Website of the Arya Sanghata Sutra


What's So New About the New English Translation?

The English translation of the Arya Sanghata Sutra that is now available on this website differs from the version that had circulated until January, 2006 in several fundamental ways, although both were produced by the same translator.

First, this new English translation of the Arya Sanghata Sutra is a complete translation from the Tibetan, and was prepared by making continual reference to the original Sanskrit. The earlier version combined two different translations: the first half was a rough draft of the translator’s rendering of the Tibetan, and for the second half of the translation, we had taken a translation from Sanskrit made by a Sri Lankan scholar in the 1960s, that was itself based on an incomplete set of Sanskrit manuscripts. We had released that imperfect solution as a temporary measure, due to the extraordinary number of urgent requests from students of Lama Zopa Rinpoche wishing to recite the Sanghata.

For this new translation, the translator has read through the entire text in Tibetan with  Geshe Lhundub Sopa, relying extensively on his vast knowledge. Alongside the Tibetan, she read the Sanskrit, allowing the Sanskrit to guide choices as to how to read the Tibetan in places where multiple interpretations were possible or where the language was unclear in Tibetan.

Readers may notice a number of places where the content seems to have changed significantly compared to the earlier draft translation. Because this new translation was prepared by consulting the original Sanskrit, in the many places throughout the text where Tibetan words and phrases could potentially be translated in several different ways, the new translation now relies on Sanskrit to guide choices among the various implicit meanings in the Tibetan. 

Another very visible change is in the presentation of Sanskrit names. Since so many people have been using this translation for recitation, wthe translation adopts the Clay Sanskrit Library system (pdf) of phoneticizing the Sanskrit names, so as to make them easier for English-speakers to pronounce. Long words in Sanskrit have been hyphenated and divided into their basic elements, where permissible. An accent mark appears above the syllable that receives the most stress. More information on pronouncing the Sanskrit, along with audio files of an Indian pandit enunciating each of the names, will be available at this link in late spring, 2006.

In general, the new translation aims to combine the highest possible degree of literal accuracy with language that reads smoothly in English. However, it does not paraphrase to yield an easier or more poetic reading experience, where this would mean compromising the literal accuracy of the translation. In some places the new translation should clarify points left unclear in the earlier translation, but one thing this translation does not seek to do is clear away the many moments of ambiguity and uncertainty inherent in the Sanghata. The Sanskrit and Tibetan versions of the Sanghata themselves leave many points open for our further contemplation and discussion, and where that happens, the English aims to preserve those points of ambiguity as well. This translation is not meant to 'improve on' or 'clarify' the Tibetan and Sanskrit texts; simply to render them into English as faithfully as possible, leaving it to the reader to ponder the possible meanings.