The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Translation Grants in Buddhist Studies
A Translation of Wang Rixiu’s Longshu jingtuwen “Essays on the Pure Land from Longshu” (1162 CE)
The aim of this project is to translate an extensive, seminal 12th-century Chinese Buddhist text, the “Essays on the Pure Land from Longshu” by Wang Rixiu (1105-1173). Wang’s Essays are the first extensive discussion of the tenets of the Pure Land School of Buddhism from the perspective of an elite, Confucian-trained, lay Buddhist. The text is ten fascicles long and, written by a highly erudite 12th-century literatus, not without difficulty. The resulting translation will be c. 60,000 words in English.
Principal Project Team:
A Zen Buddhist Defense of the Dharma
"Zenkai ichiran" (A Ripple in the Sea of Zen) is an apologetical work written by Zen master Imakita Kosen (1816-1892) in which the author draws on classical Chinese texts and their commentaries to argue for a distinctively Zen Buddhist interpretation of thirty well-known Confucian passages. The treatise sheds valuable light on efforts to confront the anti-Buddhist rhetoric that was endemic in intellectual and political discourse in nineteenth-century Japan, and later played an influential role as a teaching text in Rinzai Zen education throughout the twentieth century. It became the basis for several lecture series and commentaries by well-known modern Zen masters in Imakita's lineage, notably Shaku Sōen (1859-1919). With the support of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global, the Chinese (kanbun) original is being translated into English in preparation for publication as a book project that will include a scholarly introduction in addition to the fully annotated text.
Principal Project Team:
An Annotated English Translation of the Exegesis of the First Grave Offense (parajika) in the Vajirabuddhi-Tika
This project produces the first English translation of the exegesis of the first grave offense for monks in Vajirabuddhi-Tika (Vjb), the oldest legal sub-commentary, ca. tenth century CE, on the Mahavihara school’s monastic law code (Vinaya). This exegesis spans 54 printed pages in the Sixth Council Burmese edition. In order to base the translation on a text that is as reliable as possible, ten palm-leaf manuscripts are used to supplement the three available editions. Relevant sections of the more recent legal sub-commentaries are referred to in the footnotes to show how they have reused and discarded Vjb's statements. The translation is accompanied by a detailed introduction discussing Vjb’s quotes from lost commentaries, hermeneutical strategies and legal tenets.
Principal Project Team:
Critical Edition and Translation of Popular Carya Songs from Kathmandu Valley, Nepal
This project will produce a critical translation of 200 "inner" and "public’" Carya songs performed by Newar priests to reinvigorate the Vajrayana tradition. The songs chosen from print, ritual manuals, and unpublished manuscripts will represent varied temporal layers and diverse deities, life-cycle, and ritual occasions. The project proposes to translate the Carya songs, composed in New Indo-Aryan and Mid Tibeto-Burman languages, into Newari and Nepali to enable inheritors of the millennia-old tradition engage with their original expression and content. The project will see (a) collating primary and secondary literature; (b) inputs from ritualists, linguists, artists, historians, and digital humanists; and (c) publication and dissemination of the critical edition of Carya songs through a digital platform-independent site.
Principal Project Team:
Revealing the Northern Treasures: The Life and Works of Rigdzin Gödem (ca. 1337-1409)
This project will produce an annotated translation and academic introduction to "The Ray of Sunlight," the fifteenth-century biography of Rigdzin Gödem, the revealer of treasures and founder of this important tradition.
Principal Project Team:
Reverently I Pray: Buddhist Prayers from Ancient and Early Medieval Japan
This project asks how doctrinal and devotional commitments play out in the everyday, as Buddhists grapple with life, death, anxiety, love, and hope. It does so through the literary translation of prayer-texts (ganmon) from Japan’s Heian period (794–1185), inviting English-language readers into the aesthetic and ritual dimensions of devotion to the buddhas. By conveying the allusive elegance of prayer-texts, it aims to show that prayer in general and Buddhist prayer in particular is ineluctably literary: the style and sheer craft of its expression are central to how—and what—it means, feels, and does.
Principal Project Team:
Scholarly translation from Pali into English and Slovene of the Mahasatipatthanasutta of the Dighanikaya, its commentary the Mahasatipatthanasuttavannana of the Sumangalavilasini, and the sub-commentary (tika) of the Linatthapakasinitika I
This project translates from Pali into English and Slovene the Mahasatipatthanasutta of the Dighanikaya, considered the most important text on mindfulness, its commentary the Mahasatipatthanasuttavannana, and the corresponding sub-commentary (tika) of the Linatthapakasinitika. The two commentaries, of which this will be the first complete translation, are invaluable for understanding the sutta; they discuss important doctrinal points as well as mindfulness practice, and provide valuable information on the historical and cultural context in which they arose. The English translation will be submitted for publication to the Pali Text Society, and the Slovene to Studia Humanitatis Asiatica, making them available to scholars as well as to a broader readership interested in Buddhism.
Principal Project Team:
The Buddhist Legal Treatise of Manusara (Manusara dhammasattha): A critical edition and translation of the Pali text and a translation of the Burmese commentary (nissaya) of 1651–2 CE, with a Pali-Burmese-English glossary of legal terms.
The Manusara dhammasattha is a Buddhist legal treatise coauthored in Burma in 1651–2 CE by a monastic vinaya scholar and a lay jurist. The text comprises 525 Pali verses and a vernacular Burmese commentary (nissaya) thereon. The treatise claims jurisdiction over the entire Buddhist community, including sangha and laity. It promulgates substantive laws related to criminal, civil, and ritual affairs, and discusses judicial procedure as well as questions of Buddhist jurisprudence and legal theory. This project will result in an annotated critical edition and translation of the Pali verses and a translation of the vernacular commentary based on all surviving manuscript witnesses to the text. It will also include as an appendix a Pali-Burmese-English glossary of Buddhist legal terminology.
Principal Project Team:
The Mañjukirti Corpus
"The Mañjukīrti Corpus" is a group of three Sanskrit texts transmitted in a single, hitherto critically unedited manuscript. It deals chiefly with the rituals for beginners (ādikarmika) on the Buddhist path, but it also contains important extraneous materials. Next to preparing a critical edition and English translation of the Corpus, this project includes a prefatory study which argues that this material is an invaluable source to understand the day-to-day practices of the Buddhist laity in South Asia before the year 1200 CE.
Principal Project Team:
The publication of an annotated English translation of the early Chinese collection of jātaka stories, the Liu du ji jing (六度集經T152), in book form plus inclusion of these stories in digital form in the University of Edinburgh’s Jātaka Stories Database.
This project will produce a complete, extensively annotated English translation of the Liu du ji jing in book and digital form, the former accompanied by a substantial introductory essay tackling complex issues of textual history, such as transmission, translation, reception and audience.
Principal Project Team:
The publication of an annotated English translation of the early Chinese collection of jātaka stories, the Liu du ji jing (六度集經T152), in book form plus inclusion of these stories in digital form in the University of Edinburgh’s Jātaka Stories Database.
This project will produce a complete, extensively annotated English translation of the Liu du ji jing in book and digital form, the former accompanied by a substantial introductory essay tackling complex issues of textual history, such as transmission, translation, reception and audience.