Padmakara's history
The need for reliable, readable translations
Tibetan text
As interest in the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism grows in the West, a language must be developed which helps to make them comprehensible to an international public without too much difficulty, and allows their true meaning to be accurately conveyed. This is a challenging task, and requires the collaboration of international scholars and translators, as well as meticulous supervision by knowledgeable Tibetan masters. The pioneering early translations of academics were often too remote from the living tradition of oral exegesis, while the wave of more faithful translations that followed, made by the first enthusiastic Western disciples of Tibetan masters, were expressed in forms too culturally remote from their Western audience.
During the twentieth century, in many countries, selected Buddhist texts were translated by scholars working in a university context, some of them eminent pioneers in the field, with extensive academic knowledge of Tibetan. Unfortunately, they often contained substantial errors of interpretation, for two main reasons. The first was the very attitude that traditionally underlies academic research: the need for ‘objectivity’, i.e. a perceived need to avoid personal involvement. The second, related and perhaps even more important, was the absence of contact between such academic translators and the living tradition of oral explanation. While in the West a written text is generally expected to contain most of the information required for study of the subject, a book in Tibetan Buddhist culture is more often an aide-memoire or teaching tool which simply provides the skeleton to be fleshed out with detailed explanations handed down orally over the generations. Understanding the often cryptic pronouncements of a written text is therefore not a question of buest-guess personal interpretation—for there is a precise meaning which can be discovered by asking an accomplished scholar who has received extensive oral teaching on that particular text.
Other translations have subsequently been made by devoted Buddhists working with great respect for the tradition and in contact with masters holding the oral lineage—but often with insufficient concern for clear language and style. The translators may often have had no specific training in writing their target language, and may well have spent years immersed in another culture, geographically far away from their own. The translations that result have tended to be expressed in a tortuous, hybrid language and syntax, difficult to read and giving the impression that not only the language, but the subject-matter itself, is somehow obscure and inaccessible.
There was therefore an urgent need for work by translators not only with a good knowledge of Tibetan, but also working closely with authentic masters, well grounded in personal experience, and able to write in a clear, accurate and elegant style. It was in the hope of being able to meet that need that Padmakara was created.
Translation has become a priority in the preservation of the integrity of Tibetan culture and the Buddhist tradition, as well as in making this unique tradition accessible in the West. In particular, translation of the most important scriptural ‘root’ texts together with detailed commentaries on them by venerated masters has become a prime focus. The detailed textbooks that result can be used by Buddhist teachers as the basis of traditional study courses, as well as providing individual readers with sufficent material to convey the true meaning of the texts. (See Tibet, its language & its literature for more information.)
The evolution of Padmakara
Padmakara translators in the 1980s
Padmakara was founded in the seventies under the inspiration of Pema Wangyal Rinpoche. The Kunzang Lamai Shelung, a famous nineteenth century text by the Patrul Rinpoche, was the first of its publications, translated into French (as Le Chemin de la Grande Perfection) after years of research and hundreds of clarifications received from great lamas. In 1987, when it was published, it received a warm welcome as a reliable text written in a style both elegant and easy to read. The most interesting comment from readers was that it seemed to have been written in French from the outset. This set the tone for further publications with the same aim of providing translations as accurate as possible and at the same time written in natural, present-day language. The Padmakara Translation Group has grown from three people at the beginning into the present group of eight full-time and several part-time translators, working under the direction of the resident lamas and visiting scholars, and assisted by a considerable number of volunteer proofreaders.
The translators have all been studying and practising Buddhism for many years, and most have completed at least one or more three-year meditation retreats. Their knowledge is therefore not merely theoretical. Conscious of the continuous effort and self-assessment that would be necessary for their own translations to avoid the problems identified above, members of the Padmakara Translation Group do their best to maintain the optimum conditions for their ongoing work and training, especially a close contact and collaboration with authentic scholars and masters, a commitment to practice, an interest in good writing, and an emphasis on teamwork.
As the number of full-length books translated into French and English grew to a dozen titles over the first five or six years, accompanied by a large number of smaller practice texts, it became clear to Pema Wangyal Rinpoche that this firm basis should be extended to make translations available in as many other languages as possible. By 1994, several translations into German and Spanish had been completed, and this work has continued with translations now being produced not only in English and French but also in German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, and Russian, and even a few in Chinese, Nepali, and Hindi. At present, Padmakara’s wish is to produce translations in as many other languages as possible.
Helpful links: