Translating Tibetan Into Other Languages

Nitartha international is working with translators and Tibetan scholars to translate critically important Tibetan texts into other languages, particularly into English.

The Nitartha Translation Project encompasses a series of individual translation initiatives based on the classical method for translating original Indian texts written in the Sanskrit language into Tibetan. This system involved a team of two persons, a translator and a scholar. The individual translator versed in the Tibetan and Sanskrit languages was able to clarify translations by working closely with a Sanskrit-speaking scholar familiar with the text, and schooled in the educational tradition where the text was regularly studied and taught. This base system of translation is supplemented by consultation or study with those specially knowledgable about the intellectual traditions of texts and those accomplished in the practices of texts. Nitartha continues this tradition by funding individual translators and Tibetan scholars to work together on translations of particular texts. We also are supplementing these translation efforts with the resources of modern communication and database technology.

In May 2001, Nitartha international Publications published the translation of Mahamudra: The Ocean of Definitive Meaning (Nges don rGya mtsho), one of the most important texts in the Tibetan meditation literature. The translation of the Mahamudra, considered one of the most sublime expositions of the Indo-Tibetan science of mind and meditation, would have been impossible without the guidance of those trained in mahamudra and participants in the oral commentarial traditions which are necessary for accurate understanding of the text. Elizabeth Callahan undertook the translation under the direction of modern-day experts in mahamudra and translation of Tibetan texts, including Khenchen Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and Dzogchen Ponlop, Rinpoche. The Tibetan text work was also benefited by expert editing by Ven. Alak Zenkhar Rinpoche.

We are actively working to expand the number of translation projects by obtaining the resources to finalize commitments from additional translators and trained scholars of Tibetan studies.