SPEAKERS: Rebecca French, Professor and Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, University at Buffalo; Craig Preston, Adjunct Instructor, Asian Studies Program, University at Buffalo; Robert Vanwey, Ph.D. candidate, History Department, University at Buffalo.
DESCRIPTION: A team of three scholars with backgrounds in Criminal and Civil Litigation, Legal Anthropology, Tibetan Buddhist Studies, and Chinese History, funded by the UB Baldy Center, is translating the Law Codes of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet. Never before accurately converted into English, the final version of these law codes will be a significant addition to the corpus of Asian legal texts and the emerging field of Law and Buddhism.
First written in approximately 1640 by a regent of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the Law Code of 12 Sections will be introduced by Rebecca French (Law School). Dr. French first translated and annotated them line-by-line with a former Tibetan magistrate over many years of fieldwork with Tibetans in India and Nepal. She will explain how she first learned of them and outline several features of the codes. Then, Rob Vanwey will describe what the original texts looked like and how they were converted: first into a more formal written script, and then into a digital format that the team then checked line by line. He will also discuss the teams very slow process of rendering a final version. Lastly, Craig Preston will discuss the final version being produced and the many problems that the team has encountered in working on these difficult texts. For example, most dictionaries whether Tibetan – Tibetan, Tibetan – Chinese or Tibetan – English, were not prepared by legal scholars and thus do not reflect an understanding of legal distinctions, giving wildly variant possible translations even for basic terms. Also, exactly what is Buddhist about these texts written by Tibetan Buddhists? How is the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet — which permeates every other aspect of Tibetan life — reflected in Tibets legal system?
The presentation will include pictures and copies of the materials. The speakers hope to engage the audience in a general discussion of issues brought up by the presentation including the processes and difficulties of translating Asian texts accurately.
Jim Milles
lawirth2
SUNY Buffalo Law School
