The Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) is dedicated to the transmission of Mahayana Buddhism in the Tibetan Gelug tradition of Lama Tsongkhapa through teaching, meditation, and service.
One of the main challenges facing the authentic transmission of Buddhism in the world is that of preserving and accurately conveying the original meaning intended by the Buddha and his followers when translating their teachings for a twenty-first century audience.
FPMT Translation Services, a branch of FPMT Education Services, was established in 2010 to address the need:
- to ensure the quality and accuracy of FPMT textual translations from Tibetan into English,
- to develop a standard FPMT translation terminology that takes different contexts into account (ranging from the general public to advanced philosophical study programs) through promoting discussion between FPMT Dharma teachers, translators, interpreters, and editors,
- to create translation resources, including an on-line glossary of standard terminology, for translators and interpreters, and
- to collaborate with other-language FPMT Translation Offices, as well as individual FPMT translators, in order to ensure the same high quality of textual translations in all languages.
The first step in the process of revising and publishing existing translations, as well as ensuring the quality of future translations, is the development of a standard FPMT translation terminology. This will be achieved through discussion at face-to-face meetings of Dharma teachers, translators, interpreters, and editors, and via internet, using a specifically created on-line glossary database.
