Within the last decade, numerous people from mainland China and Taiwan have developed a great interest in Buddhist philosophy - the religious system of their ancestors. In particular, there is a growing increase in the devotees and practitioners of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy which is based on the peerless spiritual lineage of ancient India's Nalanda Monastic University, combining in entirety the Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. Due to this development I am continually stressing the importance of translating into Chinese the texts on the Madhyamika, Prajnaparamita, Vinaya, Abidharma and Pramana that were composed by the great Indian Panditas, and then studying them.
Therefore I am delighted that in 2009, the Chinese Geshe Ngawang Tashi founded the ‘Pandita Translation Committee’ in Taiwan, a praiseworthy project aimed at translating the great works and commentaries on the Five Major Buddhist Volumes (Madhyamika, Prajnaparamita, Vinaya, Abidharma and Pramana) and so forth.
Geshe Ngawang Tashi left his native Taiwan at the age of thirteen to join the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India. He received the vows of a Buddhist Novice as well as the vows of a fully ordained Buddhist Bikkhu and for over sixteen years studied the Five Major Buddhist Volumes of the great Indian Panditas. He further studied the texts of the other three Tibetan Buddhist traditions, Kagyu, Sakya and Nyingma. Upon the completion of his studies he took his Geshe degree at Drepung Loseling Monastery.
Geshe Ngawang Tashi has also been serving as my principal translator when I give introductory Buddhist teachings to groups of ethnic Chinese coming to receive teachings.
Therefore, I am praying for the following:
Firstly I am praying for the successful completion of Geshe Ngawang Tashi’s project of translating the works of the Indian Pandits into Chinese, secondly, for fulfilling the purpose of those translations which is to lead Chinese practitioners to attain the highest spiritual realizations, and thirdly, for fulfilling the essential purpose of the translations in enabling those practitioners to easily attain the complete enlightenment of a Buddha.
From the Shakya Bikkhu and Buddhist teacher on October 2, 2010,
The Dalai Lama
Geshe Ngawang Tashi from Institute of Buddhist Dialectics discussed with me about his plan for translating the Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries. I would like to express my opinion on that.
Translating sutras and commentaries is a highly significant and remarkable task. Most in his plan are the teaching materials of the Master of Drepung Loseling Monastery,Panchen Sonam Drakpa.
The works and teachings of Master Panchen Sonam Drakpa, concise and easy to understand,are very magnificent if they can be translated. In India, translating sutras was an extremely rigorous and demanding task. All the translating work must go through certain procedures of proofreading the words and meanings–all the errors must be pointed out. No publishing would be allowed if there were any errors. Translating Sutras is a highly noble commitment, but those translated sutras with poor quality and errors are extremely harmful.
Over a thousand years ago, the famous Chinese translator Xuan Zang and another translator had devoted themselves to studying the Buddhist teachings and practices in Nalanda Monastery in India before they engaged in translating the sutras from Indian into Chinese. In Nalanda Monastary there were outstanding mentors, most of whom studied the sutras in Sanskrit. These two monks had a thorough understanding of the sutras and teachings, and translated vast numbers of sutras and Buddhist teachings. They are both great Chinese monks.
The Plan of Geshe Ngawang Tashi . It would be significant if Geshe Ngawnag Tashi can translate the sutras and commentaries on the Five Major Buddhist Volumes into Chinese.
The great translators in ancient China were masters of top wisdom. They were proficient in the language and meanings of the sutras. To do quality translation work, translators today should learn from the works translated by those masters.
Furthermore, emphasis should be put on Chandrakirti Prasannapadā "Clear Words"—Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. It is crucial to translate the sutras according to the flow of them.
Recently, Dharma King/His Holiness (His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama) has instructed a Japanese nun to translate the works of Middle Way. I found it very difficult to understand her translation because she herself had not studied the relevant sutras and commentaries before she translated them.
Geshe had received good education on Sutras and Commentaries, and also studied the Buddhist teachings. What’s more, he has a thorough understanding of what he has learned. If he can take on the responsibility of translation work and study the Chinese version of the sutras and commentaries translated from Indian, the quality of the translation will be greatly improved.
The best three languages to elaborate Buddhist Sutras are Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese. The Chinese language is highly delicate and refined. The ancient Chinese was concise and precise. Therefore, we must have the plan for the translation in the ancient Chinese language. In my opinion, it would be very hard to do the translation if using the modern vernacular Chinese instead of the ancient Chinese. Some of the Sutras and Commentaries translated by the wise translators centuries ago were also translated into Tibetan. Under the Indian language there is a sub-language called the Pali language, but the sutras and commentaries in Pali were not complete, on the contrary,the sutras and commentaries in Sanskrit are complete with both Hinayana and Mahanyana Sutras and Commentaries included.
Nowadays a complete version of Tripitaka is no longer existing in the Indian language.Only Tibetan and Chinese versions can be found. His Holiness once, in Ladakh, told us that many people in Ladakh suggested changing the language because the language used was in ancient style and very difficult to understand. So they turned to His Holiness for his advice. His Holiness said that no change should be made. The language used in the Himalaya Region is Tibetan. Though their spoken dialects are a little different, their writings all belong to the Tibetan language which is passed down by the ancient translators. If the language is changed, all the previously translated works will become useless. That is the opinion of His Holiness.
Under unavoidable circumstances, therefore, the language can be changed but the literary writing can absolutely not be changed. If we change the language because of having difficulty in understanding the literary writings, then the younger generation will no longer value the literary writings that we are using now. In China there are many Sutras and Commentaries translated long ago, but unfortunately, people nowadays do not use them. Chinese literary writing is very good. There are already many translated works. You should continue to use this type of literary writing to translate sutras. In this sense the quality of the translation will be great.
It is very hard to translate well in the modern vernacular Chinese. So it is not necessary to translate in the modern vernacular Chinese.If translated in English, it has to be translated in modern vernacular Chinese due to the limitation of the language.
There was a story in Khunu. There was only one copy of the Diamond Sutra in the village. Many people copied the Sutra. And thus there appeared to be many copies of the Sutras, but all of the copied versions had errors inside except the original one. From then on, most copies in circulation were those with errors inside. Only one copy was correct. The incorrect copies were popular among the local people. As a result, the correct copy was mistaken for the incorrect one and abandoned. Using the modern vernacular Chinese to do translation will cause similar problem. The story was told by a Rinpoche in Khunu. I’m afraid, we would also face the same problem if we are not cautious about it.
This kind of situation is currently happening in China. Most people do not know the ancient Chinese. Therefore debates arise about using ancient Chinese or modern vernacular Chinese. If we use the modern vernacular Chinese, we will face such crisis – the correct ones might be considered incorrect and vice versa because there are too many incorrect ones and too few correct ones. In the end, incorrect ones are likely to replace the correct ones. I’m not sure whether it will bring us help or harm to use the modern vernacular Chinese to do the translation.
A teacher once told his Holiness that he wanted to translate Buddhist Sutras. He said he wanted to translate the sutras by Indian Gurus such as Perfection of Wisdom in a Hundred Thousand Verses. This is beneficial, but also highly risky, especially when English is the target language.
To sum up, using the Chinese language to translate the sutras and commentaries is a better choice because large numbers of Sutras have already been translated in the past centuries. But using another literary writing to translate is at high risk. In this sense, the ancient Chinese must be valued. There is no need to translate the sutras and commentaries that had already been translated in the ancient Chinese, such as Mūlamadhyamakakārikā etc. People in Taiwan who know Chinese have no problem with using the literary writing. While in Europe, translation has to be started from the very beginning. Actually even people who know English cannot translate Sutras properly. You have a great classical literary writing, and that’s why you should preserve it in a proper way. Try to follow the writing of the sutras and commentaries translated from Indian by the great ancient translators. The quality of the translation will be great without changing the classical literary writing style. Undoubtedly, I’m against using the modern vernacular Chinese to translate the sutras and commentaries
This is to certify that Venerable Nawang Tashi is a monk scholar graduated from the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, Dharamsala H.P, India. This Institute was founded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1973 and is under the direct administration of the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Venerable Geshe Nawang Tashi studied over 16 years and completed study of all the five major texts of the Tibetan Buddhism. Later he went to Drepung Loseling Monastery, south India to pursue for his Geshe Degree and after getting the Geshe Degree, he joined Gyumed Tantric University , south India to study Tantara. Venerable Geshe Nawang Tashi was a sincere, trustworthy, diligent, hard working and exemplary student. He has been serving as a Chinese translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama for many years and has also been teaching Buddha Dharma to many Chinese speaking people from many different countries.
I am very pleased to learn that Venerable Nawang Tashi has founded a group called Buddha Geluk Pandita Translation Group in Taiwan in order to carry out the work of translating the Commentaries of the five major texts (Kapoe Nga) into Chinese language.
I am fully confident that this Translation Project will go long way in spreading the Buddha Dharma in general and particularly in enriching the knowledge of the Buddha Dharma amongst the Chinese speaking people throughout the world. Therefore, I fully support this important project and request each and every one of you to extend your generous assistance towards the fulfillment of the aims and objectives of this project.