doubt together without contradiction; an over-clean negation compound could make this sound like flat contradiction/hypocrisy rather than an honest struggling plea.	Render the two clauses as parallel, both true at once, without a connective that implies logical contradiction (avoid “but” constructions that suggest “I believe, BUT I don’t”); prefer additive/co-occurring phrasing. Flag 9:24 specifically for native speaker review of naturalness.
Fear (φόβος/φοβέομαι — no fixed Bodo term yet established)	Fear appears repeatedly as a narrative response to divine action (4:41; 5:15,33,36; 6:50; 9:6,32; 10:32; 16:8) rather than as a single doctrine-word; Bodo has ordinary words for fear/dread, but none is yet fixed for this recurring Markan motif of “awe-fear before divine power.”	Do not create a new technical term. Use the ordinary Bodo word for fear/dread/awe in each context, but add a running translator’s note flagging the pattern across chapters so lesson material can teach “fear amid faith” as a deliberate motif rather than isolated incidents. This is a structural/pedagogical gap, not a lexical one.

1.4 The Necessity of the Cross

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
जाबाय लागोन (divine necessity, δεῖ) — NEW / provisional	Highest collision risk with भागी (impersonal fate) — the same risk the Romans baseline already names for election and providence. Bodo hearers steeped in either Bathou fatalistic idiom or Brahma Dharma’s karma-adjacent ethic may hear “must” as blind destiny rather than a sovereign, personal, redemptive plan.	Never allow जाबाय लागोन to stand alone in a passage announcing the passion (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:21) without an accompanying clause naming God’s redemptive purpose; pair explicitly with ईश्वरनि सामलानाय [Romans TM: providence] in teaching notes at each occurrence.
क्रुस (cross) — NEW, transliteration	No native cultural referent; risk of being heard as a generic hardship-symbol or, worse, a decorative/devotional object (as क्रुस/cross pendants are now visible in some regional Christian communities) rather than a specific, shameful Roman execution device.	Transliterate (क्रुस), but require an explicit historical-object teaching note at first occurrence (8:34) before its metaphorical “take up your cross” discipleship sense is introduced. Do not let the metaphor precede the historical referent in lesson sequencing.
क्रुसाव बांनाय (crucify) — NEW, builds on क्रुस	Risk of softening into vague “suffering” or “dying” language, losing the specific historical brutality and its climactic role as the enactment of both 8:31’s जाबाय लागोन and 10:45’s ransom saying.	Always render with the compound (literally “bound/nailed to the cross”), never a general death-verb, at every occurrence in ch. 15.
कटोरा (cup of suffering) — NEW / provisional	The literal vessel-word is safe; the metaphorical “cup of wrath/suffering” (10:38-39; 14:36) is not native Bodo idiom and could default to a purely literal reading (a drinking vessel) with no theological weight at all.	Explicit teaching gloss required at both occurrences; do not assume transfer of metaphor. Consider a brief appositional phrase (“the cup of suffering he must drink”) rather than the bare noun alone in study-note text (not Scripture text itself).
पर्दा (temple curtain) — NEW, plain loanword	No native architectural or ritual equivalent; risk that the tearing (15:38) reads as a minor incidental detail rather than a theologically loaded sign of direct access to God replacing the old sacrificial-separation system.	Requires an explicit teaching note tying 15:38 back to the temple’s role (ch. 11, 14) and forward to open access in Christ; do not rely on the image alone to carry doctrinal weight.

1.5 Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
गोबां (great/greatness) — NEW / provisional	If used in isolation, गोबां is simply the ordinary word for “big/important/great” and will not, on its own, signal Jesus’ deliberate status-reversal; readers may hear “great” as straightforwardly positive/aspirational, missing the paradox.	Never let गोबां occur in a Servanthood-doctrine passage (9:33-37; 10:35-45) without सेवक or गुलाम appearing in the same sentence or immediately adjacent clause; the redefinition must be visible at the sentence level, not left to accumulate across a paragraph.
सेवक (servant) — NEW / provisional	Named collision risk: Bathou/Kherai religious life has its own recognized specialist-attendant roles (doudini, ojha) who “serve” the pantheon in a mediating, ritual-office capacity; सेवक could be misheard as describing a similar specialist class rather than the universal posture Jesus demands of every disciple.	Explicit teaching note at first occurrence (9:35) clarifying: this is not a specialist office parallel to doudini/ojha, but the required posture of anyone who wants to be great in Christ’s kingdom — universal, not mediatorial.
गुलाम (slave, δοῦλος) — CRITICAL, NEW / provisional	Two-directional risk: (a) दास, the obvious Hindi/Sanskritic alternative, is saturated with Hindu devotional and Brahma-Dharma-reform usage denoting a devotee’s pious, merit-oriented submission to a deity or guru (e.g., “Ram-das”), which would recast Jesus’ shocking reversal as ordinary religious devotion; (b) softening गुलाम into “helper” or “assistant” erases the deliberate shock Mark intends — that the path to greatness runs through the lowest, least autonomous status available in the social imagination.	Use गुलाम, explicitly rejecting दास (see §3 transliteration/paraphrase log). Require a theologian-authored teaching note at 10:44 clarifying this is a metaphor for total, voluntary, Christ-modeled self-giving — not an endorsement of literal chattel slavery, nor a call to devotional submission within a spiritual hierarchy. This is the single highest-priority confirmation needed before Phase 2 lock-in.

1.6 The Messianic Secret

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
मानसि गोरा (Son of Man) — see §1.1	Central vehicle of the Messianic Secret; if the title drifts toward either “just a human” or merges with “Son of God,” the entire narrative structure of veiled-then-revealed identity collapses.	See §1.1 strategy; cross-reference every occurrence against ईश्वरनि गोरा for consistency.
रहस्य (mystery, μυστήριον) — NEW / provisional, HIGH risk	Direct semantic-neighborhood collision: in Hindu- and Brahma-Dharma-influenced usage, रहस्य commonly denotes esoteric knowledge attained through initiation, ascetic discipline, or guru-mediated gnosis — the opposite of Mark’s point that the kingdom’s secret is sovereignly given to ordinary disciples (4:11), not earned through spiritual technique or reform effort.	Every occurrence must carry (in teaching notes, not Scripture text) an explicit contrast: this “mystery” is disclosed, not attained. Consider pairing with the existing [Romans TM: election] reasoning (ईश्वरनि सायख — God’s sovereign, personal choice) as a doctrinal anchor, since both concepts share the “sovereignly given, not earned” logic.
निदर्शन कथा (parable) — NEW / provisional	Bodo’s general oral folktale/moral-fable tradition typically aims at universal moral clarity for all hearers; Jesus’ parables in Mark deliberately veil meaning from outsiders as well as reveal it to insiders (4:11-12) — a two-directional function the folktale genre does not share.	Teaching note required at 4:1-34 explaining that parables in this Gospel are not generic edifying fables; they simultaneously conceal and disclose depending on the hearer’s posture.
”Tell no one” (silencing commands, e.g., 1:44; 5:43; 7:36; 8:30; 9:9)	No single term is at risk here — the risk is narrative-structural: without an explanatory framework, these repeated commands can read as isolated, puzzling episodes rather than one coherent Messianic Secret motif building to the cross and the centurion’s confession (15:39).	Not a lexical gap. Recommend a structural teaching note repeated at each occurrence (or a running cross-reference list) so lesson-writers connect the pattern explicitly to the doctrine “Messianic Secret,” rather than leaving each instance to stand alone.

1.7 Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
अधिकार (authority, ἐξουσία) — NEW / provisional	Crowded semantic neighborhood: risk of conflation with ईश्वरनि सक्ति (raw divine power, [Romans TM]-adjacent) and, more dangerously, with the ritual/mediumistic empowerment attributed to a doudini during Kherai trance, which is temporary and possession-derived.	Fence explicitly: अधिकार = Jesus’ inherent, continuous, self-possessed right to command (over sickness, demons, sin, nature); contrast every occurrence against doudini-trance empowerment in teaching notes, especially at 1:22,27; 2:10; 11:28-33.
गुनाह आत्था (unclean spirit/demon) — CRITICAL, NEW / provisional	Central fencing problem of the whole book: देउ (the ordinary Bathou/Kherai term for nature-and-ancestral spirits) is ritually placated and negotiated with; Mark’s demons are hostile beings expelled by direct command, never negotiated with. Bare आत्था alone would additionally risk collision with the Holy Spirit vocabulary.	Always use the full compound गुनाह आत्था, never bare आत्था or देउ. Require a teaching note at first occurrence (1:23) establishing that Mark’s exorcism accounts are always unilateral commands, never negotiated rituals — directly opposite in structure to Kherai practice.
गजाब होनाय (rebuke, ἐπιτιμάω)	Could be misheard as one more form of ritual command/invocation technique (parallel to formulas used to influence the deu/spirit world) rather than an expression of Jesus’ own inherent authority.	Teaching note pairing गजाब होनाय consistently with अधिकार so the two reinforce rather than dilute each other; especially important at the nature-miracles (4:39) and exorcisms.
गुनाह माफनाय (forgive sins) — NEW / provisional	Risk of being heard as ordinary household/community reconciliation (a lower-stakes, horizontal category in Bodo social life) rather than the exclusively divine prerogative the scribes themselves recognize Jesus is claiming (2:7).	Teach 2:1-12 as a unit: the forgiveness-claim and the healing-of-paralysis are one linked authority-claim, reinforced by मानसि गोरा. Do not let “forgive sins” be taught as a stand-alone ethical topic apart from this Christological claim.
गादा रोग (leprosy)	Descriptive, low collision risk on its own, but the healing narrative’s accompanying silencing command (1:44) is a Messianic Secret instance that could be lost if taught purely as a healing-miracle story.	Cross-reference with §1.6’s Messianic Secret motif; note the tension between the command to silence and the man’s spreading the news anyway.

1.8 The Ransom for Many (core passage anchor: Mark 10:35-45)

Available Bodo term(s)	Weakness	Recommended strategy
फोरायनायनि मुल्य (ransom, λύτρον) — CRITICAL, NEW / provisional	The single highest-stakes term in the curriculum. Two opposite-direction collisions: (1) traditional Bathou/Kherai offering-logic runs worshipper-pays-deity; Mark 10:45 inverts this completely (God’s own Son pays for captive humanity) — if the Bodo compound is heard through the offering-logic frame, the direction of the transaction is reversed in the hearer’s mind; (2) Brahma Dharma’s karma/merit-debt ethic could reduce “ransom” to settling an impersonal ledger rather than a personal, substitutionary act by a specific divine Person for specific people.	This term requires human theologian confirmation before Phase 2 lock-in (already flagged in the Step 1 glossary; reaffirmed here as the top-ranked ambiguity — see §4). Every occurrence (10:45; conceptually underlying 14:24) must carry an explicit teaching note naming and rejecting both misreadings by name.
गोबां नि थाखाय (for many / ἀντὶ πολλ�ών) — CRITICAL, NEW / provisional	ἀντί’s strong substitutionary force (“in place of”) risks flattening into a vague “for the benefit of/on behalf of many” if Bodo’s available prepositional resources default to a general-benefit sense rather than a strict positional-substitution sense.	Pair explicitly, in teaching notes, with दानै लाबोनाय धार्मिकता [Romans TM: imputed_righteousness] — both concepts share the logic of a status/benefit received by one party because of an act performed in that party’s place by another. Flag for native speaker confirmation that the chosen preposition construction actually carries substitution, not mere benefit, in ordinary Bodo usage.
गोसाथारिनि गैसो (blood of the covenant, 14:24) — CRITICAL, NEW / provisional	Directly underlies the Ransom doctrine at the Last Supper. Named collision: both Bathou worship and Kherai puja include animal-blood offerings to Bathoubwrai/the pantheon to secure protection or favor — a live, currently-practiced reciprocal ritual economy.	Must be taught as the terminus of that entire sacrificial economy, not one more instance within it: Christ’s blood is unique, final, and self-offered. Requires the same theologian-review priority as फोरायनायनि मुल्य; teach 10:45 and 14:24 as one doctrinal unit in lesson sequencing, since the core passage (10:35-45) is completed narratively by the Last Supper scene.
सेवक / गुलाम (servant/slave) — see §1.5	The Ransom doctrine’s rhetorical foundation (10:43-45: “whoever would be great must be servant… slave of all… for the Son of Man came… to give his life as a ransom”) depends on सेवक and गुलाम being firmly fenced per §1.5 before गोबां नि थाखाय and फोरायनायनि मुल्य can be taught coherently in the same breath.	Sequence Phase 2 lesson-writing so 10:42-45 is treated as one indivisible unit; no partial rendering of only the ransom clause without the preceding servant/slave clauses in the same lesson segment.
निस्तार पर्ब (Passover) — NEW / provisional	Requires Exodus-deliverance background (which Bodo learners, per the baseline’s low-OT-literacy assumption, are unlikely to have) for the Last Supper’s ransom-adjacent imagery (14:12-25) to land with its intended typological force.	Explicit Exodus background note required before ch.14’s Passover meal narrative; connect निस्तार (deliverance) to फोरायनाय [Romans TM: salvation] root so learners see the terminological family resemblance.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

This curriculum’s risk surface divides cleanly into two distinct kinds of problem, following the same methodological distinction the Romans baseline drew for its own provisional compounds. Naming which kind of problem each term is determines the correct Phase 2 mitigation (a teaching note for gaps; an explicit fence for crowded neighborhoods).

2.1 Genuine Conceptual Gaps (nothing to fence against — the concept must be built from nothing)

These are cases where Bodo/Bathou/Brahma-Dharma tradition has no existing category at all, so the risk is under-teaching, not mis-teaching via collision:

• Son of Man as a Danielic authority-and-glory title (§1.1) — no native “exalted human figure with divine dominion” category exists; must be built from Daniel 7 background, not assumed.
• Divine necessity (जाबाय लागोन) as sovereign redemptive plan, not fate (§1.4) — closest available register (भागी) is precisely the WRONG neighbor (see §2.2); the “right” concept (personal, purposive, redemptive necessity) has no ready native equivalent at all and must be taught from Romans-package providence vocabulary outward.
• The Cross (क्रुस) as a specific historical execution instrument (§1.4) — no native referent; pure gap.
• Ransom as a God-pays-for-humanity transaction (§1.8) — the direction of payment in Mark 10:45 is the inverse of any known Bodo religious transaction; this is not a crowded neighborhood problem but an absent one, requiring the concept to be built explicitly in the opposite direction from intuition.
• Adoption/legal-inheritance-status categories (carried over from Romans baseline, relevant again at Mark 10:15’s “receive the kingdom like a child”) — Bodo clan (afad) inheritance runs through birth lineage; “receiving” a kingdom-status as a gift rather than achieving/inheriting it by lineage or merit is foreign and must be taught, not assumed.
• Linear historical fulfillment / “at hand” eschatological time (§1.2) — Bathou ritual time is cyclical/calendrical (seasonal Kherai rhythms); Mark’s “already-but-not-yet” inbreaking kingdom has no native temporal category to map onto.

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (an existing term already carries unwanted freight — fencing required)

These are cases where a plausible Bodo rendering already has a strong, live, competing association from Bathouism, Kherai puja, or Brahma Dharma, and the mitigation is an explicit fence (a named contrast, a forbidden-substitution rule) rather than a teaching-from-nothing note:

Bodo term / neighborhood	Occupying association	Required fence
देउ / bare आत्था (for unclean spirit or Holy Spirit)	Bathou/Kherai nature-and-ancestral spirits, ritually placated and negotiated with	Never use bare; always गुनाह आत्था (unclean spirit) or पबित्र आत्था (Holy Spirit) in full, per baseline forbidden-substitution rule extended to Mark
दास (candidate rejected for slave/doulos)	Hindu devotional / Brahma-Dharma-reform term for a devotee’s pious, merit-earning submission to a deity or guru	Use गुलाम instead; never दास
रहस्य (mystery)	Hindu/Brahma-Dharma esoteric-attainment-through-initiation sense	Explicit “given, not earned” contrast note at every occurrence
भागी (candidate rejected for divine necessity/providence)	Impersonal fate/fortune, familiar from folk belief and Brahma Dharma ethic	Already forbidden by Romans baseline for providence/election; extend the same forbidden-substitution rule explicitly to जाबाय लागोन (δεῖ) in Mark
सक्ति / देउनि सक्ति (candidate confusable with अधिकार, authority)	Doudini’s trance-derived ritual/mediumistic power during Kherai puja	Fence अधिकार as inherent/continuous/self-possessed vs. सक्ति-as-trance-power, which is temporary and possession-based
माया (love, ἀγάπη)	Sanskrit māyā, “illusion” — the dominant sense in Hindu/Brahma-Dharma-influenced thought	Supplement every occurrence with relational reinforcement so covenantal love is not heard as illusory sentiment
समाधि (candidate rejected for tomb)	Hindu/yogic meditative trance-state of absorption into the divine	Use कबर instead; never समाधि
नमासोलि (reserved term, candidate confusable with मन्दिर/temple or मण्डली/church)	Bathou/Kherai ritual worship-ground	Already fenced in Romans baseline for church; extend explicitly to temple (मन्दिर) in Mark — both must remain visibly distinct from नमासोलि
बर’ऐ/बुरहा (candidate rejected for Lord, and for “great one” language generally)	Honorific elder-titles for Bathoubwrai and the Kherai pantheon	Already forbidden by Romans baseline for Lord (प्रभु); extend awareness to Mark’s greatness/servanthood vocabulary (§1.5) so no elder-honorific creeps in when translating “great” in a positive register
गोनांथि/धन (wealth)	Mainao, the Kherai-pantheon goddess of wealth and rice, whose favor is ritually sought for prosperity	Teach 10:17-27 as a misplaced-ultimate-trust warning, not a general prosperity teaching; do not imply wealth is deity-favor-contingent
पुण्य (already forbidden in Romans baseline for grace)	Brahma Dharma merit-language	Extend forbidden status to any Mark passage discussing reward for discipleship (e.g., 10:29-30) — reward must not be reframed as accumulated merit

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decision Log

Term	Decision	Reasoning
Cross (σταυρός)	Transliterate (क्रुस)	No native referent exists to paraphrase toward without smuggling in a false cultural equivalent (e.g., a generic “burden” or “hardship” word, which would lose the specific historical execution-instrument sense entirely). Transliteration + explicit teaching note is safer than any descriptive paraphrase.
Crucify (σταυρόω)	Compound built on transliterated root (क्रुसाव बांनाय)	Paraphrase alone (“to kill/execute”) loses the specific historical method; pure transliteration alone would be unnatural as a verb in Bodo syntax. The hybrid preserves both specificity and grammatical naturalness.
Ransom (λύτρον)	Paraphrase / descriptive compound (फोरायनायनि मुल्य), not transliteration	Unlike “cross,” this term’s meaning (a price paid to free a captive) has partial native resonance (bride-price/debt-redemption ideas exist in Bodo social custom) that a transliteration would forfeit entirely. Paraphrase allows the fencing notes in §1.8 to do their work; a bare transliterated Greek/English loanword would carry no meaning at all to a first-time hearer and could not be fenced against misreading because it would communicate nothing to redirect.
Slave (δοῦλος)	Paraphrase using existing native word (गुलाम), explicitly rejecting the more “available” Sanskritic loan दास	Transliteration is not viable (no natural loanword tradition for this concept); the choice is between two native/loan paraphrase candidates, and गुलाम is selected specifically because दास’s devotional-submission connotation would defang the term’s shock value. This is a paraphrase-vs-paraphrase decision, not transliteration-vs-paraphrase, but is logged here because the two paraphrase candidates carry opposite risk profiles.
Baptism (βάπτισμα)	Transliterate (बाप्तिस्मा)	Following established regional Bible-translation convention (paralleling Hindi/Assamese Christian usage); a paraphrase risking conflation with Bathou/Kherai household water-cleansing rites (e.g., a descriptive “water-washing” compound) would be worse than transliteration, since transliteration signals “this is a specific, named Christian rite,” not a generic washing action.
Hosanna (ὡσαννά)	Transliterate (होसाना)	A liturgical acclamation with no semantic content to paraphrase; regional convention already transliterates.
Sabbath (σάββατον)	Transliterate + gloss (सबथ दिन, “Sabbath day”)	The institution itself (a fixed seventh-day rest commanded in Mosaic Law) has no Bathou/Brahma-Dharma equivalent; transliterating the proper-noun-like term and glossing with “day” avoids inventing a misleading native-sounding paraphrase (e.g., a “rest day” compound that could be confused with ordinary festival/market-rest days).
Passover (πάσχα)	Paraphrase, not transliteration (निस्तार पर्ब, “deliverance festival”)	Unlike Sabbath, Passover’s meaning (a deliverance-commemoration feast) is precisely what needs to be taught and connects directly to फोरायनाय [Romans TM: salvation]; a bare transliteration would forfeit that valuable terminological family-resemblance opportunity.
Tomb (μνημεῖον)	Paraphrase using plain native word (कबर), explicitly rejecting the Sanskritic loan समाधि	समाधि is available and would sound more “elevated,” but its yogic trance-state association makes it doctrinally dangerous; कबर is a plain, low-risk descriptive word for a burial place with no competing religious association.
Caesar / tax (Καῖσαρ / φόρος)	Transliterate + loan (काइसर / खिराज)	Proper noun (Caesar) and an administrative-tax loanword already circulating regionally; no native paraphrase is needed or would be clearer.
Mystery (μυστήριον)	Loanword already naturalized (रहस्य), retained despite collision risk	Unlike “ransom,” Bodo has no viable alternative paraphrase that would avoid the initiation/esoteric-attainment association entirely (any near-synonym for “hidden thing” in Bodo religious registers tends toward the same neighborhood). The decision is to retain रहस्य but mitigate through mandatory teaching notes rather than search for a non-existent clean alternative — logged here as a case where transliteration/paraphrase substitution was considered and rejected as unhelpful.
Son of Man (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου)	Descriptive compound, not transliteration (मानसि गोरा)	This is a title requiring active native comprehension (it functions grammatically throughout Mark’s narrative, not merely as a proper-noun label), so transliteration of the Greek/Aramaic idiom would be unusable. The compound is retained as a fixed, non-inflected set phrase to approximate title-like proper-noun stability within paraphrase.

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4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision specificity × likelihood of translator drift without intervention). All ten are drawn from terms newly introduced in Mark (not already fixed by the Romans package), consistent with the Step 1 glossary’s own “highest-priority” flag, but re-ranked here specifically against the eight named curriculum doctrines and the core passage (Mark 10:35-45).

1. Ransom (फोरायनायनि मुल्य, λύτρον) — Mark 10:45. The core passage’s own theological hinge. Two opposite-direction collisions (reciprocal Bathou/Kherai offering-logic reversed; Brahma Dharma karma-debt flattening) converge on a single word in the single verse this entire curriculum is anchored to. Any drift here corrupts the curriculum’s central passage, not a peripheral one.

2. Slave / δοῦλος (गुलाम) — Mark 10:44. Immediately adjacent to #1 in the same core passage; the दास collision would simultaneously soften the Servanthood-vs-Greatness doctrine’s shock value and re-inject a merit/devotion frame directly into the sentence that introduces the ransom saying.

3. Blood of the covenant (गोसाथारिनि गैसो) — Mark 14:24. Structurally completes the Ransom doctrine begun at 10:45; the live, currently-practiced Bathou/Kherai animal-blood-offering economy is the single most concrete, actively-performed ritual collision in the entire glossary (unlike most other risks, which involve doctrinal categories rather than an ongoing physical practice).

4. For many / ἀντὶ πολλῶν (गोबां नि थाखाय) — Mark 10:45. A grammatical-substitution risk rather than a lexical-collision risk, but ranked this high because if ἀντί’s substitutionary force flattens into vague benefit-language, the Ransom doctrine loses its precise logical structure even if “ransom” itself is translated correctly — the two errors compound each other in the same verse.

5. Son of Man (मानसि गोरा) — pervasive, esp. Mark 2:10; 8:31; 10:45; 14:62. Governs the entire Messianic Secret doctrine’s structural integrity across 14 occurrences; a single drifted occurrence anywhere in the book (toward “mere human” or toward merging with “Son of God”) has a cascading effect on every other occurrence’s coherence, because the title’s force depends on consistent, deliberate use across the whole narrative arc.

6. Unclean spirit / demon (गुनाह आत्था) — Mark 1:23-27 and five further chapters. Distinguishes Jesus’ authority-by-command from Bathou/Kherai’s negotiated, ritual spirit-relations; high occurrence count (six chapters) multiplies the exposure if the fence (never bare देउ/आत्था) is not enforced with total consistency by every Phase 2 worker.

7. Divine necessity / δεῖ (जाबाय लागोन) — Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:21. The भागी (fate) collision risk is severe precisely because it is available and natural-sounding — a translator under time pressure could reach for a fate-adjacent construction without realizing the doctrinal cost, unlike “ransom,” where no natural-sounding wrong alternative is quite as tempting.

8. Mystery / μυστήριον (रहस्य) — Mark 4:11. No clean alternative exists (see §3), meaning this risk cannot be engineered away at the lexical level and must be carried entirely by teaching-note discipline; this makes it structurally more fragile than terms with a safer alternative available.

9. Transfiguration / μεταμορφόω (रूप सोलायनाय) — Mark 9:2-8. Direct structural parallel to the Romans baseline’s Incarnation risk; the doudini Kherai-trance appearance-change collision is specific and well-documented, but the term’s low occurrence count (one episode) keeps it below the pervasive risks above.

10. Authority / ἐξουσία (अधिकार) — Mark 1:22,27; 2:10; 11:28-33. Real but more diffuse collision risk (doudini trance-power) than #6’s demon vocabulary, because अधिकार also does substantial non-collision doctrinal work (teaching authority, delegated authority to the Twelve) where the Kherai-trance contrast is less immediately relevant; ranked lowest of the “Critical/High” cluster for this reason.

Not separately ranked but flagged as an ongoing structural risk across the whole book: the Son-of-God / Son-of-Man title pair (§1.1, §1.6) must be tracked as a pair, not as two independent terms; Phase 2 QA should include a dedicated cross-reference pass verifying the two titles never bleed into one another at any of their combined 19+ occurrences across Mark 1–16.

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5. Summary Table — Gap Type by Doctrine

Doctrine	Primary gap type	Primary crowded-neighborhood risk	Phase 2 priority
Suffering Servant and Son of God	Conceptual gap (Dan. 7 background)	Son of Man / Son of God title bleed	Theologian
Kingdom of God Breaking In	Conceptual gap (linear eschatological time)	राज्य territorial-political framing	Theologian / Native speaker
Faith and Discipleship amid Fear	Structural/pedagogical (fear motif)	बिश्वास object-of-faith ambiguity	Theologian
Necessity of the Cross	Conceptual gap (क्रुस; जाबाय लागोन)	भागी fate-collision	Theologian
Servanthood vs. Worldly Greatness	Partial gap (greatness redefinition)	दास devotional-submission collision	Theologian
Messianic Secret	Structural/pedagogical (silencing pattern)	रहस्य esoteric-attainment collision	Theologian
Authority over Sickness, Sin, Nature	Partial gap (authority as inherent)	देउ/सक्ति trance-power collision	Theologian
Ransom for Many	Conceptual gap (direction of payment)	Bathou/Kherai offering-logic reversal; करma-debt	Theologian (highest priority)

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This analysis must be read alongside analysis/08_core_glossary.md (term inventory), the Mark extension of assets/bible_term_registry.json (per-term registry entries), and the unmodified Romans-baseline assets/translation_memory.json (fixed-term authority). It feeds directly into Phase 1 Step 9 (doctrine risk registry extension for Mark) and must be loaded before any Phase 2 Step 16 segment translation involving the terms ranked in Section 4.