This repository contains a translation of the Nāmasaṅgīti by Ryan Conlon and Stefan Mang, accompanied by some other related materials. We have prepared this translation to make it available on the Lotsawa House website. Our work has more or less reached it final form, but we intend to continually maintain this repository (1) for the sake of version control (i.e., tracking changes); (2) to store collations, transcriptions, and analysis of relevant textual materials; and (3) to have a stable and publicly accessible location to share information and receive feedback.
We are aware of at least six previously published complete translation of the Nāmasaṅgīti into English, as well as one partial translation. These translations are already fine achievements in their own right; nevertheless, we hope our present effort can be seen as offering two modest but unique features:
- Our translation has been composed in blank verse. This, we hope, should facilitate its recitation aloud, and provide some pleasure to those who enjoy metrical English verse.
- We have managed to carry out a certain amount of textual research in producing the present translation. Specifically, we have systematically compared two Tibetan translations of the text, and we have read the Sanskrit text along with the entirety of Vilāsavajra's commentary in Sanskrit (both the published and unpublished portions).
Our primary aim here is offer a translation of the Nāmasaṅgīti to the English-speaking users of the most widely recited Tibetan translation. There are multiple Tibetan translations of the Nāmasaṅgīti, the two most widely available of which being one produced by bLo gros brtan pa (1276–1342) that is included in recensions of the Kangyur; and another, sometimes ascribed to Rin chen bzang po (958–1055), that is found embedded within commentaries in the bsTan 'gyur, in the rNying ma rgyud 'bum, in indigenous Tibetan commentaries, and in the majority of Tibetan prayer collections. Since the latter translation is most commonly used in prayer by contemporary practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, we use it as the basis for the present translation. However, we have not made this translation from Tibetan; it is, instead, a translation from Sanskrit. We have simply used the ancient translation as the primary means for interpreting and ascertaining readings of the Sanskrit text.
To this we must make a few further qualifications: The ancient translation—having many available witnesses but, to our knowledge, no single exemplary witness or edition—itself has a significant number of variants that should be taken into consideration. We have not been able to critically establish the text of the ancient translation, which would be extremely difficult; instead, we have mostly relied on one witness embedded in Vimalamitra's commentary on the Nāmasaṅgīti, a witness in a printing of the rNying ma rgyud 'bum, and a witness found in a modern prayer book. On occasion, we have emended or proposed conjectures to the ancient translation based on other factors, such as the Sanskrit text or the Kangyur translation. On other occasions, we have adopted a reading that, it would appear, is the most popular in witnesses of the text as it is used today, and that is not in conflict with the Sanskrit text and/or meaningful sense.
Second, while the ancient translation does provide some help in unpacking the many compound words found throughout the Nāmasaṅgīti, more often than not it gives no explicit guidance. Thus, as a secondary authority, we have thoroughly consulted the commentary of Vilāsavajra. We generally follow Vilāsavajra's lead in analysing compounds, except when his interpretation feels strained or excessively creative, or when the ancient translation offers a clear and viable alternative.
Third, there are at least a few occasions where we have simply overruled the text of the ancient translation. While this translation is generally of extremely high quality, there are a few cases where we simply cannot accept the interpretation it offers, either because of the weight of the textual evidence against it, or because it is simply not sufficiently coherent.
Initially we sought to offer a translation that is more 'literal' than poetic; however, as creating a text that would be compelling to recite become more of a priority, we began to take more liberties for the sake of metre. Some previous translations of the Nāmasaṅgīti have attempted to form coherent, independent sentences for most of the verses, but we read the main body of the text as essentially providing what the title implies: a long list of names. We separate the names with commas, or with semicolons when the names themselves contain commas. Vilāsavajra provides a precise enumeration of how many names are in each chapter, but we have been unable to follow this with absolute strictness (these enumerations also require further study); occasionally, we treat what the commentator enumerates as a distinct name as a subsidiary adjective.
Most of the textual considerations behind our translation are probably of little interest to its readers. Therefore, the files marked 'english_only' contain the translation with only a minimal amount of annotation. But we also aspire to make our work as transparent as possible, and we suspect that there may be at least a few people who are indeed interested in the details. Thus, in the files 'multi_lingual', you will find the following:
- The Sanskrit text based on a collation of Davidson's edition and our reading of Vilāsavajra's commentary.
- The Tibetan translation of bLo gros brtan pa, which we call the 'Kangyur translation'.
- The Tibetan translation extracted from Vimalamitra's commentary, which we call the 'ancient translation'.
- The English translation and notes that will appear in the published translation.
- Various notes about textual witnesses, interpretations, and translation choices.
Note that viewing the '.md' files will probably be the easiest way to access the material, as the PDF version still have various formatting issues.
The transcription of Vilāsavajra's commentary is based on Tribe 2016 and a manuscript now located in the Cambridge University Library. The transcription is not complete. Some parts are completely unchecked and entered extremely hastily, so use at your own risk! We will try to improve it eventually.
We are very grateful to Prof. Harunaga Isaacson and Adam Pearcey for offering valuable suggests have greatly improved the translation in a number of ways. We would also like to thank Dr. Anthony Tribe and Nicola Bajetta for kindly sharing materials and/or helping with our points of doubt.
We welcome suggestions! If you see any way that we could improve this work, please let us know!