[Buddha-l] The Pali-Tibet Connection

[Margaret Gouin]

2009/9/28 Mitchell Ginsberg <jinavamsa at yahoo.com>

> ...
> Is the entire Pali Canon essentially in the Tibetan Buddhist Canon, just
> translated into Sanskrit?
> Would anyone like to give some basic information on this?
>
> In addition to the other responses, I can add that I asked this question of
a colleague some time ago and he responded that the thing to remember is,
the Tibetans only translated from Sanskrit, which they considered the Sacred
Language. They had no knowledge of Pali nor, apparently, did they think it
important. So any suttas that made their way into the Tibetan Kanjur did so
by way of Sanskrit translations--and as far as I know, not that many Pali
suttas were translated into Sanskrit.

However, no one yet seems to have compiled a list of which suttas are
actually in the Kanjur. Or maybe I just haven't looked enough yet. I'm
pretty sure I remember being told that neither the Kalama Sutta nor the
Satipatthana Sutta are there.

Margaret