Difference between revisions of "Kavya Workshop - Latse Library - 2017"
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==Kavyadarsha at the Latse Library in New York== | ==Kavyadarsha at the Latse Library in New York== | ||
Latse Library in New York hosted a workshop on Tseten Zhabdrung’s commentary on poetics May 12-14, 2017. Kurtis Schaeffer and Andy Quintman organized the meeting with Gendun Rabsel, Nicole Willock, Janet Gyatso, Pema Bum, and a small group of specialists (attendees listed below). | Latse Library in New York hosted a workshop on Tseten Zhabdrung’s commentary on poetics May 12-14, 2017. Kurtis Schaeffer and Andy Quintman organized the meeting with Gendun Rabsel, Nicole Willock, Janet Gyatso, Pema Bum, and a small group of specialists (attendees listed below). | ||
| + | |||
| + | The seminar’s focus will be the system of poetics and ornate poetry known as ''snyan ngag'', or ''kāvya'' in | ||
| + | Sanskrit. This system is based on the most important Indian manual of poetics, Daṇḍin’s ''Mirror of | ||
| + | Poetics'' (''Kāvyādarśa''), which forms the basis for Tibetan poetic theory and practice. Ornate poetry is | ||
| + | found across all genres of Buddhist literature in all schools. It is often used for introductions in order to | ||
| + | display the author’s intellectual skill. More importantly, it is a primary vehicle for evoking beauty and | ||
| + | heightened aesthetic experience in relation to Buddhist contemplative ideals, doctrinal commitments, and | ||
| + | philosophical exploration. The technical nature of the Mirror’s system has challenged non-native readers. | ||
| + | Thankfully we have both Tibetan experts and a new generation of scholars in our midst who are working | ||
| + | to make this literature more widely accessible to readers and translators of Tibetan. | ||
| + | |||
| + | The event was envisioned as a master class in which four experts in Tibetan poetry and poetics introduce seminar participants to the fundamental theory and practice of this type of literature, and lead them through close readings of select examples. The presenters consist of two Tibetan scholars, Pema Bhum (Lhatse Library) and Gendun Rabsel (Indiana University), and two American scholars, Janet Gyatso (Harvard University) and Nicole Willock (Old Dominion University). Pema Bhum is Director Lhatse Library and the preeminent scholar of modern Tibetan literature working today. Gendun Rabsel is author of an important history of Tibetan literature and an accomplished teacher and translator. Both scholars have classical training in monastic settings and contemporary training in Indian higher education, making them ideal mentors for those wishing to learn more about the intricacies of Tibetan poetics. Nicole Willock is an intellectual historian of modern Tibet whose work focus on the literary scene of the late twentieth century. Willock and Rabsal have co-translated the most important Tibetan-language introduction to poetics, Tseten Zhabdrung’s ''General Survey of Poetics'' (''Snyan ngag spyi don''). | ||
| + | |||
| + | One outcome of the workshop will be an opportunity for these to scholars to refine | ||
| + | the draft of the ''General Survey of Poeetics'' in light of feedback from seminar participants, thereby bringing it closer | ||
| + | to publication. When published, this work will be the first of its kind in any European language, and will | ||
| + | serve as a ready guide for all translator’s wishing to work more precisely with the ornate poetry they | ||
| + | encounter in Buddhist texts. The workshop will also produce a bibliography of Tibetan and European language | ||
| + | materials for the study of Tibetan poetry and poetics. | ||
===Organizers=== | ===Organizers=== | ||
:'''Gendun Rabsel''', ''Indiana University'' | :'''Gendun Rabsel''', ''Indiana University'' | ||
| − | In the current political circumstances, Tibetan literature and language is in grave danger of surviving. My life goal is to contribute to preserving and promoting the advancement and flourishing of Tibetan literature and language. With these concepts in mind, I have chosen to devote my career to teaching, writing, researching and translating so that Tibetan language can flourish in today’s world. | + | ::In the current political circumstances, Tibetan literature and language is in grave danger of surviving. My life goal is to contribute to preserving and promoting the advancement and flourishing of Tibetan literature and language. With these concepts in mind, I have chosen to devote my career to teaching, writing, researching and translating so that Tibetan language can flourish in today’s world. |
:'''Nicole Willock''', ''Old Dominion University'' | :'''Nicole Willock''', ''Old Dominion University'' | ||
| − | Nicole Willock (Ph.D. Indiana University in Tibetan Studies and Religious Studies, 2011) is an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She is 2017 Research Fellow, The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, administered by the American Council of Learned Societies for her book project: Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhists Making Modern China. She is currently polishing up A Tibetan-English Primer for Poetics (Snyan ngag leg deb bod yin shan sbyar), which is co-authored by Gendun Rabsal. She also co-translated “Zhangtön Tenpa Gyatso’s Advice a Jeweled Rosary” with Gendun Rabsal, which will appear in Buddhist Luminaries: Inspired Advice by Nineteenth-Century Ecumenical Masters in Eastern Tibet, edited by Holly Gayley and Joshua Schapiro (Boston: Wisdom Publications, expected in 2017). | + | ::Nicole Willock (Ph.D. Indiana University in Tibetan Studies and Religious Studies, 2011) is an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She is 2017 Research Fellow, The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, administered by the American Council of Learned Societies for her book project: Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhists Making Modern China. She is currently polishing up A Tibetan-English Primer for Poetics (Snyan ngag leg deb bod yin shan sbyar), which is co-authored by Gendun Rabsal. She also co-translated “Zhangtön Tenpa Gyatso’s Advice a Jeweled Rosary” with Gendun Rabsal, which will appear in Buddhist Luminaries: Inspired Advice by Nineteenth-Century Ecumenical Masters in Eastern Tibet, edited by Holly Gayley and Joshua Schapiro (Boston: Wisdom Publications, expected in 2017). |
:'''Andrew Quintman''', ''Yale University'' | :'''Andrew Quintman''', ''Yale University'' | ||
| − | Andrew Quintman is associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University, specializing in the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya. For seven years he served as the academic director of the School for International Training’s Tibetan Studies program based in Kathmandu. He is the author of The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the Biographical Corpus of the Great Tibetan Saint Milarepa (Columbia University Press 2014). His English translation of The Life of Milarepa (2010) was published in the Penguin Classics series. He is currently writing a history of Drakar Taso Monastery in Tibet southern borderland and a study of the Buddha’s life story through the visual and literary materials of Jonang Monastery in western Tibet. | + | ::Andrew Quintman is associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University, specializing in the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya. For seven years he served as the academic director of the School for International Training’s Tibetan Studies program based in Kathmandu. He is the author of The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the Biographical Corpus of the Great Tibetan Saint Milarepa (Columbia University Press 2014). His English translation of The Life of Milarepa (2010) was published in the Penguin Classics series. He is currently writing a history of Drakar Taso Monastery in Tibet southern borderland and a study of the Buddha’s life story through the visual and literary materials of Jonang Monastery in western Tibet. |
:'''Kurtis Schaeffer''', ''University of Virginia'' | :'''Kurtis Schaeffer''', ''University of Virginia'' | ||
| − | Kurtis R. Schaeffer received an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Washington in 1995, a Ph.D. in Tibetan and South Asian Religions from Harvard in 2000 and is now an associate professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia. His books include Sources of Tibetan Tradition (2013), The Tibetan History Reader (2013), The Culture of the Book in Tibet (2009), An Early Tibetan Catalogue of Buddhist Literature (2009), Dreaming the Great Brahmin, and Himalayan Hermitess (2004). | + | ::Kurtis R. Schaeffer received an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Washington in 1995, a Ph.D. in Tibetan and South Asian Religions from Harvard in 2000 and is now an associate professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia. His books include Sources of Tibetan Tradition (2013), The Tibetan History Reader (2013), The Culture of the Book in Tibet (2009), An Early Tibetan Catalogue of Buddhist Literature (2009), Dreaming the Great Brahmin, and Himalayan Hermitess (2004). |
:'''Janet Gyatso''', ''Harvard University'' | :'''Janet Gyatso''', ''Harvard University'' | ||
| − | Janet Gyatso (BA, MA, PhD, University of California at Berkeley) is a specialist in Buddhist studies with concentration on Tibetan and South Asian cultural and intellectual history. Her books include Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary; In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism; and Women of Tibet. She has recently completed a new book, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet, which focuses upon alternative early modernities and the conjunctions and disjunctures between religious and scientific epistemologies in Tibetan medicine in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries | + | ::Janet Gyatso (BA, MA, PhD, University of California at Berkeley) is a specialist in Buddhist studies with concentration on Tibetan and South Asian cultural and intellectual history. Her books include Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary; In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism; and Women of Tibet. She has recently completed a new book, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet, which focuses upon alternative early modernities and the conjunctions and disjunctures between religious and scientific epistemologies in Tibetan medicine in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries |
===Attendees=== | ===Attendees=== | ||
| − | *José | + | *1. Ben Bogin (Associate Professor, Skidmore College) |
| − | *Jann Ronis, | + | *2. Lara Braitstein (Assistant Professor, McGill University) |
| − | * | + | *3. José Cabezón (Professor, UC Santa Barbara) |
| − | * | + | *4. Bryan Cuevas (Professor, Florida State University) |
| + | *5. Jacob Dalton (Associate Professor, UC Berkeley) | ||
| + | *6. Brandon Dotson (Visiting Researcher, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) | ||
| + | *7. Holly Gayley (Assistant Professor, Colorado University) | ||
| + | *8. Frances Garrett (Associate Professor, University of Toronto) | ||
| + | *9. David Germano (Professor, University of Virginia) | ||
| + | *10. Jonathan Gold (Associate Professor, Princeton University) | ||
| + | *11. Janet Gyatso (Professor, Harvard Divinity School) | ||
| + | *12. Roger Jackson (Professor, Carleton College) | ||
| + | *13. Sarah Jacoby (Assistant Professor, Northwestern University) | ||
| + | *14. Nancy Lin (Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University) | ||
| + | *15. Andrew Quintman (Associate Professor, Yale University) | ||
| + | *16. Jann Ronis (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley) | ||
| + | *17. Kurtis R. Schaeffer (Professor, University of Virginia) | ||
| + | *18. Leonard van der Kuijp (Professor, Harvard University) | ||
| + | *19. Nicole Willock (Assistant Professor, Old Dominion University) | ||
| + | *20. Carl Yamamoto (Assistant Professor, Towson University) | ||
===Opening Remarks=== | ===Opening Remarks=== | ||
Revision as of 14:10, 13 September 2017
Skills for Translators[edit]
The study of Kavya will not only enhance one's appreciation for Tibetan writing styles and literature in general but is also a useful tool for translators to develop. Knowledge of how Kavya is used in Tibetan writing will help a translator to interpret and understand sections of texts that include poetry and song, and other writing based on the Kavya style, that we often find inserted into sections of text common in nearly every Tibetan genre, such as introductions, opening and closing prayers, dedications, and colophons.
Kavya in Tibetan Literature[edit]
Kavyadarsha at the Latse Library in New York[edit]
Latse Library in New York hosted a workshop on Tseten Zhabdrung’s commentary on poetics May 12-14, 2017. Kurtis Schaeffer and Andy Quintman organized the meeting with Gendun Rabsel, Nicole Willock, Janet Gyatso, Pema Bum, and a small group of specialists (attendees listed below).
The seminar’s focus will be the system of poetics and ornate poetry known as snyan ngag, or kāvya in Sanskrit. This system is based on the most important Indian manual of poetics, Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Poetics (Kāvyādarśa), which forms the basis for Tibetan poetic theory and practice. Ornate poetry is found across all genres of Buddhist literature in all schools. It is often used for introductions in order to display the author’s intellectual skill. More importantly, it is a primary vehicle for evoking beauty and heightened aesthetic experience in relation to Buddhist contemplative ideals, doctrinal commitments, and philosophical exploration. The technical nature of the Mirror’s system has challenged non-native readers. Thankfully we have both Tibetan experts and a new generation of scholars in our midst who are working to make this literature more widely accessible to readers and translators of Tibetan.
The event was envisioned as a master class in which four experts in Tibetan poetry and poetics introduce seminar participants to the fundamental theory and practice of this type of literature, and lead them through close readings of select examples. The presenters consist of two Tibetan scholars, Pema Bhum (Lhatse Library) and Gendun Rabsel (Indiana University), and two American scholars, Janet Gyatso (Harvard University) and Nicole Willock (Old Dominion University). Pema Bhum is Director Lhatse Library and the preeminent scholar of modern Tibetan literature working today. Gendun Rabsel is author of an important history of Tibetan literature and an accomplished teacher and translator. Both scholars have classical training in monastic settings and contemporary training in Indian higher education, making them ideal mentors for those wishing to learn more about the intricacies of Tibetan poetics. Nicole Willock is an intellectual historian of modern Tibet whose work focus on the literary scene of the late twentieth century. Willock and Rabsal have co-translated the most important Tibetan-language introduction to poetics, Tseten Zhabdrung’s General Survey of Poetics (Snyan ngag spyi don).
One outcome of the workshop will be an opportunity for these to scholars to refine the draft of the General Survey of Poeetics in light of feedback from seminar participants, thereby bringing it closer to publication. When published, this work will be the first of its kind in any European language, and will serve as a ready guide for all translator’s wishing to work more precisely with the ornate poetry they encounter in Buddhist texts. The workshop will also produce a bibliography of Tibetan and European language materials for the study of Tibetan poetry and poetics.
Organizers[edit]
- Gendun Rabsel, Indiana University
- In the current political circumstances, Tibetan literature and language is in grave danger of surviving. My life goal is to contribute to preserving and promoting the advancement and flourishing of Tibetan literature and language. With these concepts in mind, I have chosen to devote my career to teaching, writing, researching and translating so that Tibetan language can flourish in today’s world.
- Nicole Willock, Old Dominion University
- Nicole Willock (Ph.D. Indiana University in Tibetan Studies and Religious Studies, 2011) is an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. She is 2017 Research Fellow, The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, administered by the American Council of Learned Societies for her book project: Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhists Making Modern China. She is currently polishing up A Tibetan-English Primer for Poetics (Snyan ngag leg deb bod yin shan sbyar), which is co-authored by Gendun Rabsal. She also co-translated “Zhangtön Tenpa Gyatso’s Advice a Jeweled Rosary” with Gendun Rabsal, which will appear in Buddhist Luminaries: Inspired Advice by Nineteenth-Century Ecumenical Masters in Eastern Tibet, edited by Holly Gayley and Joshua Schapiro (Boston: Wisdom Publications, expected in 2017).
- Andrew Quintman, Yale University
- Andrew Quintman is associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University, specializing in the Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya. For seven years he served as the academic director of the School for International Training’s Tibetan Studies program based in Kathmandu. He is the author of The Yogin and the Madman: Reading the Biographical Corpus of the Great Tibetan Saint Milarepa (Columbia University Press 2014). His English translation of The Life of Milarepa (2010) was published in the Penguin Classics series. He is currently writing a history of Drakar Taso Monastery in Tibet southern borderland and a study of the Buddha’s life story through the visual and literary materials of Jonang Monastery in western Tibet.
- Kurtis Schaeffer, University of Virginia
- Kurtis R. Schaeffer received an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Washington in 1995, a Ph.D. in Tibetan and South Asian Religions from Harvard in 2000 and is now an associate professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia. His books include Sources of Tibetan Tradition (2013), The Tibetan History Reader (2013), The Culture of the Book in Tibet (2009), An Early Tibetan Catalogue of Buddhist Literature (2009), Dreaming the Great Brahmin, and Himalayan Hermitess (2004).
- Janet Gyatso, Harvard University
- Janet Gyatso (BA, MA, PhD, University of California at Berkeley) is a specialist in Buddhist studies with concentration on Tibetan and South Asian cultural and intellectual history. Her books include Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary; In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism; and Women of Tibet. She has recently completed a new book, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet, which focuses upon alternative early modernities and the conjunctions and disjunctures between religious and scientific epistemologies in Tibetan medicine in the sixteenth–eighteenth centuries
Attendees[edit]
- 1. Ben Bogin (Associate Professor, Skidmore College)
- 2. Lara Braitstein (Assistant Professor, McGill University)
- 3. José Cabezón (Professor, UC Santa Barbara)
- 4. Bryan Cuevas (Professor, Florida State University)
- 5. Jacob Dalton (Associate Professor, UC Berkeley)
- 6. Brandon Dotson (Visiting Researcher, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
- 7. Holly Gayley (Assistant Professor, Colorado University)
- 8. Frances Garrett (Associate Professor, University of Toronto)
- 9. David Germano (Professor, University of Virginia)
- 10. Jonathan Gold (Associate Professor, Princeton University)
- 11. Janet Gyatso (Professor, Harvard Divinity School)
- 12. Roger Jackson (Professor, Carleton College)
- 13. Sarah Jacoby (Assistant Professor, Northwestern University)
- 14. Nancy Lin (Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University)
- 15. Andrew Quintman (Associate Professor, Yale University)
- 16. Jann Ronis (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Berkeley)
- 17. Kurtis R. Schaeffer (Professor, University of Virginia)
- 18. Leonard van der Kuijp (Professor, Harvard University)
- 19. Nicole Willock (Assistant Professor, Old Dominion University)
- 20. Carl Yamamoto (Assistant Professor, Towson University)
Opening Remarks[edit]
Kavya in Tibet Translator's Craft Session[edit]
Translator’s Craft Session 1.1 • Room 207, 2nd Floor • 2:30 PM, June 2, 2017
with Gendun Rabsel, Nicole Willock, Andrew Quintman, Kurtis R. Schaeffer
Kavya in Tibet is a session following from a workshop on Tseten Zhabdrung’s commentary on poetics (Snyan ngag spyi don) that was hosted at the Latse Library with Gendun Rabsel, Nicole Willock, Andy Quintman, and Kurtis Schaeffer. The Tibetan system of poetics and ornate poetry is highly influential in the history of Tibetan writing and is based on the most important Indian manual of poetics, Daṇḍin’s Mirror of Poetics (Kāvyādarśa). This session will introduce some of the fundamental theory and practice of this type of literature.
