Lotsawa Workshop Forged New Ground in the Literary Translation of Buddhist Texts from Tibetan
Made possible through the generous support of the Tsadra Foundation, the Lotsawa Workshop drew fifty-five scholars and translators from across the country and around the globe to join together in a set of conversations about the translation of Tibetan texts. The theme for this inaugural event was Tibetan songs (mgur) and the dynamics of devotion. How do we capture meter, verse, tone, and affect when translating rhetorically rich Tibetan verses into English? Where should our allegiance as translators lie鈥攖o accessibility for the reader, the style and form of original text, or in something else? What theoretical and methodological considerations imbue the act of translation? These and other questions invigorated conversations in panels and breakout sessions throughout the weekend.
Building on Tsadra's series of Translation and Transmission conferences in 2014 and 2017, the innovation of the Lotsawa Workshop was its model of workshopping translations-in-process, which emerged from a dialogue between co-organizers Holly Gayley and Dominique Townsend. In small groups of eight, junior translators, graduate students, and early-career faculty (who applied as participants) were paired with seasoned translators and senior faculty (invited as respondents) to workshop translations-in-progress of various devotional songs and other similarly inspiring verse. During the workshop sessions, participants were asked to situate their chosen Tibetan texts in historica