Linguistic Gap Analysis — Mark 1–16 (English → Maithili)

0. Scope and Method

This analysis covers the entire Gospel of Mark, chapters 1–16, with Mark 10:35–45 (James and John’s request, the ransom saying) as the curriculum’s theological anchor rather than its boundary. It is organized around the eight curriculum doctrines:

1. Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God
2. The Kingdom of God Breaking In
3. Faith and Discipleship amid Fear
4. The Necessity of the Cross
5. Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness
6. The Messianic Secret
7. Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature
8. The Ransom for Many

For each doctrine, this document surveys the available Maithili terms (both reused from the Romans baseline and newly proposed in 08_core_glossary.md), documents specific weaknesses/collision risks, and states the recommended strategy. It then separates the term inventory into missing vocabulary (concepts with no ready Maithili word at all, requiring compound construction) versus crowded semantic neighborhoods (concepts where Maithili has an obvious word, but that word is already claimed by a competing religious framework and must be fenced). It closes with an explicit transliteration-vs-paraphrase decision table and a ranked list of the highest-risk ambiguities for this curriculum specifically.

Mithila’s devotional landscape is the operative background throughout: active Vaishnava bhakti practice (Ram-Sita, Krishna-Radha, reinforced by Vidyapati’s poetic tradition), Shaiva/Tantra practice with guru-diksha initiation lineages, Shakta goddess worship (e.g., the regionally significant Ugratara shrine), the Panjikaran caste-lineage registry system, and the jajmani hereditary service-caste economy. Mark’s narrative content — a itinerant teacher with exorcism authority, claims of unique sonship, a suffering-then-vindicated figure, servant/slave status-reversal teaching — intersects this landscape at more points, and more concretely, than Romans’ doctrinal exposition did.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

1.1 Jesus as the Suffering Servant and Son of God

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
परमेश्वरक पुत्र (REUSE, son_of_god)	None novel to Mark; already Critical-tier fenced against Vaishnava/Shaiva pantheon-membership reading	Reuse exactly; anchor at 1:1, 1:11, 9:7, 14:61-62, 15:39
मनुष्यक पुत्र (NEW, son_of_man)	Risk of flattening to “a human being,” losing Daniel 7 authority-to-judge sense; risk of being read as merely humble self-reference	Standing translator note at first occurrence (2:10); structurally parallel -क genitive to परमेश्वरक पुत्र to signal the title’s own weight
यहूदीक राजा (NEW, king_of_the_jews)	Mocking irony (used derisively yet true) could be flattened by a translator smoothing the tone	Preserve as spoken in mockery; do not add softening qualifiers
छुटकारा मोल / बहुतक बदलामे (NEW, ransom / for many)	See §8 below	See §8

Assessment: The doctrine’s central linguistic risk is not lack of vocabulary but the temptation to domesticate the servant-who-is-also-Son paradox into a more familiar regional shape — either a purely exalted-avatar figure (softening suffering) or a purely tragic-guru/holy-man figure (softening deity). Maithili vocabulary must hold both together, which is a discourse-level rather than a lexical-level challenge; the glossary terms are individually adequate but require sustained translator-note discipline across the whole book to keep the paradox intact.

1.2 The Kingdom of God Breaking In

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
परमेश्वरक राज्य (REUSE, kingdom_of_god)	Political/dynastic overtone given Mithila’s own House-of-Janak royal-kingdom identity	Reuse exactly; Mark 4’s parables must be translated to foreground the “breaking in now, growing later” tension the baseline note flags
दृष्टान्त (NEW, parable)	Regional Puranic teaching-story genre expects uniform edification for all hearers; Mark 4:11-12’s reveal/conceal duality is foreign to that expectation	Preserve reveal-and-conceal function explicitly; do not let दृष्टान्त default to “simple illustrative story”
रहस्य (NEW, mystery_of_kingdom)	Crowded — see §2, Tantric/Puranic esoteric-initiation collision	Fence with translator note: God’s sovereign gracious disclosure, not guru-transmitted secret knowledge
दुष्ट आत्मा (NEW, unclean_spirit_demon)	Crowded — see §2, ojha/sokha folk-exorcism collision	Fence at first occurrence (1:23-27)
शैतान (NEW, satan)	Already a loanword; risk of being read as a common noun for generic evil rather than a proper adversarial title	Note capitalization/title status at first occurrence

Assessment: This doctrine has the single greatest concentration of “crowded neighborhood” risk in the whole book, because the Kingdom’s in-breaking is narrated largely through exorcism and parable — two genres Mithila already has vivid, specific religious vocabulary for, pointed in a different theological direction.

1.3 Faith and Discipleship amid Fear

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
विश्वास (REUSE, faith)	None novel; already fenced against भक्ति in the baseline	Reuse exactly; render consistently across the fear/faith pairing (4:40; 5:36; 6:50; 9:23-24; 10:52; 16:8) so the thematic thread is visible to a reader moving through the whole Gospel
मन फेरब / मनफिराव (NEW, repentance)	पश्चाताप alternative carries ritual-penance/expiation coloring (pilgrimage, fasting, gifts to Brahmins offsetting karmic debt)	Prefer मन फेरब as native, non-ritual construction; पश्चाताप may appear only in a gloss, never as the primary rendering
गुरु (NEW, teacher)	Crowded — see §2, guru-shishya/diksha lineage collision	Standing note at first vocative use (4:38 or earlier) distinguishing inherent, non-hereditary teaching authority
अपन आपकेँ इनकार करब (NEW, deny_self)	Crowded — see §2, वैराग्य/सन्यास ascetic-renunciation collision	Fence at 8:34: relational/christocentric self-denial, not self-liberating detachment

Assessment: Adequate vocabulary exists, but nearly every key term in this doctrine sits adjacent to an existing devotional or ascetic category (bhakti-faith, penance-repentance, guru-authority, renunciation-denial). The gap is not lexical but disambiguating: each term needs its fence note reinforced at every recurrence, not just at first occurrence, because Mark repeats this cluster of terms with high frequency across 16 chapters.

1.4 The Necessity of the Cross

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
क्रूस / क्रूस पर चढ़ाएब (NEW, cross_crucify)	Risk of generalizing into an abstract “burden/trial” metaphor if translated loosely at 8:34	Retain concrete Roman-execution referent throughout; human theologian review at every occurrence
कटोरा (NEW, cup_poterion)	Ordinary household bowl-word; risk of assimilation to a ritual offering-vessel (नैवेद्य पात्र) or shared blessing-drink (आचमन/तीर्थ-जल)	Translator note at 10:38-39 first occurrence: names appointed suffering, not a ritual vessel
फसह (NEW, passover)	No natural regional festival parallel; risk of being loosely equated with Holi or another regional spring festival by an under-resourced translator	Require OT background footnote every occurrence; explicitly forbid festival-equivalence framing
देह / लहू (NEW, body_blood)	Risk of assimilation to prasad (shared consecrated food after puja) or to regional Shakta blood-sacrifice practices at certain shrines	Fence as unique, once-for-all covenant memorial; echo 10:45’s “for many” explicitly
मन्दिरक पर्दा (NEW, katapetasma_veil)	Low cultural-collision risk but high doctrinal density (access to God opened)	Explanatory note rather than fencing note
एलोई, एलोई, लमा शबक्तनी (NEW, eloi_eloi)	Risk of being softened/explained away as merely rhetorical	Preserve transliteration + literal gloss; do not paraphrase into a gentler cry

Assessment: This doctrine is well served by transliteration-plus-gloss for the Aramaic material and by fencing notes for the sacrificial/ritual vocabulary. The one genuine vocabulary gap is a term for “vicarious/substitutionary suffering” as an abstract category — Maithili has no single native word for this, which is why the doctrine leans on concrete narrative terms (cup, blood, veil) rather than an abstract noun; this is assessed as an acceptable strategy, not a gap requiring further lexical invention.

1.5 Servanthood versus Worldly Greatness

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
सेवक (NEW, diakonos_servant)	Crowded — see §2, jajmani hereditary service-caste collision	Fence: voluntary Christlike service chosen by anyone seeking greatness, not caste-assigned birth-status
दास (NEW, doulos_slave)	Crowded — see §2, Vaishnava bhakti “das” self-designation collision	Fence: status-loss for others’ sake modeled on Christ’s self-emptying (10:45), not a merit-accruing devotional posture
प्रभुता जमाएब (NEW, lord_it_over)	Shares root with Critical-tier प्रभु (Lord); risk of being misread as describing Christ’s own legitimate lordship	Must always co-occur with the negative frame (“not so among you,” v.43)
अधिकार जमाएब (NEW, exercise_authority_over)	Built on अधिकार, which is otherwise a positive term (Jesus’ own authority); same misreading risk as above	Same negative-frame requirement
अधिकार (NEW, authority)	Must be kept distinct from both सामर्थ्य (dynamis) and forbidden शक्ति	Maintain three-way distinction: अधिकार = right to command, सामर्थ्य = capability/might, शक्ति = never used

Assessment: This doctrine has the highest density of self-collision risk in the glossary — several of its key terms are built on roots that are elsewhere doctrinally positive (प्रभु, अधिकार), and Mark’s whole rhetorical point in 10:42-45 depends on the reader correctly sorting legitimate from illegitimate uses of the same root within a few verses. This is a discourse-management problem more than a vocabulary gap.

1.6 The Messianic Secret

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
मसीह (REUSE, messiah)	None novel; already fenced against Ram/Krishna avatar-figure assimilation	Reuse exactly at every occurrence, especially 8:29-30 (Peter’s confession followed immediately by the command to silence)
झूठ मसीह / झूठ भविष्यद्वक्ता (NEW, false_christs_prophets)	Regional prevalence of self-declared gurus/babas claiming divine authority gives this real contemporary force, but naming any specific regional figure would overreach the text	Frame as general discernment warning only; do not name regional traditions
मनुष्यक पुत्र (NEW, son_of_man)	Functions narratively as Jesus’ own preferred, partially self-veiling title, in tension with the more public मसीह	Preserve the narrative pattern: Jesus favors मनुष्यक पुत्र in public teaching, reserves overt मसीह/परमेश्वरक पुत्र affirmation for climactic moments (8:29-30; 14:61-62)

Assessment: The Messianic Secret’s linguistic challenge is structural rather than lexical: Mark’s narrative strategy of partial, escalating disclosure (private confessions, commands to silence, public irony at the cross) must survive translation as a pattern across chapters, which means consistent, disciplined term selection matters more here than any single hard case.

1.7 Jesus’ Authority over Sickness, Sin, and Nature

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
अधिकार (NEW, authority)	See §1.5	Reuse exactly
दुष्ट आत्मा (NEW, unclean_spirit_demon)	Crowded — see §2	Fence at first occurrence
पाप क्षमा करब (NEW, forgive_sins)	Risk of being read as one repeatable ritual expiation among others (प्रायश्चित्त)	Fence as decisive, unique divine declaration, exercised by Jesus’ own authority (2:5-10)
कोढ़ / शुद्ध करब (NEW, leprosy_cleanse)	Low risk; शुद्ध is contextually correct here (ritual-purity domain) unlike in holiness contexts where it is rejected	No fencing needed beyond noting the domain shift from पवित्र
ई हम छी (NEW, ego_eimi)	Risk of reading as a mundane self-identification, missing the Exodus 3:14 echo	Cross-reference 6:50 and 14:62 explicitly; human theologian review at 14:62
नीक कएल / चंगा कएल (NEW, healing_sozo)	Splits the Greek’s single-verb wordplay (heal/save) into two Maithili expressions	Translator note flagging the underlying wordplay so theological resonance is not entirely lost

Assessment: The core doctrinal risk here is not any single term but the danger of Jesus’ authority reading as technique — parallel to folk-exorcist mantra-and-method (ojha/sokha) or astrologically-timed healing practice — rather than as an inherent, sovereign prerogative. Every healing/exorcism narrative in Mark needs this note reinforced, not just the first occurrence, because the genre recurs roughly a dozen times across the book.

1.8 The Ransom for Many

Available Maithili Terms	Weaknesses	Recommended Strategy
छुटकारा मोल (NEW, ransom_lytron)	No native Maithili word for a technical manumission/hostage-price concept; risk of flattening to vague “help/deliverance” or assimilating to karma-debt (प्रायश्चित्त)	Compound construction retained; historical bonded-labor/debt-bondage practice usable ONLY as an explicitly marked illustration, never equivalence; mandatory theologian review every occurrence
प्राण (NEW, psyche_soul_life)	आत्मा alternative risks transmigration/reincarnation association (and collides with the Critical-tier reserved पवित्र आत्मा)	प्राण preferred; never आत्मा in this sense
बहुतक बदलामे (10:45) / बहुतक हेतु (14:24) (NEW, anti_pollon_for_many)	Two different Maithili phrases for two different Greek prepositions (ἀντί/ὑπέρ) risk obscuring the deliberate echo between the two verses	Cross-reference flag linking both verses explicitly in every derived document
दास (NEW, doulos_slave)	See §1.5	Reuse exactly; 10:45 is this term’s theological climax

Assessment: This is the single highest-stakes doctrine in the curriculum, since it supplies the core passage’s climactic verse (10:45) and has no pre-existing Maithili theological vocabulary at all — every rendering here is a fresh compound construction rather than a reused or adapted native word. See the ranked risk list in §5 for detailed treatment.

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2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

2.1 Missing Vocabulary (no ready native term; requires compound/constructed rendering)

These concepts have no existing single Maithili word carrying the needed sense at all — the gap is not competition from a rival religious framework but the simple absence of prior Christian theological vocabulary in the language for these ideas.

Concept	Gap Type	Constructed Rendering	Notes
ransom (λύτρον)	No native term for a technical redemption-price concept	छुटकारा मोल (compound: “release-price”)	Requires theologian review every occurrence; highest-priority gap in the curriculum
substitutionary “for many” (ἀντί/ὑπέρ πολλῶν)	No single preposition-pair distinguishes “instead of” from “on behalf of” as sharply in Maithili as in Koine Greek	बहुतक बदलामे / बहुतक हेतु	Requires explicit cross-reference note; the distinction must be argued, not assumed self-evident from the words chosen
Son of Man as a title (not generic phrase)	Maithili “मनुष्यक पुत्र” is transparent/literal but carries no independent title-recognition the way “Son of God” already partly does through prior Christian usage	मनुष्यक पुत्र, deliberately parallel-structured to परमेश्वरक पुत्र	Needs a standing note at first occurrence; will not be recognized as a technical title without one
mystery of the kingdom (μυστήριον, disclosure sense)	Maithili रहस्य exists but denotes secrecy/hiddenness generically, not sovereign gracious disclosure	रहस्य + fencing note	See §2.2 below also — partially crowded, partially missing
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as unforgivable category	No native single-word equivalent for “the one sin that cannot be forgiven”	पवित्र आत्माक निन्दा (compound, never निन्दा alone)	The compound is required precisely because no shorter native phrase carries the necessary weight
ego eimi as veiled divine self-disclosure	Maithili “ई हम छी” is a plain, unmarked self-identification phrase with no built-in echo of Exodus 3:14	ई हम छी + mandatory cross-reference note (6:50, 14:62)	Purely a translator-note solution; no lexical fix is possible
katakyrieuō / katexousiazō (illegitimate lording/authority)	Maithili has no single word for “abuse of a legitimately-named authority-root”; both compounds are built directly on otherwise-positive roots	प्रभुता जमाएब / अधिकार जमाएब	Requires the negative frame (v.43) to accompany every occurrence without exception

2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (native term exists, but is already claimed by a competing framework)

These concepts have an obvious, ready Maithili word — but that word’s primary cultural home is already a rival devotional or social system, requiring active “fencing” (explicit translator notes distinguishing the biblical sense) rather than invention of a new term.

Term	Crowding Neighbor	Why It Is Crowded	Fencing Strategy
गुरु (teacher)	Guru-shishya lineage, Shaiva/Tantra diksha initiation culture	A guru’s authority in Mithila is transmitted through ritual initiation and hereditary lineage; readers will default to this frame	Standing note: Jesus’ teaching authority is inherent, requires no diksha, no hereditary transmission, no ongoing guru-cult devotion
दास (slave)	Vaishnava bhakti “das” self-designation (devotee-as-servant of a chosen deity)	दास is already a positive, familiar devotional self-title in bhakti poetry, risking a merit-accruing devotional reading rather than status-loss	Note distinguishing bhakti-das devotional submission from gospel-shaped, Christ-patterned slavehood (10:44-45)
सेवक (servant/diakonos)	jajmani hereditary service-caste system	सेवक carries real social-status weight tied to caste-assigned, birth-determined household/ritual service roles	Mark as voluntary, freely chosen Christlike service available to “whoever” (10:43), not caste-assigned servitude
दुष्ट आत्मा (unclean spirit)	ojha/sokha folk-exorcism tradition (mantra-and-technique exorcism)	Everyday भूत-प्रेत vocabulary is tied to a living folk-exorcist practice; risks reducing Jesus’ exorcisms to a folk-exorcist parallel	दुष्ट आत्मा preferred over भूत-प्रेत precisely to keep distance from the folk-exorcism register; भूत-प्रेत usable only in an explanatory gloss
रहस्य (mystery)	Tantric/Puranic esoteric-initiation knowledge tradition	Secret knowledge in this tradition is disclosed only to ritually qualified initiates through a guru-lineage	Note: God’s μυστήριον is disclosed by sovereign grace to “those around him” (4:11), not earned through esoteric practice
अपन आपकेँ इनकार करब (deny self)	वैराग्य/सन्यास ascetic renunciation, Shaiva monastic centers	Regional renunciation pursues detachment for the practitioner’s own liberation/enlightenment	Fence: relational, christocentric loss of status/life for Christ’s sake, not self-directed liberation technique
प्रेम (agape love, Great Commandment)	Vaishnava bhakti-prem devotional-poetic register (Vidyapati)	प्रेम is the central vocabulary of romantic/devotional bhakti poetry celebrated regionally	Mark as comprehensive, covenantal, Shema-rooted obedience-love, not romantic/aesthetic devotional register
प्रिय (beloved, of the Son)	Same bhakti-prem devotional address register	Standard term of devotional address in Radha-Krishna literature	Keep firmly filial/paternal (Father addressing Son), not romantic-devotional coloring
नरक (Gehenna)	Hindu cosmology’s temporary punitive/purgative realms within samsara	नरक typically denotes a temporary punishment endured before rebirth	Mark explicitly as final, unquenchable, non-cyclical judgment at every doctrinal use
स्वर्गारोहण (ascension)	svarga-loka, a temporary merit-based reward-abode exited through further rebirth	स्वर्ग in Hindu cosmology is not a permanent destination	Note: eternal dwelling and Christ’s permanent enthronement, not a way-station within a cycle
उपवास (fasting)	Hindu vrata merit-fasting (Chhath, Ekadashi, etc.)	Vrata-fasting is oriented toward securing merit/blessing through the act itself	Frame Mark 2:18-20’s fasting as fitting mourning in the bridegroom’s absence, not a merit-earning vow
मन्दिर (temple, literal Jerusalem sanctuary)	Hindu image-centered temple worship (already forbidden in baseline for “church”)	Same word must now be used, correctly, for a real old-covenant sanctuary — a different problem from the baseline’s church-context prohibition	Explicit note at first use: this मन्दिर is NOT a Hindu deity’s temple, and is never to be confused with मण्डली (church); the baseline prohibition on मन्दिर=church remains in force in the opposite direction
आराधनालय (synagogue)	Same general “religious building” semantic field as मन्दिर	Risk of collapsing synagogue and temple into a single undifferentiated “religious building” concept for readers unfamiliar with Second Temple Judaism’s institutional structure	Note the synagogue as a non-image-based assembly for scripture/prayer, architecturally and theologically distinct from मन्दिर
फरीसी / शास्त्री (Pharisees/scribes)	Hindu shastra-scholar concept (शास्त्री)	शास्त्री may evoke a Hindu shastra-scholar rather than a Second Temple Jewish legal-scriptural office	Frame as a bounded functional-analogy bridge only, not doctrinal equivalence

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3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Mark contains an unusually high number of preserved Aramaic/Semitic expressions and proper names compared to Romans, requiring an explicit policy.

Item	Decision	Rationale
Eloi Eloi lema sabachthani (15:34)	Transliterate + literal gloss	Dereliction cry citing Psalm 22:1; softening or paraphrasing would mute the atonement’s God-forsakenness dimension
Ephphatha (7:34)	Transliterate + gloss (“be opened”)	Aramaic healing command; preserving the foreign sound retains the historical, incarnate-in-a-particular-place texture of the narrative
Corban (7:11)	Transliterate + explanatory gloss	A specific first-century Jewish vow-category; no Maithili equivalent exists, and paraphrase would lose the term’s legal-technical force in the Pharisaic critique
Legion (5:9,15)	Transliterate + gloss (“Roman military unit”)	Proper name; paraphrasing into “many” would lose the ironic Roman-occupation resonance
Beelzebul (3:22)	Transliterate + gloss (“prince of demons”)	Proper name for the accusation Jesus rebuts; must not be replaced with a regional deity-name equivalent
Hosanna (11:9-10)	Transliterate, per established आमीन/हल्लेलूयाह convention	Liturgical acclamation; brief gloss connecting to the उद्धार root is sufficient
Abba (14:36)	Transliterate (REUSE from Romans baseline)	Retains the term of filial intimacy already established; do not reduce to पिता alone
ego eimi (“I am,” 6:50; 14:62)	Paraphrase as ई हम छी + mandatory cross-reference note	No Maithili transliteration convention exists for a Greek verbal-echo effect; the theological weight must be carried by an explanatory note rather than the words themselves
Son of Man	Paraphrase (compound: मनुष्यक पुत्र), not transliteration	This is a title built from ordinary vocabulary in the source languages too; transliterating “huios tou anthrōpou” would be unintelligible and inconsistent with how “Son of God” is already handled
ransom (λύτρον)	Paraphrase (compound: छुटकारा मोल), not transliteration	A common Greek economic term, not a proper name; transliteration would obscure rather than clarify meaning
Messiah / Christ	Transliterate (REUSE from Romans baseline: मसीह)	Already established; consistency with Romans baseline is mandatory
Satan / Beelzebul	Transliterate	Both are already established loanwords or proper names in South Asian religious vocabulary broadly; no paraphrase is needed or advisable

General rule derived: transliterate proper names, foreign-language quotations, and already-established loanword titles; paraphrase (via native compound construction) technical theological concepts that have no proper-name status in the source text, even when — as with ransom and Son of Man — the concept is unfamiliar to the target audience. Paraphrase is reserved for concepts, transliteration for names and quotations.

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4. Cross-Cutting Fencing Principle

Several terms above appear in more than one doctrine’s crowded-neighborhood list (गुरु, दास, प्रेम, आत्मा/प्राण). This is not incidental: Mark’s narrative-driven genre repeatedly stages Jesus in roles Mithila’s devotional culture already has vivid vocabulary for (teacher, master, beloved, self-giving devotee, exorcist, healer, king). The recommended cross-cutting principle for Phase 2 is:

• First-occurrence fencing is necessary but not sufficient. Because Mark is narrative (not epistolary exposition like Romans), the same crowded term recurs across many chapters in fresh narrative contexts; the fencing note established at first occurrence must be re-activated (at minimum via consistent glossary-compliant rendering, and at maximum via a repeated brief note) at each major recurrence, especially after a chapter break.
• Never resolve crowding by switching to a different word mid-book. Consistency of rendering (per the baseline’s Theological Consistency Rules) takes priority over local naturalness; a term fenced once must be used identically at every subsequent occurrence rather than re-solved differently in each new narrative context.

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5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities (Mark Curriculum)

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision strength × frequency):

1. ransom (λύτρον) / छुटकारा मोल — 10:45. No native Maithili theological vocabulary exists for this concept at all; it is the single highest-stakes term in the entire curriculum because it is both a lexical gap (§2.1) and the core passage’s theological hinge. Mandatory theologian review at its one canonical occurrence; extremely low tolerance for translator improvisation.

2. “for many” (ἀντὶ πολλῶν / ὑπὲρ πολλῶν) — 10:45 vs. 14:24. Two different Maithili phrases are required for prepositions that must be read as intentionally echoing each other across six chapters; the risk is that a translator working section-by-section renders 14:24 without realizing it must recall 10:45, breaking a deliberate authorial link.

3. मनुष्यक पुत्र (Son of Man) — 14 occurrences throughout. Highest-frequency Critical-tier term in the book; risk of silent flattening into a generic “human being” reading is highest precisely because the Maithili phrase is transparently literal and does not, on its own, signal titular/technical status the way a semi-opaque term might.

4. देहधारण-adjacent risk transferred to रूपान्तरण (transfiguration) — 9:2-8. Although देहधारण itself does not recur as a term in Mark, the Transfiguration narrative reactivates the same underlying collision (Krishna’s Vishvarupa self-revelation to Arjuna) in a new narrative form; translators moving from Romans experience to Mark may under-estimate this because “transfiguration” was not flagged in the baseline at all.

5. दास (slave) vs. bhakti-das devotional self-designation — 10:44. The term is not merely adjacent to a competing framework but is already positively used by the target audience in ordinary devotional self-reference, making this a harder fencing problem than most: the audience is not unfamiliar with the word, they are favorably familiar with a different sense of it.

6. प्रभुता जमाएब / अधिकार जमाएब — 10:42, self-collision with Critical-tier प्रभु and Section 1’s अधिकार. These compounds are built on roots that are elsewhere unambiguously positive within the very same passage’s argument; a translator or reviewer skimming quickly could mistake the negative compound for a description of Christ’s own legitimate rule.

7. ई हम छी (ego eimi) — 6:50 and 14:62. The Maithili phrase carries zero inherent signal of the Exodus 3:14 divine-name echo; without the cross-reference note surviving into the final published material (even in reduced form, e.g. a footnote), this Critical-tier Christological claim becomes invisible to the reader.

8. गुरु (teacher) — recurring vocative address throughout, 4:38 onward. High-frequency term (used as direct address to Jesus repeatedly) sitting inside Mithila’s single most institutionally reinforced religious-authority framework (guru-diksha lineage); the risk compounds because vocative address is exactly the context where a fencing footnote is hardest to attach without disrupting dialogue flow.

9. दुष्ट आत्मा / अधिकार in exorcism narratives — recurring roughly a dozen times. Structural risk: repeated exorcism scenes risk being read cumulatively as validating a folk-exorcist paradigm (technique-based mastery over spirits) rather than as repeated demonstrations of unique, sovereign authority, if the fencing note is treated as a one-time first-occurrence formality rather than a running theological argument.

10. रहस्य (mystery of the kingdom) — 4:11. Single occurrence but high doctrinal density; risk is specifically that this is the Gospel’s own explicit statement about why Jesus teaches in parables (reveal/conceal), and a crowded-neighborhood misreading here (esoteric guru-transmitted secret) would corrupt the interpretive key to the entire following parables chapter.

11. नरक (Gehenna) — 9:43-48. Lower frequency but easily under-flagged relative to its doctrinal weight, because it appears in a list-like warning passage (hand, foot, eye) where translators may focus on the vivid imagery and neglect the finality/non-cyclical distinction from Hindu narak.

12. मन्दिर (temple) — recurring 11:11 through 15:38. Risk direction is the reverse of the baseline’s church-context prohibition: here मन्दिर is the correct word (literal old-covenant sanctuary) and must not be second-guessed or replaced by translators over-applying the baseline’s caution, while still requiring the clarifying note that this is not a Hindu deity’s temple.

13. प्रेम (agape love) — 12:28-31,33, Great Commandment. Genuine bridge exists (wholehearted devotion), which is precisely what makes this risk subtle: a translator satisfied that “the feeling is similar enough” may under-fence the covenantal-obedience sense against the romantic/aesthetic bhakti-prem register.

14. छुटकारा मोल’s illustrative bridge (regional debt-bondage) — 10:45, secondary risk. The permitted illustrative bridge (a laborer bound until a debt is paid by another) is useful but fragile: if a translator or teacher extends the illustration even slightly toward “and the debt is spiritual/karmic,” the illustration silently becomes an equivalence, undoing the very distinction the glossary requires.

15. खुला/general “healing = saving” wordplay (σῴζω) — 5:23,28,34; 6:56; 10:52. Lower doctrinal severity than the above but high frequency; the split into two Maithili expressions (नीक कएल / चंगा कएल vs. उद्धार) is correct but risks quietly erasing the Gospel’s intentional healing-as-sign-of-salvation resonance across five separate narrative occurrences if the flagging note is not carried consistently.

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6. Summary Recommendation for Phase 2

• Merge all NEW terms from 08_core_glossary.md into translation_memory.json, incrementing its version, before any Mark segment translation begins, per the enforcement procedure already established in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
• Treat §2.2 (“crowded neighborhoods”) as the primary watchlist for Phase 2 Step 17 native-speaker and theologian review — these are the terms most likely to pass automated validation (correct word choice) while still failing doctrinal fidelity (wrong background frame activated in the reader’s mind).
• Treat §2.1 (“missing vocabulary”) as requiring the heaviest translator-note apparatus, since no amount of correct word choice alone can close a true lexical gap — the doctrine survives only if the accompanying explanatory note survives into whatever downstream teaching material is produced.
• The ranked list in §5 should directly inform the Step 17 review-priority queue: items 1–7 warrant mandatory theologian pre-review before Phase 2 batch translation of their respective passages proceeds.