Translating the Tibetan Buddhist canon : past strategies, future prospects
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction = International Journal of Interpretation and Translation
Publication Date
10-1-2011
Volume
9
Issue
2
First Page
157
Last Page
186
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Keywords
Tibet, translation, translation history, Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist translation
Abstract
This paper is a companion piece to a previous paper published in this journal (Raine 2010), whichfocused on the identity of the translators in Tibetan history and the context in which they worked.In this paper, the focus is on the formation and contents of the Tibetan Buddhist canon and thetranslation strategies used by the Tibetans during their nine centuries of translating IndianBuddhist texts. Guidelines for translation laid down by King Tride Songtsen (r. 799-815) areexamined and analyzed, followed by a discussion of how these protocols were used by later translators, scholars and editors of the Tibetan canon. As with the earlier paper, in this paper thehistorical study of translation is linked to present times, with the final section devoted toexamining recent efforts to render the Tibetan Buddhist canon into English and other languages.Institutional imperatives to coordinate this work, and the practices and norms that have beenestablished for translation, are discussed. As Tibetan Buddhism continues its process of transmission to countries in the West and beyond, how translators choose to render these oftenrecondite religious texts into multiple languages will be of great interest to scholars of bothtranslation and Buddhist studies.
Print ISSN
15987647
E-ISSN
2451909X
Publisher Statement
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Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Raine, R. (2011). Translating the Tibetan Buddhist canon: Past strategies, future prospects. Forum, 9(2), 157-186.