Upcoming Translations

[ManiThePainter]

Hello everyone,

As someone with a keen interest in various Indian Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist texts, I wanted to start a thread to keep an eye on notable upcoming translation projects. As some of you might know, it can be rather hard to scavenge for information about various important translations.

I've kept an eye on John Dunne's translation of the Prasannapada, Matthew Kapstein's book on Sakya epistemology from LoTC, and Cyrus Stearns new translation of "Three Appearances," to name just a few examples.

If people have heard of other exciting projects through the grapevine, then I encourage them to share it here.

[Svalaksana]

Hey Mani,

These are the ones I'm currently awaiting with some expectation:

The Lamp for Integrating the Practices (Caryamelapakapradipa) : The Gradual Path of Vajrayana Buddhism According to the Esoteric Noble Tradition from Aryadeva, by Christian K. Wedemeyer

The Chakrasamvara Root Tantra : The Speech of Glorious Heruka, by David Gonsalez

Sounds of Innate Freedom : The Indian Texts of Mahamudra, Volume 5, by Karl Brunnhoelzl

Illuminating the Intent : An Exposition of Candrakirti's Entering the Middle Way from Je Tsongkhapa, by Thupten Jinpa Langri

Entering the Way of the Great Vehicle : Dzogchen as the Culmination of the Mahayana, by Dominic Sur

[Daniel Aitken]

There is a new translation just released in the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series called The Mind. The book weaves together translated passages from the works of great Buddhist thinkers such as Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Nāgārjuna, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti.

Please join us for the launch and discussion about the translation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama next week. More info here: https://wisdomexperience.org/wisdom-art ... -classics/

[ManiThePainter]

There is a new translation just released in the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series called The Mind. The book weaves together translated passages from the works of great Buddhist thinkers such as Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Nāgārjuna, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti.

Please join us for the launch and discussion about the translation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama next week. More info here: https://wisdomexperience.org/wisdom-art ... -classics/

Thanks for the info Daniel.

It is a shame though that nobody has ventured to do a full translation of any of Dignāga or Dharmakīrti's works yet. I was listening to your recent interview with John Dunne and I hope that he'll do a translation of the Pramanavarrtika one day.

[Svalaksana]

There is a new translation just released in the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series called The Mind. The book weaves together translated passages from the works of great Buddhist thinkers such as Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Nāgārjuna, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti.

Please join us for the launch and discussion about the translation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama next week. More info here: https://wisdomexperience.org/wisdom-art ... -classics/

Thanks for the info Daniel.

It is a shame though that nobody has ventured to do a full translation of any of Dignāga or Dharmakīrti's works yet. I was listening to your recent interview with John Dunne and I hope that he'll do a translation of the Pramanavarrtika one day.

Indeed, to have a complete English translation of the Pramanavarrtika would centainly be a noteworhty literary event.

I've been attempting to get my hands on anything from Dignaga and Dharmakirti over the past months, but so far I only managed to get the books Duckworth's "Dignaga on the Investigation of the Precept", Franco's "Dharmakirti on the Duality of the Object: Pramanavarrtika III 1-63" and Dreyfus' "Recognizing Reality: Dharmakirti's Philosophy and its Tibetan Interpretations". A few other loose chapter from Pramanavarrtika have been translated as well. In a near future I'll be getting as well Dunne's "Foundations of Dharmakirti's Philosophy" and "Establishing Validity : The First Chapter of Karmapa Chodrak Gyatso's Ocean of Literature on Logic & the Corresponding Chapter from Dharmakirti's Commentary on Validity". There are two other books on Dignaga, namely "Dignaga's Philosophy of Language" and "Dignaga on the Interpretation of Signs" but both are sold with an outrageous price.

[Daniel Aitken]

There is a new translation just released in the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series called The Mind. The book weaves together translated passages from the works of great Buddhist thinkers such as Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Nāgārjuna, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti.

Please join us for the launch and discussion about the translation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama next week. More info here: https://wisdomexperience.org/wisdom-art ... -classics/

Thanks for the info Daniel.

It is a shame though that nobody has ventured to do a full translation of any of Dignāga or Dharmakīrti's works yet. I was listening to your recent interview with John Dunne and I hope that he'll do a translation of the Pramanavarrtika one day.

Indeed, to have a complete English translation of the Pramanavarrtika would centainly be a noteworhty literary event.

Yes, I'd really like to publish a complete translation one day.

As you note we have quite a few pieces. Here is an incomplete list that I have:

Brendan Gillon and Richard Hayes, "Introduction to Dharmakīrti's Theory of inference as presented in Pramāṇavārttika Svopajñavṛtti 1–10," Journal of Indian Philosophy 19 (1991): 1–73.

Brendan Gillon and Richard Hayes, "Dharmakīrti on the role of causation in inference as presented in Pramāṇavārttika Svopajñavṛtti 11–38," Journal of Indian Philosophy 36 (2008): 335–404.

Vincent Eltschinger, John Taber, Michael Torsten Much, Isabelle Ratié, Dharmakīrti’s Theory of Exclusion (apoha), Part I. On Concealing. An Annotated Translation of Pramāṇavārttikasvavṛtti 24,16–45,20 (Pramāṇavārttika 1.40–91) (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2018).

Eltschinger, Vincent, Helmut Krasser, John Taber (2012), Can the Veda Speak? Dharmakīrti against Mīmāṃsā Exegetics and Vedic Authority, An Annotated Translation of PVSV 164,24-176,16, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

John Dunne, Foundations of Dharmakīrti's Philosophy (Wisdom, 2004) includes English translations of I.34–37, 68–75, 137–142, 214–223, parts of II, III.1–10, 194–224.

Tom Tillemans, Dharmakīrti's Pramāṇavārttika. An Annotated Translation of the Fourth Chapter (parārthānumāna) (Volume 1, k. 1–148), (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000).


Cheers,

Daniel

[ManiThePainter]

Cheers,

Daniel

A lot of good stuff, Daniel. I appreciate the contribution to the thread.

While the Library of Tibetan Classics is overseeing a commendable output of Tibetan works, so many Indian Mahayana Buddhist texts still need to be translated. There are also many which have been translated but are in need of serious revamping.

These are some texts which I think are rather crucial and which lack translations:

Chandrakirti's commentary on Nagarjuna's Seventy Stanzas
Chandrakirti's auto-commentary to his Madhyamakavatara
A fully translated commentary by Chandrakirti on Aryadeva's Four Hundred Verses (Karen Lang has done a partial translation)
A revamped version of Vasubandhu's commentary on the Mahayanasutralamkara (the Thurman version seems a little odd at this point)
Sthiramati's commentary on the Mahayanasutralamkara
The Akutobhaya to Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamaka-karika
Buddhapalita's vrrti on the Mulamadhyamaka-karika
Haribhadra's Sphutartha
Shantarakshita's Tattvasamgraha and Kamalashila's commentary
Shantarakshita's auto-commentary and Kamalashila's commentary to his Madhyamakalamkara

Since the Indian Buddhist texts provide the backbone of much of Tibetan Buddhism, I think it's absolutely integral to have many of these available before we can even begin to talk about Tibetan commentaries and independent work. As a long time lurker (now poster) on this forum, I have seen a lot of people who arrive at partial conclusions (me included) or take Tibetan conclusions (many of which are praiseworthy) at face value without having seen the original Indian text. For many Westerners, the literary landscape has become cluttered with Buddhist literature from all periods and vehicles, leading to an often anachronistic understanding of various texts. It is amazing that we have access to all of this but we're still a long way from the home stretch.

Obviously many of us have a responsibility to learn Tibetan to know our tradition better but for those who are not yet sufficiently advanced or those for whom learning Tibetan is simply not an option, the current translation endeavour in the West is of utmost importance and should be praised.

[Svalaksana]

Thanks Daniel, that's a nice little list of Dharmakirti's translations and publications. Really hope you can get the whole book put out by Wisdom one day.

Could not agree more with you, Mani. All those books you mentioned seem fundamental to our understanding of Buddhism's thought and history. Hopefully they'll eventually see the light of day under a full English translation.

[ManiThePainter]

I also completely forgot:

Bhavaviveka's Madhyamaka-hrdaya with auto-commentary
Bhavaviveka's commentary on Nagarjuna's mulamadhyamakakarika

He gets a lot of flak but is integral in order to understand the historical discourse between him, Buddhapalita and Chandrakirti.

[Svalaksana]

Cheers,

Daniel

Buddhapalita's vrrti on the Mulamadhyamaka-karika

Hey Mani, I think you'll be just as glad as I am, to learn that this is currently under translation by Ian James Coghlan as "Buddhapalita's Commentary on Nagarjuna's Middle Way", to be released by Wisdom Publications in the 30th of November, if all goes well. It's exciting to finally be able to lay one's hands on such an influential work.

[ManiThePainter]

Hey Mani, I think you'll be just as glad as I am, to learn that this is currently under translation by Ian James Coghlan as "Buddhapalita's Commentary on Nagarjuna's Middle Way", to be released by Wisdom Publications in the 30th of November, if all goes well. It's exciting to finally be able to lay one's hands on such an influential work.

That is truly great news!

I believe that Coghlan had been the intended translator for the Buddhapalitavrrti translation project some years ago but I assumed that the project had failed. It seems that he has translated it anyway so that is absolutely excellent. A truly valuable contribution that I'm really looking forward to.

[ratna]

Shantarakshita's Tattvasamgraha and Kamalashila's commentary

FWIW, there is a really old translation of this: https://archive.org/details/Tattvasangr ... 5/mode/2up

[ManiThePainter]

Shantarakshita's Tattvasamgraha and Kamalashila's commentary

FWIW, there is a really old translation of this: https://archive.org/details/Tattvasangr ... 5/mode/2up

Very interesting. Will give it a look.

Appreciate it Ratna.

[ManiThePainter]

Just an exciting update:

It has come to my attention that the 84000 Foundation has made a very generous grant to John Dunne as well as (I’m sure) Sarah McClintock for the completion of Candrakirti’s Prasannapada.

As some of you might be aware, McClintock and Dunne have been working on this project for two decades. It seems that a certain J. S. Manheim will also be a part of the completed project. I feared that the project may have floundered but it now looks to be flowering in the near future.

This is great news for these degenerate and dark times.

[Svalaksana]

Just an exciting update:

It has come to my attention that the 84000 Foundation has made a very generous grant to John Dunne as well as (I’m sure) Sarah McClintock for the completion of Candrakirti’s Prasannapada.

As some of you might be aware, McClintock and Dunne have been working on this project for two decades. It seems that a certain J. S. Manheim will also be a part of the completed project. I feared that the project may have floundered but it now looks to be flowering in the near future.

This is great news for these degenerate and dark times.

These are amazing news indeed, Mani. I'm stoked about this development as well and will eagerly await for this publication to come out. Thanks for letting us know.

[Archie2009]

Ian Coghlan's translation of Buddhapālita's commentary on the MMK is out today and finally the look inside feature on Amazon has been enabled. After reading the sample, I can only hope my copy will arrive soon.

[ManiThePainter]

This is indeed very exciting.

I’ve been reading the introduction and Coghlan mentions that he has used three of Tsongkhapa’s works as references. I wonder if this will have had any influence on the way the text is interpreted in English.

[Malcolm]

This is indeed very exciting.

I’ve been reading the introduction and Coghlan mentions that he has used three of Tsongkhapa’s works as references. I wonder if this will have had any influence on the way the text is interpreted in English.

I did a preliminary translation of the first 7 chapters, years ago, it looks fine, other than his decision to merge dharmata and tathata into a single term.

[ManiThePainter]

I did a preliminary translation of the first 7 chapters, years ago, it looks fine, other than his decision to merge dharmata and tathata into a single term.

[Svalaksana]

This is indeed very exciting.

I’ve been reading the introduction and Coghlan mentions that he has used three of Tsongkhapa’s works as references. I wonder if this will have had any influence on the way the text is interpreted in English.

I did a preliminary translation of the first 7 chapters, years ago, it looks fine, other than his decision to merge dharmata and tathata into a single term.

Thanks for the info and reassurance, Malcolm.