Linguistic Gap Analysis
Linguistic Gap Analysis: Acts 1–28 (English → Sanskrit)
0. Purpose and Method
This document performs the linguistic gap analysis mandated before glossary construction (Step 8) for the Acts curriculum. Its job is diagnostic, not prescriptive: it surveys, for each of the nine curriculum doctrines, what Sanskrit vocabulary is actually available in the classical lexicon, what doctrinal contamination each candidate carries, where the lexicon has a genuine gap (no existing word, requiring coinage or transliteration), and where instead the lexicon is crowded (too many competing technical terms already own the semantic space, requiring a fencing strategy rather than a search for a “better” word).
The categorical framing from the baseline applies throughout: Sanskrit’s risk profile is not a matter of vague cultural connotation, as in vernacular Language Packages, but of collision with named, citable, fully theorized doctrines in specific philosophical schools (Advaita Vedānta, Sāṃkhya-Yoga, Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya, Purāṇic bhakti theology). Every judgment below is grounded in a specific textual source wherever possible, following the baseline’s own method.
Where a term was already fixed in the Romans baseline translation_memory.json, this analysis does not re-derive it; it is cited only where Acts introduces a new context that stresses the existing rendering in a way Romans did not (e.g., “power” reappearing as Simon Magus’s rival claim in 8:10, or “witness” acquiring forensic-martyrdom double duty across chs. 1–22).
1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix
For each curriculum doctrine: the candidate Sanskrit terms considered, their specific weaknesses (with citation), and the recommended strategy.
1.1 The Holy Spirit and Pentecost
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit (generic) | आत्मा | Central Advaita identity term (tat tvam asi, ayam ātmā brahma, ahaṃ brahmāsmi) | Reserved only for the fixed compound पवित्र आत्मा; forbidden elsewhere |
| Wind/breath (Pentecost sign) | वायुः / प्राणः | वायुः is also a named Vedic deity (Vāyu); प्राणः risks drift toward prāṇāyāma’s yogic breath-discipline technical apparatus | वायुः retained, with footnote; प्राणः avoided entirely for the Pentecost wind |
| Fire (Pentecost sign) | अग्निः | Chief Vedic sacrificial deity, receiver of oblations in yajña | Retained (plain, unavoidable, and correct) with footnote disambiguating from sacrificial-fire theology |
| Filled (with the Spirit) | पूर्णः | Advaita’s pūrṇatā names Brahman’s own plenitude/completeness (cf. pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidam, Īśa Upaniṣad invocation) | Retained in पवित्रात्मना पूर्णः but requires a standing personhood-and-not-self-plenitude note at every occurrence |
| Pour out | सिञ्चति / निषिञ्चति | Ordinary verb for libation-pouring (soma, tarpaṇa); risks a ritual-efficacy reading (the poured substance itself effecting result) | Retained with mandatory note reversing agency: God pours toward humanity; humans do not pour toward God as in Vedic ritual |
| Vision | दर्शनम् | (a) name of the six orthodox darśanas; (b) the actively practiced devotional act of temple darśana (deity beheld by worshipper) | Retained, with mandatory direction-reversal note: biblical vision is God-initiated toward the human, not worshipper-initiated toward an image |
| Last days / eschaton | अन्तिमकालः / युगान्तः | युगान्तः invokes the cyclical four-yuga cosmology directly (kṛta-tretā-dvāpara-kali) | अन्तिमकालः chosen precisely to avoid युग-; mandatory note contrasting linear fulfillment with cyclical yuga-decline |
| Day of the Lord | प्रभोः दिनम् | Risk of assimilation to pralaya (periodic Purāṇic cosmic dissolution at kalpa’s end) | Retained with note: singular, non-repeating, morally decisive, not one dissolution among an endless series |
| Tongues (languages) | अन्यभाषाः / भाषान्तराणि | No real competing technical sense; risk is purely exegetical (conflation with unintelligible ecstatic utterance elsewhere in the NT corpus) | Retained; note is exegetical, not philosophical-collision |
Doctrine-level gap finding: This doctrine has no missing vocabulary — every needed concept has an available Sanskrit word — but it is the single most crowded neighborhood in the entire curriculum, because Pentecost’s imagery (wind, fire, pouring, filling, vision) touches five separate developed ritual/metaphysical systems (Vedic yajña, Advaita ātman-doctrine, Purāṇic cosmology, darśana practice, and yugacosmology) simultaneously. Strategy: retain plain lexical items, fence every one with a standing translator note, never introduce a new coinage where a note on an existing word will do.
1.2 The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unclean / common | अशुद्धम् / सामान्यम् | Directly structurally parallel to dharmaśāstra jāti-based commensality law (Manusmṛti) | Retained deliberately — the collision is the point of the passage (10:14-15, 28) and must not be softened |
| Idols | मूर्तिः / प्रतिमा (rejected) → मिथ्यादेवप्रतिमा (adopted) | मूर्तिः/प्रतिमा are the positively-valenced technical terms for a consecrated devotional image (prāṇa-pratiṣṭhā) within living Hindu worship, not a pejorative default | मिथ्यादेवप्रतिमा (qualified compound) mandatory; bare मूर्ति/प्रतिमा forbidden without qualifier |
| Unknown god | अज्ञातदेवः | देवः is otherwise avoided for the biblical God, but here it correctly names the Athenians’ own referent within their own polytheistic system | Retained; requires a note that this is the one licensed context for देवः in the whole curriculum |
| Living God (contra idols) | जीवन् सर्वेश्वरः | Collides at Lystra (14:11-15) with avatāra logic — the crowd assumes divine descent in human form is plausible and repeatable | Retained; the crowd’s error and Paul’s correction should be exploited pedagogically as a live parallel to the baseline’s Incarnation entry |
| ”In him we live and move” | (descriptive phrase, no single term) | Near-verbatim overlap with Advaitic immanence language and mahāvākya-style formulas | No single-word gap; solved by a full descriptive clause with mandatory transcendence-not-identity note |
| God-fearer | परमेश्वरभीरुः | No native Sanskrit sociological category for a Gentile-sympathizer-but-not-convert; genuine vocabulary gap | New descriptive compound coined on the established परमेश्वर- root; requires background-explanation note, not doctrinal-collision note |
| Circumcision | त्वक्छेदः vs संस्कार | संस्कार is dharmaśāstra’s own sixteen-rite technical term; would falsely reframe the rite as a merit-generating saṃskāra | Plain descriptive compound (त्वक्छेदः) chosen precisely to avoid a false theological claim about the rite’s efficacy |
Doctrine-level gap finding: “God-fearer” is a genuine vocabulary gap (Second Temple Judaism’s sociological categories have no Sanskrit analogue at all — solved by coinage). “Idols” and “unclean/common” are crowded-neighborhood cases requiring fencing (qualifier compounds, not new coinage) because the default words are already claimed by a live, positively-regarded devotional practice.
1.3 Repentance and Baptism
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baptism | बाप्तिस्मः vs स्नानम् vs दीक्षा | स्नानम् = actively practiced ritual purificatory bathing (Gaṅgā-snāna) with independent water-efficacy; दीक्षा = guru-lineage initiation transmitting esoteric authority | Transliteration (बाप्तिस्मः) mandatory — this is a genuine referential gap; no native word names this specific rite without importing a rival mechanism |
| Repentance | पश्चात्तापः vs प्रायश्चित्तम् | प्रायश्चित्तम् is dharmaśāstra’s own catalogued ritual-penance-per-sin system (Manusmṛti) — a mechanism, not a disposition | पश्चात्तापः (inward “after-burning”/remorse) retained; explicit note that it precedes forgiveness rather than constituting the mechanism removing guilt |
| Forgiveness of sins | पापक्षमा vs bare क्षमा | Bare क्षमा is only the ethical virtue of tolerance/patience, with no judicial-pardon sense and no automatic connection to any atoning basis | पापक्षमा (compound anchored to पापम्) retained; must be explicitly taught as forensic pardon grounded in Christ’s work |
| Wash away sins | पापं प्रक्षालय | प्रक्षालन is the verb of the currently and widely practiced devotional act of washing away sin in a sacred river (Gaṅgā-snāna) — an acute, live-tradition risk, not merely a classical-text risk | Retained (idiom demands it) but flagged for mandatory note: cleansing is through calling on Christ’s name in faith, not repeatable ritual water-efficacy |
| Gift of the Spirit | दानम् | दान is itself a fully theorized category (dāna-dharma, meritorious ritual giving, one of the classical virtues) with a giver-earns-merit logic | Retained but mandatorily anchored to अनुग्रहः (grace) in translator notes to block a merit-giving reading |
Doctrine-level gap finding: Baptism is the clearest transliteration-mandatory case in this whole curriculum: both native candidates (स्नानम्, दीक्षा) name specific, developed, currently practiced rival mechanisms, and no neutral native word exists. This is a stronger case for transliteration than even “Messiah” or “Pentecost,” because those concern one-time historical proper nouns/institutions, while स्नानम् and दीक्षा name ongoing living ritual practices a Sanskrit-literate reader performs or witnesses.
1.4 The Church as Community
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Church (institution) | मण्डली | Already fixed in baseline; no new risk in Acts | Reuse exactly |
| Elder | प्राचीनः vs स्थविरः | स्थविरः is the specific Buddhist/Jain monastic-elder title, assimilating church eldership to a renunciate monastic office | प्राचीनः retained |
| Shepherd (agent) | पालकः vs गोपालः/गोपः | गोपालः/गोपः is Kṛṣṇa’s own most famous devotional epithet (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, cowherd of Vṛndāvana) — an acute unintended Christological collision, not a minor connotation | पालकः mandatory; गोपालः/गोपः absolutely forbidden here, more strongly than a typical High-risk flag — recommend treating as a hard Critical-tier forbidden substitution specific to Acts |
| Deacon / service | सेवा/सेवकः | सेवा is the standard word for Vaiṣṇava temple/deity-image ritual service | Retained with a note distinguishing person-directed practical service from image-directed liturgical sevā |
| Common possessions | सर्वं साधारणम् आसीत् | Risk of conflation with dharmaśāstra joint-family (kutumba) common-property law, a legal institution, not a voluntary Spirit-motivated practice | Retained with note affirming voluntary, temporary, love-motivated character against a legal-institutional reading |
| Breaking of bread | पूपभञ्जनम् | No true collision; the risk is exegetical ambiguity (ordinary meal vs. inaugurated Supper), not doctrinal contamination from a rival system | Retained; ambiguity preserved deliberately, not resolved by word choice |
Doctrine-level gap finding: No true vocabulary gaps. “Shepherd” is the sharpest crowded neighborhood finding of this section — arguably sharper than any other Acts-specific fencing case because the rival claimant (गोपालः as Kṛṣṇa’s epithet) is not merely a philosophical school’s technical term but a beloved, widely known devotional image with enormous popular resonance across Vaiṣṇava bhakti literature and vernacular devotion alike.
1.5 Apostolic Authority and Miracles
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signs and wonders | चिह्नानि आश्चर्यकर्माणि च vs सिद्धि | सिद्धि is Yoga Sūtra 3’s catalogued list of eight supernatural attainments (aṣṭasiddhi) earned through disciplined yogic practice | Descriptive compound retained; सिद्धि forbidden — same reasoning as baseline’s “spiritual gifts” entry |
| Authority | अधिकारः | Positively echoes Mīmāṃsā adhikāra-vāda (ritual eligibility/entitlement, often status-restricted) | Retained (best available option) but requires explicit “delegated by commission, not earned/status-restricted qualification” note at every occurrence — same treatment as vidhiः for Law |
| Laying on of hands | हस्तार्पणम् | No rival technical system claims this exact gesture, but risk of a magical-transfer misreading exists internally within the narrative itself (Simon Magus, 8:18-19) | Retained; note points to the text’s own corrective rather than to an external school |
| Name (invoked in miracles) | नाम + यीशुख्रीष्टस्य | Contrast with mantra-invocation, where efficacy is often held to inhere in the mantra’s own inherent sound-power (Mīmāṃsā’s śabda-nitya doctrine) rather than in a delegated personal authority | Plain word retained; theological weight carried by the phrase’s exclusivity, not नाम itself — footnote recommended contrasting agency-source |
Doctrine-level gap finding: No vocabulary gaps; two crowded-neighborhood terms (अधिकारः, सिद्धि-avoidance) requiring standing notes rather than new coinage.
1.6 Persecution and Bold Witness
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Witness / testify | साक्षी/साक्ष्यम् vs साक्षिन् (Advaita sense) | साक्षिन् is Advaita’s technical term for witness-consciousness (sākṣicaitanya), passive awareness identified with ātman/Brahman | साक्षी retained (positively echoes dharmaśāstra forensic-witness procedure, a genuine asset) but requires the strongest available fencing note: active/verbal/historical vs. passive/non-agentive |
| Persecution | उपद्रवः vs दुःखम् | दुःखम् is the technical first-truth term in Buddhist doctrine and one of Sāṃkhya’s three duḥkhas — generic existential suffering, not targeted hostility for testimony | उपद्रवः retained; forbidden substitution list should explicitly add दुःखम् for this sense |
| Satan | शैतानः vs असुरः | असुरः names an entire independently narrated Puranic/Vedic mythological class (devāsura conflict, samudra-manthan) | Transliteration (शैतानः) mandatory — same logic as “Messiah”: a proper singular referent must not be assimilated to an existing class-name with its own narrative tradition |
| Evil/unclean spirit | दुष्टभूताः/अशुद्धभूताः vs आत्मा | आत्मा must never appear for any spirit-being other than the Holy Spirit, given the stakes already established for that term | भूतः/प्रेतः family retained exclusively |
| Boldness | प्रगल्भता | No rival technical apparatus | Retained without reservation — genuinely low-risk |
Doctrine-level gap finding: “Witness” is this section’s — and arguably the whole curriculum’s — most acute crowded neighborhood, because साक्षिन् is not a peripheral synonym but Advaita’s own name for the very faculty (witnessing awareness) through which the ātman-Brahman identity is supposed to be recognized. This compounds the Holy Spirit risk rather than merely paralleling it: a reader could hear Stephen’s or Peter’s “witnessing” as an act of Self-realization rather than historical testimony. “Satan” is a clean transliteration decision, matching Messiah/baptism logic exactly.
1.7 Conversion of Paul
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Way (self-designation) | पन्थाः vs मार्गः | मार्गः is the Bhagavad Gītā’s fixed term for the three parallel soteriological paths (jñāna-, bhakti-, karma-mārga) toward a shared destination (mokṣa) | पन्थाः retained; मार्गः forbidden — this is structurally the same problem as “faith” vs. bhakti/śraddhā in the baseline: a term already committed to a multi-path framework cannot be reused for an exclusive claim |
| Chosen instrument | वरणस्य पात्रम् | No rival system; deliberately built on baseline’s वरणम् root | Retained; low incremental risk given baseline anchor |
| Ascended | ऊर्ध्वं नीतः vs स्वर्गं गतः | स्वर्गम् गतः would evoke the Mahābhārata motif of a virtuous hero’s reward-based bodily ascent to svarga (e.g., Yudhiṣṭhira) — earned apotheosis by accumulated merit | ऊर्ध्वं नीतः (passive, “was taken up”) retained specifically because it keeps Christ as the recipient of the Father’s action, not an agent ascending by his own accumulated virtue |
| Conversion (general concept) | (no single fixed term found; description via पश्चात्तापः + विश्वासः) | No native single word for “conversion” as a punctiliar identity-change event exists without dharma-status-change connotations (cf. saṃnyāsa’s formal status change) | Solved by compound description rather than by seeking a single noun; explicit avoidance of any word implying a formal varṇāśrama life-stage transition |
Doctrine-level gap finding: “The Way” repeats the exact structural pattern the baseline already solved for “faith” (avoiding a term pre-committed to a multi-path framework). “Conversion” itself, as an abstract single-word category, is a genuine gap — there is no risk-free native noun for a punctiliar change of ultimate allegiance outside formal life-stage/status vocabulary, so the recommended strategy is descriptive compounding rather than forcing a single-word match.
1.8 Justification apart from the Law
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Justified by faith (13:39) | reuse of विश्वासः + धर्मीति निर्णयः | None new; must match Romans 3:28 verbatim | Reuse exactly, cross-checked |
| Saved through grace (15:11) | reuse of त्राणम् + अनुग्रहः | Densest single-verse concentration of Critical/High terms in Acts | Reuse exactly, cross-checked against Romans 3:24 |
| Yoke (of the Law) | युगम् | Pure homonym of yuga (cosmic age); no genuine doctrinal collision, only a citation-context ambiguity | Retained; light footnote sufficient, not a fencing note |
| Self-control | इन्द्रियनिग्रहः | Mild proximity to Patañjali’s yama/niyama technical self-mastery attainments | Retained as ordinary ethical vocabulary; light footnote, not rejection |
| Judgment to come | भाविविचारणा vs न्याय vs दण्ड | न्याय is the Nyāya darśana’s proper name; दण्ड is dharmaśāstra’s royal-punishment science (daṇḍanīti) | Neutral descriptive compound (भाविविचारणा) constructed precisely to avoid both existing technical claims |
Doctrine-level gap finding: No gaps; this doctrine is fully covered by reused baseline Critical terms plus two carefully-avoided crowded neighbors (न्याय, दण्ड) for “judgment.”
1.9 The Great Commission Fulfilled
| Candidate term | Sanskrit | Weakness | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Witnesses to the ends of the earth (1:8) | reuse of साक्षिणः | Inherits the साक्षिन्/Advaita risk noted in §1.6 | Reuse exactly; same fencing note required at this occurrence as at every other साक्षी occurrence |
| Kingdom preached without hindrance (28:31) | reuse of परमेश्वरस्य राज्यम् + new अप्रतिबद्धम् | अप्रतिबद्धम् (“unhindered/unbound”) is plain classical vocabulary with no rival technical claim | Retained without reservation |
Doctrine-level gap finding: No new gaps; this doctrine is structurally a bracket-echo of doctrines 1.1 and 1.6 and inherits their fencing requirements rather than introducing new ones.
2. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods — Summary
2.1 Genuine Vocabulary Gaps (no risk-free native word exists; coinage or transliteration required)
| Concept | Gap type | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Baptism | No native word without importing a rival ritual mechanism (स्नानम्, दीक्षा) | Transliteration: बाप्तिस्मः |
| Satan (as singular proper referent) | No native word without importing a rival mythological class (असुरः) | Transliteration: शैतानः |
| Pentecost (the festival itself) | No native festival-word carries the OT covenantal-historical rationale | Transliteration + generic festival noun: पेण्टेकोस्तपर्व |
| God-fearer (sociological category) | No native Sanskrit category for a Gentile sympathizer-but-not-convert | Descriptive coinage on established root: परमेश्वरभीरुः |
| ”Conversion” as abstract single-word event | No native noun exists outside formal life-stage-change vocabulary | Descriptive compounding (पश्चात्तापः + विश्वासः), not a single noun |
| Christian (self-designation) | No native word; genuinely new group identity | Transliteration-coinage on existing ख्रीष्टः: ख्रीष्टीयः |
2.2 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (native words exist but are already claimed by a rival developed doctrine; fencing, not coinage, is the strategy)
| Concept | Competing claimant(s) | Fencing strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Witness (साक्षी) | Advaita’s sākṣin/witness-consciousness | Standing note: active historical testimony, not passive witnessing-awareness |
| Vision (दर्शनम्) | Six darśanas; devotee-initiated temple darśana | Standing note: God-initiated direction, reversed from devotional darśana |
| Shepherd-agent (पालकः, avoiding गोपालः) | Kṛṣṇa’s cowherd epithet | Hard forbidden-substitution rule, not merely a note |
| Idols (मिथ्यादेवप्रतिमा, avoiding bare मूर्ति/प्रतिमा) | Consecrated Hindu devotional image (mūrti-pūjā) | Mandatory qualifier compound at every occurrence |
| The Way (पन्थाः, avoiding मार्गः) | Gītā’s three-mārga soteriological framework | Standing note: exclusive proper designation, not one path among parallel paths |
| Authority (अधिकारः) | Mīmāṃsā’s adhikāra-vāda (status-restricted ritual eligibility) | Standing note: delegated by commission, not earned/status-restricted |
| Signs and wonders (avoiding सिद्धि) | Yoga Sūtra 3’s catalogued siddhis | Hard forbidden-substitution rule |
| Filled with the Spirit (पूर्णः) | Advaita’s pūrṇatā (Brahman’s plenitude) | Standing note anchored to Holy Spirit’s personhood note |
| Wind, fire (वायुः, अग्निः) | Vedic deity names (Vāyu, Agni) | Light footnote; context sufficiently disambiguates |
| Common possessions (सर्वं साधारणम्) | Dharmaśāstra joint-family property law | Standing note: voluntary and temporary, not a legal institution |
| Unclean/common (अशुद्धम्/सामान्यम्) | Jāti-based commensality law (Manusmṛti) | No softening — collision is the exegetical point; theologian review required |
| Persecution (उपद्रवः, avoiding दुःखम्) | Buddhist/Sāṃkhya generic-suffering categories | Hard forbidden-substitution rule |
3. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decision Table
| Term | Decision | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Baptism | Transliterate (बाप्तिस्मः) | Every native candidate names a specific rival ritual mechanism with independent efficacy claims |
| Satan | Transliterate (शैतानः) | Native candidate (असुरः) names an entire independent mythological class |
| Pentecost | Transliterate + generic suffix (पेण्टेकोस्तपर्व) | No native festival concept carries the linear covenantal-historical rationale; transliteration preserves the proper-noun specificity while पर्व supplies just enough native grammatical integration |
| Messiah, Christ, Jesus | Transliterate (reuse baseline) | Already established; historically singular referents, not translatable general concepts |
| Christian | Transliterate-coin on existing transliteration (ख्रीष्टीयः) | New group self-identity; building on an already-transliterated proper noun is safer than inventing a native descriptive |
| The Way | Paraphrase-select (पन्थाः, not transliterated) | A genuine native word exists that is not pre-claimed (unlike मार्गः); no need to transliterate when a clean native option is available |
| Idols (Areopagus) | Paraphrase with mandatory qualifier (मिथ्यादेवप्रतिमा) | A native compound can be constructed that neutralizes the positive devotional claim without transliterating; transliteration is unnecessary and would be stylistically foreign for a concept that has abundant (if contested) native vocabulary |
| Witness | Paraphrase, native term retained with fencing note (साक्षी) | The native term’s forensic resonance is a genuine asset once fenced; transliteration would forfeit a positive rhetorical advantage |
| Shepherd (agent) | Paraphrase, alternate native term selected (पालकः, not गोपालः) | Solved by choosing among existing native synonyms, not by transliteration or coinage |
| God-fearer | Paraphrase-coin on native root (परमेश्वरभीरुः) | Descriptive compounding is sufficient; no proper-noun weight requiring transliteration |
General principle observed: transliteration is reserved for (a) proper nouns, and (b) common nouns naming a specific ritual practice or mythological class-name so fully occupied by a rival tradition that no native word can be neutrally repurposed even with a fencing note. Paraphrase/native-term-with-fencing is preferred wherever a native word exists that is not itself the proper name of a rival system (as साक्षी, पन्थाः, and पालकः are not, but गोपालः, मार्गः, and सिद्धि are).
4. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities (Acts-Specific)
Ranked by combined severity of doctrinal stakes and likelihood of misreading by the intended scholarly/inter-religious-dialogue audience:
-
“Witness” (साक्षी) vs. Advaita’s sākṣin — Compounds directly with the pre-existing Critical-tier Holy Spirit/ātman risk; occurs at the programmatic bracket-verses (1:8, 28:31) framing the entire book, maximizing exposure. Highest risk in this curriculum.
-
Idols (Areopagus polemic, 17:16-29) — Unlike most High/Critical risks, which concern how the reader might misunderstand Christian doctrine, this term concerns how the translation might give unintended offense to or mischaracterize a living, positively-held devotional practice (mūrti-pūjā); the theological and inter-religious-dialogue stakes are both live simultaneously.
-
Baptism vs. स्नानम्/दीक्षा — Names a repeatable, physically performed rite in both traditions, unlike most Critical terms in this curriculum, which concern abstract doctrine; conflation risk is behavioral, not merely conceptual (a reader could assume equivalence of ritual efficacy).
-
Filled with the Spirit / पूर्णः, in the immediate context of Pentecost’s wind-fire-vision cluster (Acts 2:1-4, the core passage) — The single densest concentration of crowded-neighborhood terms in the entire book occurs in the four verses that are also this curriculum’s designated core passage, meaning fencing failures here have outsized pedagogical consequence.
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The Way vs. मार्गः — Structurally identical to a baseline problem (faith vs. śraddhā/bhakti) but newly acute because “the Way” is Acts’ self-designation for the whole movement (9:2 etc.), repeated across the conversion narrative that is itself a named curriculum doctrine.
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Shepherd-agent vs. गोपालः/गोपः — Narrow lexical scope (one verse, 20:28) but unusually severe specific collision (Kṛṣṇa’s own devotional epithet), warranting a hard forbidden-substitution rule rather than a mere note.
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Satan vs. असुरः — Clean transliteration solves the core problem, but residual risk remains that a reader unfamiliar with the Christian tradition’s singular-personal-adversary doctrine might still map शैतानः loosely onto the devāsura mythological conflict pattern by narrative analogy even without lexical overlap; a substantive (not just lexical) explanatory note is recommended beyond the glossary entry itself.
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“In him we live and move and have our being” (17:28) — Narrow scope (one verse) but maximal doctrinal density: the phrase’s surface form is nearly indistinguishable from Advaitic immanence formulas, making this the passage most likely to be quoted approvingly and mistakenly by a reader as scriptural support for advaita rather than for creaturely dependence on a transcendent, distinct Creator.
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Common possessions (2:44-45; 4:32-35) vs. joint-family dharmaśāstra property law — Lower doctrinal stakes than items 1–8 but a distinctive risk profile: mistranslation here risks a legal-institutional misreading (implying a binding property regime) rather than a metaphysical or soteriological one, requiring a different kind of corrective note than most entries on this list.
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Judgment to come (17:31; 24:25) vs. न्याय/दण्ड — Lowest-ranked Critical-adjacent item; both rejected alternatives are well-avoided by the chosen descriptive compound, and the residual risk is primarily that a reader supplies न्याय’s technical epistemological apparatus (pramāṇa-based valid-cognition theory) unprompted by free association with the English gloss “justice,” rather than from the Sanskrit rendering itself.
5. Recommendations Carried Forward to Step 8 (Core Glossary)
- Every crowded-neighborhood term identified in §2.2 must carry its fencing note at every occurrence in Phase 2 output, not merely at first occurrence, given this Language Package’s non-native-speaker-review constraint (per baseline requirements doc).
- साक्षी/witness and मूर्ति-adjacent idol language should be added to the Critical-review escalation list in the doctrine risk registry update for Acts, alongside baptism and Satan, given the findings in §4.
- गोपालः/गोपः (shepherd) and सिद्धि (signs/wonders) should be promoted from “avoid” to hard forbidden-substitution status in the Acts-specific addendum to the AI translation requirements document, consistent with the treatment मोक्षः/अवतारः already receive in the baseline.
- No further coinage is recommended beyond the six items in §2.1; all other apparent gaps in the curriculum’s nine doctrines are resolved by careful selection among, or fencing of, existing native vocabulary.
This analysis must be loaded alongside the Romans baseline Language Package and 07_semantic_analysis.md before Acts glossary finalization (Step 8) and before any Phase 2 segment translation begins.