new Mahayanasutralamkara

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Nicholas Weeks
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new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Padmakara came out with another English version of the Sutralamkara with Ju Mipham's commentary. The root text alone is in the first section and then Mipham's comments with the root text is there. Glossary, Bibliography & Index etc.

Have only skimmed it - others can review the translation quality. Titled as A Feast of Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle, around $45 at Walmart or $35 for an e-pub version.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Admin_PC »

Nice find! :twothumbsup:
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Thomas Amundsen »

Sweet! Have been waiting for this... Padmakara apparently has a number of translations in the pipeline.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Most of the major scholars & lamas involved:
This translation was made at the request of our teachers Pema Wangyal Rinpoche and Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche, who also conferred the transmission of the root text and Mipham’s commentary as well as answering some of our numerous questions. To them, first and foremost, we owe an immense debt of gratitude. We are also deeply grateful to Alak Zenkar Rinpoche, Khenchen Pema Sherab, Khenpo Sönam Tsewang, Khenpo Tenzin Norgay, and Khenpo Tseten for their unstinting help with many difficult points. In particular, we would like to thank Khenpo Shedrup Palden, who spent many hours going through almost two-thirds of the text with the principal translator, Stephen Gethin. Thanks are due too to his colleagues in the Padmakara Translation Group, John Canti, Helena Blankleder, Wulstan Fletcher, and Patrick Carré for their many helpful suggestions, and to Art Engle for sharing his knowledge of the Sanskrit text and his draft translation of Asaṅga’s Bodhisattvabhūmi.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

First few verses for comparison with other translations:
Homage to all the buddhas and bodhisattvas.

1. He who knows the meaning created a composition showing that meaning with flawless speech and phrasing
Out of natural compassion for suffering beings in order to free them from suffering.
For beings who follow the way expounded in the Supreme Vehicle,
He revealed the nature of five unexcelled metaphors:
2. The crafting of a piece of gold, the blossoming of a lotus flower,
Eating well-cooked food when starving,
Hearing good news, and opening a chest of jewels—
These illustrate the sublime delights the teachings set forth here will bring.
3. When those of natural and ornamented beauty behold themselves
Reflected in a glass, it brings them consummate delight.
So too, when the meaning of the Dharma, whose excellent words are always naturally full of virtues,
Is clarified, it brings the wise the greatest joy.
4. Like medicine that smells foul
Yet tastes quite sweet,
Know that the Dharma also has two aspects—
The meaning and the words.
5. This difficult Dharma, extensive and profound,
Is like a monarch—difficult to please;
Yet if pleased, it likewise will bestow
The riches of sublime qualities.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

FOREWORD

JIGME KHYENTSE RINPOCHE

In an age when science claims to have an answer for everything and is even attempting to prove the validity of Buddhist meditation, while many people’s ideas about different religions and spiritual paths reduce these to simplistic and misleading stereotypes, it is hard to comprehend the true breadth and profundity of the Buddha’s teachings. During his lifetime, Buddha Śākyamuni taught on countless occasions, on many different levels, and to different individuals, in order to help each particular person understand something that would bring him or her closer to enlightenment. For us to consider the vast scope of these teachings is as mind-blowing and awe-inspiring as gazing into the immensity of space.
In the Sūtrālaṃkāra, the Buddha’s regent, Maitreya, brings this vast array of teachings together, arranging them in an orderly fashion and putting them into perspective so that we can begin to understand them and use them as a path to enlightenment. Of the three principal aspects of the path—view, meditation, and conduct—this text, like Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryāvatāra), deals mainly with the view and conduct of the great bodhisattvas, whose sole aim is the enlightenment of all beings...

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras is the longest and most wide ranging of the five treatises that Ārya Asaṅga received from the Buddha Maitreya and brought back from the Tuṣita heaven. It is also the work that perhaps most obviously testifies to Asaṅga’s mission to spread the message of the Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna) at a time when the teachings, in particular the Abhidharma, were threatened with decline, for it serves as a veritable manifesto for the Great Vehicle, describing in detail the attractions of the bodhisattva path. Its beautiful descriptions of the qualities of the bodhisattva are widely quoted throughout Tibetan Buddhist literature, and in the monastic colleges of the Nyingma school it is included among the thirteen most important source texts studied in the curriculum. Many Tibetan masters have been inspired to write commentaries on it, among them the celebrated Nyingma scholar Jamgön Mipham (1846–1912), who was an outstanding proponent of the nonsectarian movement founded by such masters as Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and Jamgön Kongtrul. It is his commentary, based on an authoritative Indian commentary, that we have chosen to translate here....
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Having spent a few days reading this Padmakara version, I find in preferable to the the Dharmachakra one from 2013. Both convey the meaning well enough yet the Padmakara version is smoother, for my taste anyway. Also the root text standing alone is good for recitation purposes.

The only flyspeck on both versions is their use of Mipham's outline. Neither bothered to add the verse(s) number after the headings. Guess it stimulates memory in the reader, or one can pencil in the verse numbers.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

In Mipham's comments on the Practice chapter, verse 9, he writes:
In this way they make full use of skillful means, as taught in the Sūtra of the Perfectly Pure Sphere of Activity. When they enter a town, bodhisattvas pray: “May all sentient beings enter the city of supreme liberation.” When they set out on a journey: “May all beings set out on the path of the Great Vehicle.” When they climb a flight of steps: “May all beings ascend the staircase to liberation.” When they wash: “May all beings’ karmic actions and defilements be purified.” When they light a fire: “May the fire of gnosis consume all beings’ thoughts.” And so on.
Neither the Dharmachakra nor this Padmakara version say much about this 'lost' sutra, the Gocaraparisuddhi-sūtra.

However it sounds very much like chapter 11, the Purifying Practice chapter of the Chinese translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra. Whether the Tibetan version includes this chapter or not I do not know.
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Re: Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Wonder if Sylvain Levi's French translation, circa 1907, was ever put into English?

The polyglot version at U. of Oslo has the French. https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index ... ume&vid=85
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

A fine remark by Ju Mipham in Padmakara translation:
The points taught in all the Mahāyāna sūtras can be condensed into two: profound and extensive. The profound teachings can be summarized as suchness devoid of dualistic conceptual constructs such as subject and object, and self and other. Even though they are extensively explained in terms of different aspects, ultimately that is what they boil down to. The extensive teachings can all be summarized as ground, path, and result. The ground includes the two truths; the path includes the two accumulations; and the result includes the two buddha bodies. Thus the teachings are considered in combination.
Now the Dharmachakra translation:
All of the meanings taught in the Great Vehicle sūtras are subsumed within the profound and the vast. In summary, observing integration with respect to the profound meaning is to comprehend, for instance, that the profound meaning is contained within the suchness free from the constructs of dualistic phenomena, such as apprehended and apprehender, and self and other. Likewise, it is to understand that this is always how it is, regardless of the amount of elaboration that may be used when accounting for the way things appear. As for the phenomena of the vast, one observes their integration by understanding them to comprise the ground, path, and fruition, and by further knowing the ground to be composed of the two truths, the path of the two accumulations, and the fruition of the two bodies.
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Re: Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Taracandra »

Nicholas Weeks wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:36 pm Wonder if Sylvain Levi's French translation, circa 1907, was ever put into English?

The polyglot version at U. of Oslo has the French. https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index ... ume&vid=85
The polyglot Oslo version is a literal copy of Levi's, but collects also the Chinese, Tibetan, and of course the French version of Levi. English is not used here. This is useful if you work in Tibetan and Sanskrit, or Chinese.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Taracandra »

Please do consider our HTML version : https://www.taracandra.org/MSA/MSA9/MSA9.html
Which is in active development, and complete through chapter 9 'Bodhi'.

This is a multipart document. Usage is described here: https://www.taracandra.org/VacasPati/VacasPati.html

One best might use it as separate browser windows in :
Sanskrit, English, Interlingua, Commentary, lexicon

There is only one version, read online, actively updated.

This work is in the Dharma, free of all charges, passwords, cookies, or downloads.

The merit to Maitreya and all sentient beings.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Taracandra wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:38 am Please do consider our HTML version : https://www.taracandra.org/MSA/MSA9/MSA9.html
Which is in active development, and complete through chapter 9 'Bodhi'.

This is a multipart document. Usage is described here: https://www.taracandra.org/VacasPati/VacasPati.html

One best might use it as separate browser windows in :
Sanskrit, English, Interlingua, Commentary, lexicon

There is only one version, read online, actively updated.

This work is in the Dharma, free of all charges, passwords, cookies, or downloads.

The merit to Maitreya and all sentient beings.
Please post a single URL for the English version, I cannot find it.
May all seek, find & follow the Path of Buddhas.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Taracandra »

Taracandra wrote: Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:38 am Please do consider our HTML version : https://www.taracandra.org/MSA/MSA9/MSA9.html
Which is in active development, and complete through chapter 9 'Bodhi'.

This is a multipart document. Usage is described here: https://www.taracandra.org/VacasPati/VacasPati.html

One best might use it as separate browser windows in :
Sanskrit, English, Interlingua, Commentary, lexicon

There is only one version, read online, actively updated.

This work is in the Dharma, free of all charges, passwords, cookies, or downloads.

The merit to Maitreya and all sentient beings.
Please read the instructions, else one can not select a book, then chapter, then format, i.e. English, or the fully tagged Lexicon ::
https://www.taracandra.org/VacasPati/VacasPati.html
Nicholas Weeks
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Please read the instructions, else one can not select a book, then chapter, then format, i.e. English, or the fully tagged Lexicon ::
https://www.taracandra.org/VacasPati/VacasPati.html

If I understood the instructions I would not be asking for your help. Not all Buddhists are smart - this Nicholas for example.
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

crazy-man wrote: Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:52 am
Nicholas Weeks wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:08 pm
Please post a single URL for the English version, I cannot find it.
https://www.taracandra.org/MSA/MSA9/MSA9Eng.html
the content of the website is really fantastic but the menu control is very cruel...;-)
Grateful prostrations to crazy-man :bow: :bow: :bow:

One just changes the digit 9 in both places to the chapter # and English appears!
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Now that one can compare - the English is ... quaint & often opaque. Some linguist may explain why-so. Compare these first two verses of chapter one with the Padmakara version in my 28 Nov. post:
Kārikā Prathamaḥ
The way of wisdom knowing, for a means of contemplation, enacts, ‸ a revered text, with rays of light and with purities. ¦

Of sorrow, in the following guiding miserableness of born ones, ‸ from compassion, absorbed in that, |

of the dharma, from the very highest way taught solemn act, ‸ in these living beings, thither, in obtaining, ¦

for being adhered to the art of the way of fate, for an unsurpassed manner of going, ‸ for the five nature°d, t'was made visible. || 1.1 ||

Kārikā Dvitīyaḥ
Forged, indeed, to gold, ‸ tis to the water born, otherwise to the awakened. ¦

For piety, just so, for being satiated, ‸ tis for being consumed, the hunger, by these maladies. |

Knowledge, like that, tis a good book, ‸ a jewel·basket, just so, set free. ¦

The publicity, in this world, it is upstanding virtue, ‸ for rapture foremost best, tis manifest. || 1.2 ||
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Taracandra »

The Interlingua ::

Kārikā Prathamaḥ
The artha.jña, for artha vibhāvanā, prakurute°s,‸ (a) vācā, with pada°s and amala°s, ¦

of duḥkhasya, in the uttara·ṇāya duḥkhita jane, ‸ from kāruṇyatas, tan·mayaḥ, |

Of dharma, from the uttama°st yāna deśita°d vidhi, ‸ in these sattva°s, thither, in gāmin°ng, ¦

For being śliṣṭā°d to the artha gati, for niruttara°d gata°ng, ‸ for the pañca·ātmikā, (ā)darśayan || 1.1 ||

Kārikā Dvitīyaḥ
Ghaṭita'd, indeed, to suvarṇa, ‸ (tis) to the vāri·ja, otherwise to the vibuddha. ¦

To sukṛta, just so, to subhojya, ‸ (tis) for being bhujyamāna°d, the kṣudhā, by these ārta°s. |

Vidita, like that, (tis a) sulekha, ‸ (a) ratna peṭa, just so, muktā. ¦

The vivṛta, in this world, it (is) dharma, ‸ for the prīti agryā, (tis) dadhāti. || 1.2 ||
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Re: new Mahayanasutralamkara

Post by Taracandra »

The original Sanskrit ::

Kārikā Prathamaḥ

Artha·jñas, artha vibhāvanāṃ, prakurute, ‸ vācā, padaiś ca amalair, ¦

duḥkhasya, uttara ṇāya duḥkhita jane, ‸ kāruṇyatas, tan·mayaḥ, |

dharmasya, uttama yāna deśita vidheḥ, ‸ sattveṣu, tad gāmiṣu, ¦

Śliṣṭām, artha gatiṃ, niruttara gataṃ, ‸ pañca ātmikāṃ, darśayan. || 1.1 ||

Kārikā Dvitīyaḥ

Ghaṭitam, iva, suvarṇaṃ, ‸ vāri·jaṃ, vā vibuddhaṃ. ¦

Sukṛtam, iva, subhojyaṃ, ‸ bhujyamānaṃ, kṣudhā, ārtaiḥ. |

Vidita, iva, sulekho, ‸ ratna peṭa, iva, muktā. ¦

Vivṛta, iha, sa dharmaḥ, ‸ prītim agryāṃ, dadhāti. || 1.2 ||
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