Website of the Arya Sanghata Sutra


Things to Do with the Sanghāta

Translating the Sanghāta into other Languages

The very same day that Rinpoche first read the Sanghāta while attending teachings by Geshe Sopa Rinpoche in 2002, Lama Zopa Rinpoche determined to have the Sanghāta translated into "all the languages," as Rinpoche put it. Thus far, at Rinpoche's request and urging, the text has been translated into English, Vietnamese, Japanese, French, German and Italian, and a Spanish translation was spontaneously offered by a Mexican student who had also been attending Geshe Sopa Rinpoche's teachings. Dutch and Portuguese translations are also in progress. For those who speak languages into which the Sanghāta has not been translated, translating it to make the benefits of the text available to its speakers is an immensely meritorious activity.

Another, shorter-term, way to offer language skills to serve the Sanghāta would be to translate pages from this website so others can read about the sutra. If you have a wish to contribute your service in that way, please contact us.  

Getting Started

Should you have a wish to translate the Sanghāta, please contact us for extensive resources to aid you in that process, including an annotated version of the English translation from Tibetan with many footnotes comparing to the Sanskrit and explaining why particular words are used. If you are thinking of translating from English into your language (rather than from Sanskrit or Tibetan), you will need to receive written permission to do so from the English translator. Permission will be granted freely to qualified persons, but there is a review process to make sure that all the versions of the sutra that circulate in various languages are of the highest levels of accuracy and linguistic quality. (After all, these are the words of the Buddha.) To apply for permission to translate the English version, click here. Please note that a final and complete translation from the Tibetan will be available by the end of December, 2005, and all new translations from the English should be made from that. 

Message to Translators

Thank you for your willingness to make this text available to readers in yet another language. If you contemplate that Buddha was endowed with perfect knowledge not only of the needs of the beings of his time, but of all the three times—past, present and future—this also indicates that the Buddha anticipated us readers in the 21st century, and left this teaching in the world for us, not just for his audience in ancient India. In helping actualize the future that Buddha envisioned, in which the Sanghāta is 'still active on this planet earth', you take a small step towards repaying Buddha's immense kindness in teaching the sutra.

Translating this text is a beautiful offering to the buddhas and to sentient beings both. But in undertaking to make this offering, you also accept a huge responsibility.

Some things to reflect on as you translate: The sutra was taught by the Buddha, who was infinitely more skilled and subtle than us. Be prepared to be humbled, and to have many moments of uncertainty when translating this text. To read of the experiences of Christian Charrier, who translated the Sanghāta from Tibetan into French, click here.

Transforming this sutra into a new linguistic form is a massive responsibility. In order to ensure that these readers actually receive the benefits of the Sanghāta Sūtra, it is imperative that great care be taken to make sure that the translation remains highly accurate. For this reason, we ask you not to insert clarifications or to delete repetitions, and to the highest possible degree, avoid making interpretive decisions just because the English or Tibetan seems ambiguous. As mentioned elsewhere on this site , although to our modern sensibility, some of the repetition or ambiguity may seem unnecessary or uncomfortable, we should be confident that Buddha knew what he was doing! For example, the repetition of titles at the beginning of each name in the beginning of the sutra may help to induce a meditative state in those who recite or hear them. We must assume this ambiguity too has a purpose in leading us to enlightenment. If nothing else, we may consider that since each Mahayana sutra was taught as the direct antidote to a delusion, perhaps the Sanghāta was taught as an antidote to our pride, expecting that we should be able to understand every single word of the teaching that comes from the infinite mind of the Buddha.

In order for translations of the Sanghāta Sūtra to be approved for downloading through this site, they will have to be checked, and if there have been loose translations or re-phrasing of complex passages, they will have to be re-worked. Of course, the syntax and sentence structure will have to change in order to be rendered into different languages, but the idea is to ensure that the exact meaning is preserved, to the highest possible degree. As one example, the Sanghāta includes portions where it becomes impossible to tell exactly who the speaker is, because in both the Tibetan and Sanskrit, the speaker is not indicated. For that reason, the English can be unclear at points. These points were discussed and checked at length with Geshe Lhundub Sopa by the translator into English, and were left ambiguous intentionally because they are ambiguous in the original.

One point specific to the Sanghāta Sūtra: The indented portions in the English reflect passages in verse. They should definitely be left indented or otherwise clearly marked as distinct, since the text often mentions the power of the four-lined verses, and if we do not mark them, readers may not know which parts of the text are referred to. 
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