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A CRITICAL EDITION OF THE RAN-BSHIN-GSUM-LA 'JUG-PALISGRUB-PA (SKT. SVABHĀVATRAYA-PRAVESA-SIDDHIH)
OF ARYA NAGARJUNA.
Narendra Kumar Dash
[Dr. Narendra Kumar Dash (b. 1960) has been working as an Adhyapaka in the Department of Indo-Tibetan Studies at VisvaBharati University, Shantiniketan. He is well versed with Sanskrit and Tibetan languages. With profound knowledge in Sanskrit. Dr. Dash reconstructed some important works from Tibetan into Sanskrit. - Editor]
It is believed that Buddhism entered into Tibetan territory through China and Nepal in the mid-seventh century A.D.; but the actual spread of Buddhism in the land of Snow began only after the arrival of three famous Indian scholars named Santaraksita, Padmasambhava and Kamalasila in Eighth Century AD. After the spread of Buddhism in Tibet, the local intellectuals became very much interested to learn Indian language (Tib. rgya-gar skad) and Buddhist Religion and Philosophy. To fulfil the want of the scholars, the Tibetan kings invited great Indian Buddhist scholars to Tibet and also, they deputed the interested scholars to India to learn the language, Religion and Philosophy. It was not possible to understand the Buddhist works from India, as those were written either in Sanskrit of Pali. Therefore, they took the help of the Indian scholars to translate the works into Tibetan. Gradually, three thousand five hundred and thirty five Indian works (Buddhist and other non-Buddhist) were translated into Tibetan by the joint effort of both Indian Pandits and Tibetan Lo-tsa-bas. After the establishment of a monastery called Bsam-yas towards the end of the Eighth Century A.D., a Central Committee of the translators, consisting of both Indian and Tibetan scholars, was installed to check all the previous translations for the standardization This Committee was authorised even to revise the old and new works in order to attain uniformity in terminology and translation techniques. This Committee also composed a Dictionary type work, which is used till today
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