Translating Buddhist Texts: Bringing the Sacred Dharma to the World

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), as well as to review the translation of the 21-chapter edition.

Help sponsor this translation: US$22,000.

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

Help sponsor this translation: US$6,000.

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.

Help sponsor this translation: US$6,000.

A Meditation Manual on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment by Paṇchen Losang Yeshe.
Translator: Toh Sze Gee

Translator: Ven. Gyalten Lekden

Joona Repo is currently the FPMT Translation Coordinator. He manages, edits, and reviews translations for Education Services and also coordinates the development of our translation policy. Joona has translated many sadhanas, prayers, and practice texts for FPMT such as the Six-Session Guru Yoga, the Sixty-Four Offerings, the Practices of Arya Sitatapatra, and various works on Vajrayogini, including the self-initiation ritual Quick Path to Khechara.

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. Gyalten Lekden was born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. He first started studying and practicing Buddhism during his undergraduate studies. After completing BAs in Theater and Religious Studies, he continued on to complete his Master of Divinity in Buddhist Ministry at Harvard Divinity School. 

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.

Ven. Geshe Tenzin Namdak first worked as an environmental researcher having graduated in hydrology. He started studying Buddhism at Maitreya Instituut in the Netherlands in 1993 and took ordination from His Holiness the Dalai Lama before engaging in his formal studies in Buddhist philosophy and psychology at Sera Je Monastic University in 1997. He completed the entire twenty-year geshe program in 2017 and the traditional one-year Vajrayana study program at Gyume Tantric College in January 2019, the first Westerner to do so.

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.

Conni Krause participated in the seven-year Systematic Study of Buddhism program under Geshe Thubten Ngawang in Hamburg from 1990 to 1997. She is also a graduate of FPMT’s Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo Translator Program (LRZTP) in Dharamsala and served as an interpreter for Geshe Thubten Soepa at Aryatara Institut in Munich.

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.

Ven. Fedor Stracke has been a Buddhist monk since 1988 and spent over fifteen years studying at Sera Je Monastic University and attending public teachings given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since 1996, Ven. Fedor has been teaching in FPMT centers and has served as an Tibetan interpreter for various geshes. He currently teaches the Basic Program at Kopan Monastery in Nepal and at Aryatara Institut in Munich, Germany.

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.