ABSTRACT
I am presenting here a complete English translation of the Mahā-vairocanābhisambodhivikurvitādhisthāna-vaipulya-sūtrendra-rāja nāma dharma-paryāya, its Continuation Tantra (uttara-tantra), together with the Commentaries by Buddhaguhya. Now, it might not be out of place to review briefly the problem of translating Buddhist works in general. ‘Translation’ has been usefully defined as ‘a process of expression in another language, systematically retaining the original sense or meaning’16. I take ‘meaning’ here to imply the conceptual content of the original rather than the literal meaning of its words. This presents any prospective translator with a task of great complexity, especially when dealing with religious or philosophical texts, for a detailed knowledge of the conceptual range of the vocabulary in both the source and the target language is required. The difficulties are multiplied when, for example, we are obliged to use Tibetan and/or Chinese translations of Sanskrit texts, for then we often have to take into consideration the semantic decisions made by the translators of those works, should we wish to convey the likely intentions of the original compilers!
