Translating The Words Of The Buddha Translation Conference from Khyentse Foundation on Vimeo.
Here’s a website that is good to have bookmarked on your computer. Originally called the Buddhist Literary Heritage Project or BLHP, 84000 originated in 2009 with the “goal of seeing all of the vast and extraordinary riches of Buddhist literature, particularly the Tibetan Kangyur and Tengyur, translated into English and other modern languages and made universally accessible within a hundred years.” As a living tradition, translation plays an extremely important role in the survival of Buddhism, both in the West and the East. As the website states, “to date, less than 5% of the classical Tibetan texts and only 15% of the classical Chinese texts have been translated into modern languages.”
“Even though a huge amount of work on canonical texts has already been done, particularly in the last 30 years, the percentage remains small because the collections are so vast. There are some 2,200 classical Chinese canonical texts in 55 massive volumes; while the two Tibetan collections, the Kangyur and Tengyur contain more than 5,200 texts in 325 volumes.”
“In the case of the Tibetan texts, most of the efforts made by translators, scholars and teachers have gone into works that belong to the non-canonical, indigenous literature of each lineage—rightly so, as it is these indigenous works that have been the traditional basis for study. But there are cogent arguments for enlarging the attention given to the works in the Kangyur and Tengyur, which are the common source of all the Tibetan lineages, and an important heritage to be shared with Buddhists everywhere.”
An extremely important endeavor and one to keep an eye on in the coming years.
