One thing to keep in mind is that the early expansion of Islam into the subcontinent, paired with later Hindu kingdoms, wiped out a TON of information. The libraries at Nalanda and Vikramashila as well as places like Taxila were utterly destroyed, leaving a big gap in our understanding of art and literature other than what we find in Chinese records. Nalanda alone had about 9 million works. The climate too, as mentioned, would not have spared much between the Indus Valley Civilization and the Maurya Empire, with stone and wood being primary materials, but gold and bronze were used as well. The Buddhists were supposedly the first to make rock-cut caves, with the Jains and Hindus taking after them.

translation should be update 😢 Many of those who listens in English There were lots sentance are cut not properly translating.

Praying to Alak Zenkar Rinpoche’s long life and all the translators for their wonderful work. Very grateful.

Thank you so much. From Dordogne ❤

Much appreciated lecture. I'm just a random layman who appreciates smart scholars sharing clearly what they've learned. 26:00 dumb layman's question: Would calling Pali a kind of "Esperanto" artificial language vs. a "lingua-francia" or "Swahili" type of language be more "correct." (I was a career "New Religion" in house "educator" and decades after quitting this "religious" "New Religion" cult I in hindsight, our cult/new-religion, were it to take historical precedent from Buddhist use of Pali to transmit it's teaching, maybe had "we" used consciously hijacked Esperanto to longrange relay "our" cult new religion teachngs, would be "mirroring" original Buddhist translation "policy" using Pali. ---just thoughts of an ex cult bureaucrat, Chuck Beatty) (I can't believe I'm even making these comments, but our "cult founder" L. Ron Hubbard mused that we on earth didn't have the "spacia lingua" language in any of us earthling's past lives memories to sufficiently translate Hubbard's Scientology "scriptures" into what Hubbard claimed is a real intergalactic Swahili trading and business interstellar language, Hubbard dubbed it "lingua spacia" I guess from what other sci fi writers have priorly mused in their sci fi episodes where far flung out in outer space sci fi-dom, there exists this Swahili "lingua spacia". Back to how Buddhism religious teachings selected this made up Pali language to transmite in writings the Buddhist scriptures/texts, and as our "Hubbard/cult-founder" mused no earthlings can remember "lingua spacia" to translate all Hubbard's "scriptures" into, then for long range earth and intergalactic transmission, because I was sort of in my Scientology career attempting to work in the "think tank" ecehelon of the Scientology, to me, the "serious" solution would be to select something like Esperanto to translate all of Hubbard's stuff into. But English is the "lingua franca" of today, so English is what Hubbard's corpus is being etched into stainless steel plates, and stored in the 4 or so underground vaults to preserve the Hubbard "religious" corpus to last tens of thousands of years and human self destruction, so the Hubbard soul therapy/exorcism "religious" teachings can be dug up WAY in the future, and thus keep transmitting the Hubbard "religion" to the galaxies and beyond way up the future. It's no joke the 100 plus million bucks Scientology's poured into the Hubbard stainless steel plates of the Hubbard quackery soul therapy/exorcism corpus in the 4-5 underground vaults today in USA where the plates of Hubbard's stuff lies. What Scientology has chosen to do in the end of the day, is use English, just use it as it was the language Hubbard wrote and spoke. "Lingua spacia" would have been his choice, but no inspired "lingua spacia" rememberers exist, of course, so English it is for the Hubbard "tablets" of stainless steel containing all his wisdom, in the buried Scientology/Hubbard underground vaults, for digging up way in the future, LOL. This is all true, and how some of us really thought.)

Thank you 😊♥️👌🙏🙏🙏

"It takes an empire." Another great turn of phrase. I wonder if that will end up as a book title?

Does the handout Prof. Nattier references exist ANYWHERE, maybe the Net?

How can one say Sanskrit is older than Pali or Prakrit?

"Buddha" - not booḍa. Western upbringing is no excuse for sloppy pronunciation.

is sanskrit older than prakrits? The central Asian steppe people did migrate to Northern parts of india and they must have added words to the local languages and it must have been very minor influence like basic words like mother father brother or some name of metal they brought. So the bulk of language must have predated these central Asian steppe people. It's just my observation.

Intresting discussions. Quite some time has passed since this event and I wonder if people would approach it differently today. In translation my policy is to present the text as it appears in the source. What was not really discussed is the role of the teacher in transmission. If a sūtra has a passage that is offensive, it is perceived to be offensive by particular people at a particular place and time. So, to change the translation at one point in time is to assume the audience-this can be done, of course, but I think that the role of adaptation to the audience is best done by a teacher who is in command of skilful means and who can explain those passages in a manner appropriate to the listeners.

plz give me your contek no

Great talk. Thank you for uploading!

There was a time when old western scholars used to learn Tibetan language and help to preserve Tibetan language. Thesedays, western bhuddhist followers doesn't interested to learn Tibetan and support preservation of Tibetan language. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

These idiots speaker are complain about debate tradition etc. I don't know who Force this idiots to learn Bhuddhism epistemology. If this is so then why these idiots doesn't mind their business to only four noble truths and not to the whole Tibetan Bhuddhism traditional system. It seems all the speakers were one a monks and nuns. Now what happened, they are now all disrobe. The problem is that this western followers are so fancinated by Vajrayan and directly jump into Vajrayan practice and became some kind a Guru. They directly jump into Vajrayan practice without learning and practicing six Paramitas.

These western followers doesn't have a practice despite spending years in monastery and failed to transform themselves according to Bhuddhist tradions. Western followers are ultimately concern about name, recognition, name through book writing. One thing is sure, there is no way to completely understand and get the taste of various academic writing of ancient teachers without studying Tibetan. One time, Ladak groups of scholars has also proposed to translate all sutra and tantra into a Ladak oral language using Tibetan script to HHDL. HHDL said, if you have problem calling it a Tibetan language or script then you may call it Kangyur and Taingyur script otherwise there is a great dangers of mis-interpretation, corruption in its orginal meaning, and diversion from the original tradition.

❤️❤️❤️🙏🙏🙏

omg!

Wonderful! May Tibetan culture and language be preserved, shared, taught, celebrated!

Sadhu sadhu

I Am M.A. Buddhist Studies from University of jammu, India. Secured 81% Got first position Honoured by President of India with gold medal. Got Certificate of Merit from President of India. Qualified SET Buddhist Studies Pursuing P.hD. in Buddhist Studies from University of Jammu. And still jobless as there is no scope for Students with Buddhist Studies. Is there anything you would like to suggest?

Excellent presentation thank you so much Ma'am but one doubt still remains unclear, did vedic culture and Sanskrit language existed at time of Buddha, if yes why didn't it show up in edits of Ashok at much later period.

Alex Gardner is a cheap asshole who doesn't pay the scholars working on the Treasury of Lives project

I'm from northeastern India and some people have told me that the language we use sounds like an old Tibetan and that really piqued my interest because there's no written record of us northeasterns' orginal ancestors. Some speculate that we migrated from China / Tibet to India during the Ming Dynasty...I was hoping that this would give me some insights on my research

Thank you for the upload 🙏🙏

My old teacher. One of the truly kind, generous people in a world dominated by narcissists and boors.

How to join

Excellent !

thank you 7:55 I prostrate to He, who's abandoned all views 9:00 how one could navigate out of delusion 11:22 he seemed to be amazed by life 13:05 the mind of an open question 17:19 if the dharma becomes the poison, there is no antidote. I stop at 30' and look up: mahamudra the great seal: The intellect cannot see that which is beyond conceptual mind. You will never realize that which is uncreated through created dharmas. If you wish to attain or realize that which is beyond the intellect and is uncreated, then scrutinize your mind and strip awareness naked.

20:00

Oh, and one critical, even academic, comment: "Impostor syndrome" appropriately applies to people who have gotten the degrees, the academic status, but then see how much is out there in their field that they really can never ever master, which is a humiliating experience, so much so they feel like they are impostors. Academics can go on for their entire lives in constant fear of having their areas of ignorance uncovered, and are constantly on the defensive, especially at conferences where other impostors gather. This special occupational paranoia, for all its deleterious effects, can also help ensure they will make less mistakes than non-sufferers do.

black as bees sounds contrived alright, even if they do exist, so I'd want to say black as wasps (so much more natural seeming, even if also contrived). Am enjoying the video, and wonder why not many have done so so far. [This dream's] appearances are, after all, appearances, so their imputed status of truth is not the truth. Or: seeing is seeing, believing what can't be believed. That's my attempt, and my 2nd attempt... well, maybe try again. Thanks guys, lovely show.

Excellent talk

Many thanks for uploading this wonderful material. May I suggest, to assist all those who were not at the conference and are accessing this material via youtube, that you either create numbered playlists that clearly show in which order the sessions took place, or simply rename each file with a system that makes it clear. One such system could be (to title this particular presentation): "170603_1300_Special Address: The 2017 Shantarakshita Award_eric colombel, gavin kilty, marcus perman, wulstan fletcher, helena blankeleder" Including the speaker's names in the title will assist people using the youtube search function. Many thanks.

The intro made me smile. When I met Jan a few years ago in Oxford, I *did* ask for her autograph. It is great to have this record of her speaking.

Thank you for posting this extraordinary presentation. Professor Gómez continues to be an inspiration for all of us.

Janet gyatso is excellent scholar!!!