The Language of Tibet

Inspired by the extraordinarily rich Buddhist civilization of India, the rulers of Tibet longed to establish Buddhism in their land but lacked a written script to facilitate the translation of its scriptures. In the 7th century, King Songtsen Gampo systematically prepared the foundation for the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet. Foreseeing the need for a written language suitable for translating Buddhist texts from Sanskrit, Songtsen Gampo appointed his minister, the capable scholar, Thonmi Sambota, to travel to India and develop the Tibetan system of writing.

The first writing to use the Tibetan alphabet delineated rules of conduct for all Tibetans to follow. These sixteen rules were based on moral virtues from the Buddhadharma.

In the 8th century, Tibet’s thirty-eighth king, Trisong Detsen, invited the foremost Buddhist scholars from India to come to Tibet and formally establish the Dharma. He also selected 108 young scholars to make the perilous journey over the Himalayas in order to be trained as translators in India. They returned with expert Indian panditas from the great Buddhist university of Nalanda and beyond, and close to 1,000 Sanskrit Buddhist texts. Within a single generation, the Tibetan translators and Indian panditas had succeeded in translating the Vinaya, Sutras, and Abhidharma, as well as many treatises by Mahayana masters and the entire body of Tantras.

Since the classical Tibetan language was expressly created for the purpose of Dharma translation, it contains many specialized words to articulate Buddhist concepts. For example, there are numerous terms that describe “mind,” each with a slightly different meaning. For anyone engaged in the serious study of Tibetan Buddhism, it is important to learn the classical Tibetan language. By understanding the subtlety of Tibetan terms, one can gain a deeper understanding of the texts.