The Kumarajiva Project Is Launched
“Chinese civilization is very, very important for the survival of Buddhism.” —Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Khyentse Foundation is pleased to announce the official launch of the Kumarajiva Project (note: website is currently only in Chinese). KF’s latest translation effort focuses primarily on translating into Chinese all the texts in the Tibetan Buddhist canon that are not currently available in the Chinese canon. After a successful pilot project and several years of extensive research and planning, the Kumarajiva Project is now prepared to dive into the immense task of translating more than 130,000 pages of Tibetan texts into Chinese.
Watch Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche introduce the project.
The Kumarajiva Project is known in Chinese as 圓滿法藏-佛典漢譯計畫, the transliteration of which is “Yu’an Man Fa-Zang.” The Chinese name translates roughly to “enriching the treasury of the dharma” or “making the treasury more perfect than it already is.” The “treasury” refers to the Chinese Buddhist canons. Also, there are numerous texts from other Buddhist canons that are not available in Chinese. The vision of the Kumarajiva Project is to make all Buddhist texts available in Chinese, starting by translating the texts that are available in Tibetan but not in Chinese.
More than 1,800 Years of Translating Buddhist Texts into Chinese
For more than 2,500 years, the teachings of the Buddha have been admired, studied, recited, and practiced all over Asia. This would not have been possible without the immense effort of the translators who ensured that the Buddha’s words could be accessed across borders. The Chinese were among the first to discover and translate the Buddhist texts from India (in the 2nd century CE), and they made a continuous effort over the centuries to compile and complete its canon as more and more texts arrived in China.
Because of these Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, the dharma has been propagated and preserved in China for many hundreds of years. China has one of the largest and most revered Buddhist canons extant today. Furthermore, China is home to approximately half of the 500 million Buddhists in the world. The practice of Buddhism in China has been and continues to be crucial to the survival of Buddhism.
“I think there are about 500 million Buddhists in the world, with half of them in mainland China alone and many more Chinese Buddhists in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and other countries. This is important for Buddhists to consider, because even though spiritually we don’t care about race or color, still the survival of Buddhism depends on patrons, and also on the size of the Buddhist population.” —Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
The Chinese Buddhist canon is comparable in size to the Tibetan Buddhist canon, but each canon lacks certain texts that exist in the other. Both the Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist canons contain core sutras (the words of the Buddha) and numerous shastras (the commentaries to the sutras written by Indian scholars). However, some of the sutras and many of the shastras in the Tibetan canon are not found in the Chinese. The mission of the Kumarajiva Project is to enrich the Chinese collection of Buddhist texts by translating existing canons of every tradition. The initial 60-year goal is to translate the texts from the Tibetan canon that don’t exist in the Chinese; the long-term goal is to translate the other Buddhist canonical texts, including the Pali and surviving texts of the Sanskrit canons.
The majority of the translation from Sanskrit into Chinese occurred in the early centuries of the Common Era, before the commentaries of Indian scholars such as Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, and Chandrakirti were available for translation. The translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Tibetan, however, didn’t take place until the 7th through 10th centuries, which allowed the inclusion of the later commentarial texts in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. In fact, nearly 65% of the Mahayana commentaries contained in the Tibetan canon are not found in the Chinese. These shastras are considered by Buddhist practitioners and scholars to be extremely important for understanding the teachings of the Buddha.
follow in the footsteps of Kumārajīva and other great translators by making a large, previously untranslated body of texts available to Chinese readers, scholars, and practitioners.
Scope of the Project
The initial priority of the Kumarajiva Project is to translate into Chinese the Tibetan texts of the Kangyur and Tengyur that have not yet been translated. This task is expected to take 60 years to complete. The Tibetan Kangyur, the written words of the Buddha, contains an estimated 70,000 pages of text, 15,622 of which have not yet been translated into Chinese. The Tengyur, the commentaries to the sutras and tantras in the Kangyur, contains an estimated 161,800 pages, 119,042 of which have not yet been translated into Chinese. The chart further categorizes the untranslated texts into the sutric and tantric texts in the Kangyur and Tengyur that have yet to be translated into Chinese.
Over time, the project will additionally focus on the translation of the outstanding Sanskrit and Pali texts that are not yet in Chinese.
“While a few great Indian emperors supported Buddhism in its early days, dozens of Chinese emperors supported Buddhism over the centuries. And while Buddhism was long ago virtually eliminated from India, the Chinese fully adopted Buddhism as part of the Chinese civilization.” —Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Tasks and Challenges
Looking back at the history of translation over the past 2,500 years, the success of such massive-scale translation efforts required the involvement of monastic translators, dedicated writers, sponsors, and laypeople who wholeheartedly cherished the sutras and helped to sponsor and print the texts. The translation and transmission of Buddhist texts required the involvement of all parts of society; and so it will today.
Through the Kumarajiva pilot project, KF became aware of the shortage and difficulty in finding Tibetan/Chinese translators. To translate all of the earmarked Tibetan Buddhist texts into Chinese in the next 60 years, there is an anticipated need for at least 15 highly qualified translation teams of two or more people and a number of additional editors to review and finalize the translations. In the effort to emulate past translation efforts, the teams will consist of source (Tibetan) and target language (Chinese) scholars as well as experts in Buddhist philosophy.
Khyentse Foundation has been devoted to translation for many years, and has already established a relationship with Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts (since 2014) and Fa-Guang Institute of Buddhist Studies (since 2015) to train and cultivate translators. With the shared desire to see Tibetan Buddhist texts more accessible, both institutes now offer classes in translating the Tibetan Buddhist canon into other languages. We are now seeing the fruit of these courses; several junior translators will soon join the translation teams of the Kumarajiva Project. Khyentse Foundation also offers opportunities for Tibetan scholars to study the Chinese Buddhist canon and learn the Chinese language, creating a larger pool of qualified candidates for Tibetan/Chinese translation advisory positions.
The human and material resources required for this translation project are great. Raising funds for such a project will not be easy. In the words of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, “This translation business is not sexy stuff. Building temples and Buddha statues is immediately visible and encouraging, and to a certain extent doable; but anything related to translation is very daunting. Nevertheless, this is very much overdue. Language is forever evolving.”
Our translation teams will strive to follow the devotion and perseverance of past masters like Kumārajīva and Xuanzang to complete the translation work. As the old Chinese sayings go, “Dripping water can penetrate stone,” and “Combined wishes can build a great castle.” Khyentse Foundation is confident that with the help and encouragement of our supporters, we can achieve the noble goals of he Kumarajiva Project.
“As Buddhists we should aspire to translate Buddhist texts of all kinds into Chinese—not only the Tibetan Kangyur and Tengyur, but also, for example, the Thai, Burmese, and Sri Lankan Theravada versions of the Tripitaka.” —Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
Progress
The Kumarajiva Project and KF teams initiated a pilot project in 2017 for the translation and review of 19 texts. As a result, we currently have 189 pages translated from the Tibetan canon into Chinese.
The Sūtra on the Threefold Training
The Maitreya Sutra
The Mahākāśyapa Sūtra
Sūtra on the Benefits of the Five Precepts
The Sūtra of Nanda’s Ordination
The Account of the Noble Deeds of Sumāgadhā
The Sūtra on Maitreya’s Setting Forth
The Sūtra on the Threefold Going for Refuge
The Sūtra of the Questions of Brahmā
The Sūtra of the Questions of Brahmadatta
The Perfection of Wisdom for Sūryagarbha
The Perfection of Wisdom for Candragarbha
The Perfection of Wisdom for Samantabhadra
The Perfection of Wisdom for Vajrapāṇi
The Perfection of Wisdom for Vajraketu
The Inquiry of Avalokiteśvara on the Seven Qualities (see sample Chinese PDF translation)
The Twenty-Five Entrances to the Perfection of Wisdom
The Perfection of Wisdom Mother in One Syllable
The Light of the Ornament of Clear Realization: A Commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses
