Mission

Khyentse Foundation recently launched the Kumarajiva Project, a momentous effort to translate canonical Buddhist texts from Tibetan into Chinese. Buddhism is often described as a “religion of translation.” Indeed the Buddha himself encouraged his followers to widely translate the Buddhadharma into other languages, which helped fuel the transmission of the religion throughout Asia. Chinese Buddhism would not have developed were it not for the 800 years of translation from the mid second through ninth centuries. Translation is also crucial to Buddhism in that, the vitality of the tradition is periodically reinvigorated by the influx of additional scriptures. In this spirit, the Kumarajiva Project will train and employ a new generation of Buddhist translators in order to make freely available dozens of canonical scriptures from India that were not translated into Chinese during earlier eras.

The fruits of this undertaking will enrich Buddhist study and practice amongst the hundreds of millions of followers of the Dharma who read literary Chinese, a broad community that spans from Singapore and Malaysia in the south to Korea and Japan in the north and beyond. The Tibetan tradition is renowned for the accuracy of its translation from Sanskrit and the Kumarajiva Project will likewise endeavor to meet the highest standards of scholarship and readability in this sacred effort.The Kumarajiva Project is named after the most renowned and influential translator in the history of Central Asian and East Asian Buddhism. Kumarajiva (344-413) embodies the qualities that the Kumarajiva Project will engender in its own team of translators: inspiration, erudition, cosmopolitanism, and the energy to work tirelessly for the benefit of sentient beings through making Buddha’s wisdom available to all.