Executive Summary — Mark 1–16 Dogri Language Package (Phase 1)

Why it matters

Mark is the first non-Romans curriculum built on the Dogri Language Package, and it introduces the single highest-stakes local collision risk documented anywhere in this project to date: the Baba Jitto folk-martyr tradition sits directly beside the core passage’s ransom saying (Mark 10:45), meaning a single careless illustration or footnote could collapse substitutionary atonement into admired local protest-martyrdom. Mark also carries the heaviest concentration of Critical-risk Christological material of any curriculum book so far — the Son of Man title, the Transfiguration, the Messianic Secret, and the trial/crucifixion narrative all converge in chapters 8–15 — precisely where Dogri’s proximity to Hindi/Punjabi and the Duggar region’s living Hindu devotional culture (Raghunath Mandir avatar-theology, Vaishno Devi’s mannat economy, Bahu Fort’s shakti tradition, ojha/bhagat exorcism practice) create the most numerous and most consequential mistranslation opportunities.

Key findings

• Full-book coverage complete. All 16 chapters of Mark were reviewed chapter by chapter (Steps 1–8); no chapter was silently skipped — passages contributing no new doctrine were explicitly marked “reviewed, no new doctrine” rather than omitted.
• 91 governed terms now sit in the Mark translation_memory.json: 20 inherited unchanged from the Romans baseline, 71 newly proposed for Mark-specific vocabulary (including 11 previously undocumented gap terms — synagogue, prayer, fasting, Corban, Rabbi, Beelzebul, Legion, Passover, high priest/priest, scribes, treasury offering — surfaced only through the linguistic gap analysis).
• Term-level risk: 19 Critical-risk terms and 43 High-risk terms (62 combined) require mandatory human theologian review at every occurrence. A further 23 Medium-risk terms require native speaker review, and 6 Low-risk terms are automated-review only.
• Doctrine-level risk: of the 30 doctrines tracked in doctrine_risk_registry.json, 10 are Critical and 16 are High — 26 of 30 doctrines require human theologian review; only 3 require native speaker review and 2 are automated-only.
• The core passage (Mark 10:35-45) is the single densest risk cluster in the curriculum, converging five of the eight assigned doctrines (Suffering Servant/Son of Man, Necessity of the Cross, Servanthood vs. Greatness, Messianic Secret’s structural climax, Ransom for Many) in eleven verses, and containing four terms flagged for mandatory (not merely triggered) translator notes: ransom, in-place-of, lord-it-over, and cup-of-suffering.

Risks

1. Baba Jitto collision (highest priority). The regionally beloved Aghar Jitto shrine tradition of protest self-sacrifice against an exploitative landlord is structurally similar enough to Christ’s voluntary death that translators or teachers could reach for it as a “bridge illustration.” This would destroy the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. Governed by mandatory translator notes at every occurrence of ransom, cross, and crucify.
2. Avatar-theology collision, intensified. Beyond the baseline’s existing Incarnation/Son of God caution, Mark’s Transfiguration (9:2-8) sits unusually close to Raghunath Mandir’s Rama-avatar devotional pattern and requires the same forbidden-term discipline (never अवतार-adjacent framing) newly extended to this narrative.
3. Healing/salvation collapse (σῴζω). Mark’s dense healing-narrative structure creates repeated, high-frequency opportunities to default to उद्धार (salvation) instead of चंगा करना (physical healing) — a distinct risk profile from Romans, where this ambiguity did not arise.
4. Servanthood softening under izzat pressure. Dogra Rajput honor/lineage culture creates real social pressure to soften दास (slave-status) and the greatest-as-least reversal into generic humility language; the core passage’s rhetorical force depends on this NOT happening.
5. Root-collision on “lord it over.” κατακυριεύω shares a root with κύριος/प्रभु; a single inattentive rendering using any प्रभु-derived form for the domineering-rulers sense would directly contradict the baseline’s Critical-tier reservation of प्रभु for Christ alone.
6. Rabbi/guru and priest/pujari fields. Two newly surfaced gap terms (Rabbi, high priest) sit adjacent to Duggar culture’s most prestigious living religious-office vocabulary (guru-veneration; Raghunath Mandir and Bahu Fort pujaris); mistranslation here is a “path of least resistance” risk, not a remote one.

Opportunities

1. Reuse, don’t reinvent. 20 of 91 terms transfer unchanged from the Romans baseline, giving Phase 2 a running start on roughly a fifth of Mark’s governed vocabulary with zero new doctrinal-risk analysis required.
2. Precedent-based methodology scales cleanly. The descriptive-compound strategy that solved grace, justification, and imputed righteousness in Romans (छुटकारे दी कीमत, दी जगह, दुख झलणा जरूरी ऐ) has now been successfully extended to Mark’s hardest new terms, validating the methodology across books.
3. The Messianic Secret and Son of Man title give this curriculum a distinctly Markan theological signature not present in Romans, an opportunity to deepen Christological teaching precision (dividing but relating Son of God and Son of Man) in ways the Romans-only package could not.
4. Newly surfaced gap terms close real vocabulary holes (Corban’s direct engagement with vow-transaction logic; Passover’s Exodus grounding) that, once documented, strengthen the whole Language Package’s defense against the Vaishno Devi mannat-economy collision — a benefit that will also retroactively sharpen Romans-based teaching materials.

Recommended actions

1. Load both the Romans and Mark translation_memory.json files for every Phase 2 segment; treat any deviation from either as an automatic flag (per 12_ai_translation_requirements.md).
2. Route all 26 Critical/High doctrines and all 62 Critical/High terms to mandatory human theologian review; do not allow risk-tier downgrades based on perceived translator confidence.
3. Enforce the four mandatory (always-required, not merely triggered) translator notes at every occurrence: ransom/in-place-of (10:45), cross/crucify (8:34; 15:15-32), lord-it-over (10:42), and Corban (7:11) — each cross-referencing the Baba Jitto or mannat-economy caution as applicable.
4. Confirm all “New” Dogri renderings (71 terms) against the Bible Society of India’s Dogri Bible before wide Phase 2 deployment, exactly as the baseline’s own confirmation discipline requires.
5. Confirm the YouVersion version_id for the Dogri Bible catalog entry before generating any learner-facing hyperlinks, using MRK as the fixed book code per 05_translation_landscape.md §5.
6. Carry the four-way “spirit/soul field” distinction (पवित्तर आत्मा / अशुद्ध आत्मा / परमात्मा-forbidden / जिंद) forward into Phase 2 as a standing reference artifact, not a one-time footnote, given how frequently these terms recur in close proximity throughout Mark.