Tipiṭaka Translation Project at Vipassana Research Institute
यो वो, आनन्द, मया धम्मो च वि नयो च देसि तो पञ्ञत्तो, सो वो ममच्चयेन सत्था।
~ महापरिनिब्बानसुत्त
Whatever direct instructions I have made known as Dhamma & Vinaya shall be the Satthā after my passing away.
~ Mahāparinibbāna Sutta
These were the words of Lord Buddha moments before he entered Mahāparinibbāna
Brief History of Tipiṭaka: Generations of monks and lay disciples dedicated their lives to preserve the practical and theoretical aspects of Lord Buddha’s Teachings.
The theoretical aspects of Buddha’s Teachings, which were essentially his direct instructions, were preserved in three major classifications due to which the collection is known as Tipiṭaka.
The three classifications are Vinaya (Discipline), Sutta (General Instructions on Dhamma) and Abhidhamma (Instructions on Mind-Matter Phenomena).
The language of these instructions is Pāli, which was essentially the Kosalī language. It was the Buddha’s own mother-tongue, which was popular amongst the masses 2600 years ago. It was the tongue of the first five disciples as well and many monks thereafter.
Three months after Buddha’s Mahāparinibbāna, 500 Arahats, who were his direct disciples spent seven months in collecting 82,000 direct instructions of Buddha and 2,000 instructions of Buddha’s direct disciples under three different categories at Rājagaha, under the patronship of King Ajātasattu.
Since then, a total of six councils have been organised to ensure that the Teachings of Buddha collected under Tipiṭaka remain pure.
Written/Scripted/Transcribed Tipiṭaka: Tipiṭaka was committed to writing during the fourth Theravada Council at Sri Lanka in 1st Century BCE. 500 monks came together at the Aloka Lena for three years, where after the recitation of the Tipiṭaka, it was committed to writing on Palm leaves. King Vattagāminī was the patron for this council. The script for the same may have been Sinhalese.
Buddhadatta, Buddhaghosa and others visited Sri Lanka in 5th Century AD to make copies in Pāli language using possibly the Gupta Brahmi Script, which later gave birth to the Saradā Script. However, after the Islamic invasions in the late 13th and early 14th Century, when many places of learning like Nālandā University, Vikramasilā University etc were destroyed, monks migrated to Nepal, Tibet, Myanmar, Southern India and Sri Lanka. And in time all of the teachings of Buddha were lost in India.
In the neighbouring countries, however, the efforts of Emperor Asoka flourished. Buddha’s teaching found protective environment and many monks and lay disciples in these countries continued to practice Dhamma and read the Tipiṭaka. The language of Tipiṭaka in these countries remained Pāli, however the script used was local.
Tipiṭaka in Devanagari: In the early 20th Century, as the teachings of Buddha received interest from handful of Indians, some texts began to appear in Hindi and other Indian Languages.
Around 1955, Nava Nalandā Mahāvihāra, which was re-established in Nov 1951, published the first critical edition of entire Pāli Tipiṭaka in Devanagari script under the guidance of Bhikkhu Jagdish Kashyap. But it didn’t contain the Atthakathās, Tikās and other important texts.
TIPIṬAKA: TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION: Pradhāna Vipassanācarya Shri. Satyanarayana Goenka arrived in India in June 1969 and held the first Vipassanā course in Mumbai from July 3 – July 14, 1969. On 6th May 1985, Goenka ji established Vipshyana Vishodhan Vinyas (Vipassana Research Institute) and thereafter in 1986, the work for transliteration of Pāli Tipiṭaka text from Burmese Script to Devanagari Script was undertaken. This transliteration was as compiled in the Chaṭṭha Sangāyana (Sixth Council) in Burma during 1954-56.
The work was completed in 1996 and the entire canonical and non-canonical Pāli literature was published in Devanagari Script in 140 Books and distributed to many important offices, educational institutions, libraries etc. Preparing a CD of all the Pāli literature was another mammoth task the VRI undertook and successfully completed.
Besides 140 volumes of Pāli texts, some more books have been entered into the CD.
Guruji’s Dream/Project-in-progress: Goenka ji had been pursuing this task since 1960 starting with his discussion with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s First PM. But finally, the task was accomplished in the year 1996. Alongside the transliteration, Goenka ji also hoped to produce the translations of the Tipiṭaka in Hindi and other modern Languages. Some work had begun under his guidance, but the Tipiṭaka is truly vast and the translation work was left to future generations of vipassana meditators to complete the task.
In the past, the work of translation was undertaken mainly by Shri S N Tandon and others. Recently, Suttanipāta Commentary was translated in Hindi and published by VRI due to considerable efforts of Dr Angraj Choudhary.
Pāli training for Translation Work at VRI-2026
Objective: In September 2024, almost 11 years after Goenkaji’s passing away, VRI has decided to establish a new team for translation of the remainder of the Tipiṭaka in a time-bound manner.
The first step in this direction is training in Pāli. While the larger goal behind Pāli language training at VRI till date has been to enable meditators to read the words of Buddha directly themselves, but now it is also felt necessary to establish courses with a specific focus on translation, which requires considerable mastery on the Pāli, its grammar and vocabulary as well as practical understanding of Dhamma. Accordingly, following Courses are recommended for Tipitaka Translation:
1.BASIC PALI-HINDI / BASIC PALI-ENGLISH Course (Residential course) from VRI.
2. Advance Pali - Hindi/ Advance Pali-English Course (Residential course) from VRI.
3.Integrated workshops for training in Kaccāyana Vyākarana for Pāli Language (Residential Workshop) by VRI.
Tentative Schedule of the Five Integrated Workshops on Kaccāyana Vyākarana to be held at the VRI Campus, Global Vipassana Pagoda, Gorai, Mumbai.
| Workshop | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|
| Workshop 1 | April 01, 2026 | April 08, 2026 |
| Workshop 2 | June 22, 2026 | June 28, 2026 |
| Workshop 3 | September 6, 2026 | September 12, 2026 |
| Workshop 4 | After January 15, 2027 | January/Feb, 2027 |
| Workshop 5 (Concluding) |
March 7, 2027 | March 13, 2027 |
VRI may invite volunteers for Tipitaka Translation Project in Future. So, the people who are interested to serve in Tipitaka Translation are requested to attend above mentioned courses.