Translating Dukkha

One of the five things which Ven Xuanzang that should not be translated by meaning are words with subtle meaning.

I was reading this on the web and the example that was commonly given was the word prajna. This word is normally not translated as wisdom in Chinese, but is transliterated as "bo re" (般若).

What came to my mind, however, is the word Dukkha.

Dukkha, is a very fundamental Buddhist concept. It is the First Noble Truth and is one of the Three Marks of Existence.

It is commonly translated as suffering. The Chinese equivalent for Dukkha is ku (苦) which also means suffering (it also means bitter).

But suffering or ku does not quite convey the subtle meaning behind Dukkha. This has caused a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, even among Buddhists, because suffering conveys a rather intense and strong feeling. But while Dukkha means suffering, it also means things being in a unsatisfactory state or imperfect state.

As a result, recently, some people started to translate Dukkha as "unsatisfactoriness". That's quite a mouthful, though perhaps closer to the meaning of Dukkha.

The trend I see, however, is not to translate Dukkha and just use Pali or Sanskrit word as it is. That is perhaps a better way.

In Chinese, Dukkha has long been translated as "ku" and is well established. I have not seen any attempts to change it, though it frequently results in similar misunderstanding as the English word "suffering".

I tried to look up the some Buddhist dictionaries to see if there were old or archaic Chinese transliteration for Dukkha. (Some terms had archaic transliteration that are not in use now. e.g. Dharma was also know as "da mo" 达摩, although now "fa" 法, meaning law, is the established word used.) But I have not found any yet.