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Translating Buddhist Texts: Bringing the Sacred Dharma to the World
English Translations | Resources for Readers | Current Translation Projects | Translators
As the Dharma takes root in the West, clear and accurate translations of Buddhist texts, prayers, and teachings are crucial. FPMT Translation Services oversees the translation, editing, publishing, and updating of English translations of sadhanas, prayers, rituals, sutras, commentaries on philosophy and tantra, and key texts for FPMT students and Education Services programs. We work with translators around the world and collaborate with regional translation offices and groups to translate texts into Chinese, French, German, Spanish, and other languages.
Thank you so much for your support!
English Translations
In order to help preserve the integrity and accuracy of the Gelug textual tradition in English, FPMT Translation Services aims to release high-quality translations that are accessible to practitioners and produced with scholarly rigor.
In 2011, FPMT hosted its first international translation conference, Taking Up the Challenge of Translating Buddhism, at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy. Following the conference, the FPMT Translation Services team—together with the Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translation Team (LRZTT) composed of FPMT-affiliated translators and the FPMT Translation and Editorial Board (TEB)—began the long-term project of compiling a Tibetan-English glossary for the organization. The purpose of this ongoing project is to create consistency throughout FPMT translations.
Taking up The Challenge of Translating Buddhism conference participants at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in 2011.
We constantly strive to improve the quality of our translations. FPMT Translation Services employs a multi-stage editorial process for all of our texts that includes not only content and copy editing, but also a review by a second translator. Over the recent years, we have further improved the consistency of our translations through the compilation and use of databases for common stanzas, mantras, and deity names. Also, we now transliterate all Sanskrit terms in our texts in order to aid readers in correct Sanskrit pronunciation as well as preserve the accuracy and efficacy of mantras.
Resources for Readers
- A Guide to Sanskrit Transliteration and Pronunciation
This document gives a brief introduction to the transliteration of Sanskrit found in FPMT translations.
Current Translation Projects
The FPMT Translation Fund supports the critical work of translating classic texts and sutras from the original Tibetan into English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Mongolian, and other languages. These translations support FPMT’s Masters Program and Basic Program as well as providing essential practice materials that have been advised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
The Tibetan canon contains three different editions of the Sutra of Golden Light—a 21-chapter edition, a 29-chapter edition, and a 31-chapter edition. The sutra contains a variety of teachings and its recitation is a cause for global harmony and peace, as well as a source of vast merit. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has made a personal vow to preserve and propagate this sutra and it is his vision to translate all three versions of the sutra from Tibetan, making them available in as many languages as possible.
At Rinpoche’s behest, the 21-chapter edition of the Sutra of Golden Light was translated into English in 2005 by Losang Dawa and subsequently translated into many other languages. Work is currently underway to translate the 29-chapter (translator: Rhonwen Sayer) and 31-chapter edition (Berthe Jansen).
The Ksitigarbha Ten Wheels Sutra is a discourse in eight chapters delivered by the Buddha, primarily dealing with ethics, conduct, and practices of those ordained within his teachings as well as the conduct of society in general toward his disciples.
Translator: Gavin Kilty
This is a commentary to the Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayalamkara) by Gyaltsab Darma Rinchen. It
includes Maitreya’s Ornament for Clear Realization and Haribhadra’s Commentary: Clear Meaning.
Translator: Toh Sze Gee
Brilliant Rays of the Sun Blooming the Lotus of Faith, A Guide to the Most Sacred Five-Peaked Mountain of China composed by Vajradhara Changkya Rolpai Dorje, (lcang skya rol pa’i rdo rje), edited and introduced by Wutaishan scholar Wen-shing Chou.
The Five-Peaked mountain, also known as, “Manjushri Mountain” or “Wutaishan” is one of the most significant places of pilgrimage in China and this guide is the most renowned and historically important text on the area. While having long been the foremost pilgrimage guide for Chinese travelers, the text has never before been translated into English and FPMT Education Services thanks Tenzin Gesar and Wen-shing Chou for their perseverance to get it done.
We offer you here an excerpt from this most inspiring text:
Long before the time of Emperor Mingdi of the Han Dynasty, those who lived at the base of the Five-Peaked Mountain talked about how, when seen from a distance, amazing light rays appeared on the five mountains; how at night, miraculous lamps could be seen floating again and again in the sky, leading everyone to discuss how it was a divine place. From a distance, they would also see a divine youth with five knotted locks of hair on his head and wearing three garments. Sometimes he would be seen walking alone and at other times, he would be seen playing with other young people. When approached, the visions would disappear. Such incidents happened many times.
Specifically, a minister named Wuxu once came to this place chasing a deer. At that time, he saw within a cloud as clear as water a youth wearing loose garments. The youth was peaceful, handsome, and golden in color. Wuxu did a divination that revealed it would be good if green vegetables were offered to the youth. He immediately stopped his pursuit of the deer and returned. Later, the teachings of the Buddha flourished there. Since then, they have known that the youth with the five knotted locks of hair was an emanation of the Venerable Manjushri.
A Meditation Manual on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment by Paṇchen Losang Yeshe.
Translator: Toh Sze Gee
Translator: Ven. Gyalten Lekden
“The gift of Dharma surpasses all gifts” – Dhammapada (Verse 354)
We welcome you to sponsor the translation of these precious texts. If you would like to sponsor the translation of the text in its entirety, please contact François Lecointre directly. If you would like make a donation of any amount toward the project, please click on the donate button below.
Translators
Our translators live in every part of the world and bring extensive Dharma and language knowledge to their work as translators.
Some of our English Language translators:
Joona has a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and has held postdoctoral teaching and research positions with a focus on Tibetan art and/or religious history at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Heidelberg University, and the University of Helsinki, and has completed a visiting lectureship at Rangjung Yeshe Institute. His published research includes studies of Gelug history, particularly on Phabongkha Dechen Nyingpo, and work on Tibetan Buddhist painting and architecture.
Toh Sze Gee holds a BSc with honors in mathematics as well as a postgraduate diploma in education. After teaching in a junior college in Singapore for several years, she joined the seven-year residential Masters Program at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (ILTK) in 1998, from which she graduated with high honors. Since then she has been teaching regular Dharma courses in Singapore and translating texts from Tibetan into English for the FPMT Basic Program and Masters Program.
Sze Gee was well known among her fellow Masters Program students for her incredible energy both for study and Dharma practice. True to form, she accepted and served not only as teaching assistant for Ornament for Clear Realizations during ILTK’s second Masters Program but also as an Tibetan-English interpreter. During that time, she completed translating Gyaltsab Je’s commentary to Ornament, including the Haribhadra commentary and Maitreya’s root verses. She is currently working on finalizing the translation in preparation for publication.
Sze Gee has since acted as an interpreter for Geshe Ngawang Drakpa at FPMT’s Tse Chen Ling in California and has been a teaching assistant for the Masters Program at Nalanda Monastery in France. She recently completed the translation of Chokyi Gyaltsen’s General Meaning of the Middle Way, another important Masters Program text, and currently supports the Masters Program as a teaching assistant by video from Singapore.
Gavin Kilty spent over a decade in Dharamsala, India, studying the Gelug monastic curriculum at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics and becoming proficient in Tibetan. After returning to the UK, he trained and worked as an English-language teacher, and since the late ’90s, he has worked as a Tibetan-English translator. He is also a teacher of Tibetan language and has taught courses for the FPMT’s Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program in Dharamsala, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa in Italy, and Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London.
Gavin is a full-time translator for the Institute of Tibetan Classics. His completed works include Ornament of Stainless Light: An Exposition of the Kālacakra Tantra; Mirror of Beryl: A Historical Introduction to Tibetan Medicine; Tsongkhapa’s A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages: Teachings on Guhyasamāja Tantra; and Tales from the Tibetan Operas: The Eight Great Folk Operas of Tibet. His other translations include The Splendor of an Autumn Moon: The Devotional Verse of Tsongkhapa; The Life of My Teacher: A Biography of Ling Rinpoché by His Holiness the Dalai Lama; and Understanding the Case Against Shukden by the International Gelugpa Foundation.
Gavin is a translation reviewer for 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, and as a member of the FPMT Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translation Team, he participated in the discussions that formed the basis for the compilation of FPMT’s glossary of preferred terms.
Gavin contributes to the FPMT Basic Program as a visiting teacher and translated “The Tathāgata Essence,” the first chapter of the standard Basic Program commentary on the Uttaratantra by Gyaltsab Je. He is currently working on a translation of the Daśacakra Kṣitigarbha Sutra for FPMT Education Services.
Ven. Lekden started leading Buddhist communities while an undergraduate and has studied, served, and taught at various Dharma centers since then. In 2012, he joined Sera Je Monastic University in southern India where he continues to practice and study in the geshe program.
Ven. Lekden is an FPMT registered teacher and has given talks and meditation instruction in India and the United States. He has translated a number of sadhanas, prayers, and other texts for FPMT.
Geshe Namdak has interpreted from Tibetan into English for over a decade at various teaching events, is an interpreter for the annual ordination rituals with His Holiness in Dharamsala, and was a founding teacher of Sera Je’s Translators Program and member of Sera Je’s Education Department for six years. Currently, he teaches at Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London and at other centers in Europe and in India. He translated a cycle of texts related with Chenrezig Gyalwa Gyatso and various prayers and practices for FPMT Education Services and is working on several translation projects, including Khedrub Je’s Clearing Mental Darkness: An Ornament of Dharmakīrti’s “Seven Treatises on Valid Cognition”; Vinaya material; and practices related with Guhyasamāja.
Philip has translated three short booklets on vegetarianism by Geshe Thubten Soepa as well as texts by the 19th-century Mongolian scholar Agvaanbaldan. In cooperation with Conni Krause, he translated Je Tsongkhapa’s Middle Length Lamrim from Tibetan into English for FPMT’s Basic Program. This work is to be published by Wisdom Publications shortly.
Other Language Translations and Translators:
Connie has translated Je Tsongkhapa’s Middle Length Lamrim from the original Tibetan into German and has helped to make available Discovering Buddhism and the Basic Program texts as well as the FPMT Essential Buddhist Prayers books in German.
He has translated the Commentary to “Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds” (spyod ’jug tikka) by Gyaltsab Je, a standard Basic Program text, and Losang Chokyi Gyaltsen’s Wisdom Debating Ignorance (gshaga ‘debs), from Tibetan into English. For the Basic Program in Munich, Ven. Fedor has translated various Basic Program texts into German.
