Pali-Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary in offing [Wednesday, 6 October 2010, 12:02 p.m.]
Dharamshala: The
University of Pune’s Pali department in joint collaboration with the
Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, will bring out the first-ever trilingual
Pali-Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary. “Buddhist
studies cannot be done properly by knowing only one of the languages.
Most Buddhist literature available today are either in Tibetan or
Chinese; there is a great need for a dictionary that can be consulted
simultaneously — taking Pali as base and Sanskrit and Tibetan as
parallels. We will also be including the English meanings for
reference,” Pali department head and project coordinator MA Deokar was
quoted as saying by The Indian Express. The University
Grant Commission (UGC), which is funding the project, has allotted
funds of nearly Rs 9 lakh, taking into account the size of the project
that needs a lot of in-depth study of the languages. “Usually,
the UGC does not give such huge funds and manpower for projects. But
since I am a special case, they gave me two additional assistants.
Also, I am being helped by two members from the Tibetan University,
Sarnath,” said Deokar, who is visually-impaired.“We do not have
any trained Tibetan staff here. The people from Sarnath are honourary
members and are not present here at all times. For a project of this
magnitude, we need the constant help of experts, which we are not
getting,” he added.Almost 50 per cent of the work has already been completed and the group claims that the project will be completed by June 2011. “We
are trying to complete the work as soon as we can. However, if we are
not able to meet the deadline, we will apply for an extension. We also
wanted to include Chinese in the dictionary because many Buddhist
literature are also available in Chinese. We will not be able to do
that in the first phase, but are definitely thinking of working on it
in the second phase,” Deokar added.
