Several
years ago while staying in Bir, India, I was present at weekly gatherings in garden
café, near Orgyan Tobgyal Rinpoche’s place, with a local bunch of westerners
attending Tibetan shedra’s. Both Sherab Ling and Dzongsar Shedra had their
holiday on Thursdays, so each Thursday we would gather and discuss the
intricacies of learning Tibetan, living with Tibetans, studying at shedra’s,
the buddha’s teachings and all other meaningful and less meaningful topics of
discussion, while enjoying loads of chai and delicious meals. During this time
I witnessed the birth of a new school for learning Tibetan, later to be called
Esukhia. The need for a proper Tibetan translation school was felt, and with some initial funding the school was started. Now, a few years later, the school has grown
substantially, employing almost a hundred people, mostly Tibetans, and involved
in a variety of projects. Here I want to shed some light on two of them. Regarding
their Tibetan program Esukhia has three main departments. One is online
tutoring classes, one is the full or half-day immersion, and one is the freshly
started translator training.
Two teachers and two students
Some ideas on how one can learn Tibetan
But before
we get into the details of Esukhia’s programs, let us first make a a few notes
on the theory of learning Tibetan. Esukhia’s founder, Ngawang Trinley, explains
Tibetan grammar actually only takes a few months to learn. This is in sharp
contract with India’s classical language Sanskrit. According to one of the
world’s leading Sanskritist Tom Tillemans, it takes at least 5 or 6 years to
learn Sanskrit grammar properly. So we have these two very different languages,
which nonetheless where both perfectly able to convey the words of the Buddha,
in the collection of Sutra’s and Tantra’s, what is now called in Tibetan the
Kangyur. The meaning they can express is similar.
So there is a huge gap here, isn’t it? It is not the case that one language
only takes a few months to learn and another years and years. So then the
linguists where questioned. How can we learn a language with so little grammar?
Well, they said, each language is indeed similarly complex, but some are very
much dependent on grammar, and others, like Tibetan and in particular Chinese,
are not or much less so. So then how can we still understand the same
complexity in a language which has so little grammar? How can we learn to read
such a language properly? Well, the linguists say, you should learn to speak
and think in that language, and then you will understand.
Now if we
take this understanding regarding Tibetan to the present day situation, we can
see the problem when relying mostly on dictionaries while translating Tibetan
–Buddhist- texts. If you don’t really speak the language, or think in the
language, and if you need to look up many words while reading and try to figure
out what is being meant by relying on grammar, there is a large chance you miss
some meaning, which is not conveyed by each word on its own, but by the whole
sentence taken together. No need to speak of subtle links between different
paragraphs. While for Sanskrit the approach of relying on grammar seems to be
justified, we need to take a different approach regarding the Tibetan language.
We need to actually speak, write and live the language in order to master it
and be able to translate it. Many present day teachers seem to agree with this.
For example, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche has made sarcastic remarks about the
present day ‘dictionary translators’, in contrast with the learned and realized
Lotsawa’s of the past. Also Orgyan Tobgyal Ripoche has remarked, that he does
not trust translators who ‘speak Tibetan like a five year old child’.
Studying Tibetan at Esukhia
Of course
there is much more to say, but keeping this in mind we can now perhaps
appreciate Esukhia’s approach to learning Tibetan. Just studying a grammar book
and some vocabulary does not suffice, and students at esukhia are truly being
‘immersed’ in the language, from morning till evening. One thing to mention is
that currently one of the main aims of Esuhkia is to develop a teaching method,
following the European standards of language acquisition, with levels like A1,
A2, B1 and so on. I’ve never seen such a radical approach of learning Tibetan
before, relying on the western knowledge of language acquisition for studying
this language, which in it’s huge literary collection holds so many useful
truths which can truly enlighten the people of present day.
Thus, for
those aimed at mastering the spoken language, there is the immersion program.
With seven hours a day of talking
Tibetan, no doubt students learn quickly.
Immersion school
That is, if
they survive, because it’s not easy! Unlike any most other Tibetan learning
books, following the manual students go mainly through modern day life
situations with their teachers.
Textbook section on love
They have
one teacher for two hours, and after a tea break another 1,5 hours with another
teacher. Then the students and teachers eat lunch together. After lunch there
are another two sessions, three hours in total. The approach is Tibetan only; there
is a notice hanging on the door, that those who speak English will have to pay
a fine!
Students and teachers eating together
Recently
also a translator training program has started. Currently their schedule looks
something like this. First students will have class on a particular text, which
is currently the Pema Katang, the life story of Padmasambhava. There are plans
to study Jamgon Kongtrul’s Treasury of knowledge in the future. Afterwards
students have a one on one talk with one of the tutors, who are also following
the class, and discuss what has just been taught to them. Then there is some
class on the collected topics, or dudra
in Tibetan, followed by debate.
Translation training classroom
After lunch
there is another teaching, like the 37 practices of a Bodhisattva or the Jewel
Ornament of Liberation from Gampopa.
Afterwards again the text is discussed with a language partner, and then
finally at the end of the day there is one tutor session focusing more on
colloquial.
Students studying outside
The kangyur project
Kangyur input and comparison department
Another
project of Esukhia is the Kangyur project. The Kangyur, the words of the
Buddha, have already been typed in by a group led by Alak Zenkar Rinpoche some
years ago in China, where a critical edition had been made by comparing several
Kangyur versions. This edition is called the Kangyur dedur. However, besides noting the differences in the
different editions, decisions had not been made on which spelling is the
correct one.
Discussing kangyur input
To arrive
at a faultless edition of the Kangyur, the Dalai Lama has recommended three
steps. During the first stage the obviously wrong grammar (which if corrected
would not change the meaning), will be corrected. For this phase mainly the Esukhia
team will take responsibility. For the second phase, we need to start looking
at slightly more difficult issues, namely those issues concerning mistakes
where if one would change the grammar, it would also change the meaning. Now in
order to correct these mistakes, the Tibetan text will be compared to its Sanskrit
source. This will most likely be done by Sanskrit experts from the Central
University Tibetan studies at Varanasi. Finally, a team of scholars from each
different Tibetan Buddhist school, Nyingma, Geluk, and so on, will look at the
discrepancies and decide what they think should
be the correct spelling. This will probably be done by the teams of Lobsang
Monlam, the creator of the famous Tibetan dictionary Monlam Bodyig. He already
has specialist teams for each school, for example for the Nyingma this would be
Khenpo Pema Sherab and khenpo’s from Namdroling Monastery in south India.
Kangyur project planning
Why is this
necessary? Now, when translators want to translate one page of kangyur there
are about 25 discrepancies. Thus presently the translator has to decide what is
the correct spelling and meaning. Of course, it’s much better if native
speakers do this work. Translating being difficult enough, then at least the
translator has a correct text to work with.
