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Jeffrey Hopkins remembered as pioneer of Tibetan Buddhist translation system

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(TibetanReview.net, Jul09’24) – The recently deceased Prof Jeffrey Hopkins was “the pioneer of the entire translation system of the great Dharma classics in the West.” lionsroar.com Jul 2 quoted fellow translator Fabrizio Pallotti as saying.

University of Virginia (UVA) professor emeritus Jeffrey Hopkins, who taught Tibetan language and studies for three decades, founded the Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhist Studies programmes at UVA and served for 10 years as personal translator to the Dalai Lama, died July 1 in Vancouver, Canada. He was 83.

He served as the Dalai Lama’s interpreter from 1979-1989. He was also instrumental in the Free Tibet movement that began in 1995, the lionsroar.com report noted.

Hopkins was a pioneer in bringing Tibetan Buddhist teachings, and in particular those of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to the English-speaking world, Daniel Aitken, publisher for dharma book source Wisdom Publications, has said.

When Hopkins first joined the UVA faculty in 1973, there were no Buddhist or Tibetan studies at the University. He developed a unique programme, working closely with Tibetan scholars as collaborative partners rather than consultants, said an obituary in the online Buddhist magazine Tricycle.

He published forty-eight books, translated into a total of twenty-two languages. These included books he co-authored with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, such as How To Practise: The Way to a Meaningful Life, The Heart of Meditation, Meditation on Emptiness.

For more than three decades, beginning in 1973, Hopkins was a leading light at the UVA. While he directed UVA’s Centre for South Asian Studies for twelve years and taught Tibetan Buddhist studies and Tibetan language for thirty-two years, his signature achievement was the Tibetan Buddhist studies doctoral programme he established in 1975, which became the largest in North America, noted tricycle.org Jul 2.

A peace and human rights activist, Jeffrey Hopkins organized a 1979 visit to UVA by the Dalai Lama. In 1998, Hopkins organized a conference that brought seven Nobel Peace Prize recipients to Grounds, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (Photo by Tenzin Kiyosaki)

More than 70 doctorate degrees have been awarded since Hopkins started this programme, said news.virginia.edu Jul 9.

Among its graduates are stated to be some of the most esteemed academics in the field today, including Anne C Klein of Rice University, Donald Lopez of the University of Michigan, Georges Dreyfus of Williams College, and Bryan Cuevas of Florida State University.

Hopkins’s programme, by placing Tibetan Buddhism (rather than Indian, Chinese, or Japanese Buddhism) at its centre and bringing prominent Tibetan masters from India to Charlottesville to teach the classic texts of that tradition, “changed the way Buddhism is taught in the American academy,” Lopez has said.

Padma Shri Robert AF Thurman, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, has said: “Professor Jeffrey Hopkins made a huge contribution over his long career, serving HH Dalai Lama for years as his main translator into English, editing many books for His Holiness and translating and writing many himself, and assiduously mentoring many excellent students who nowadays keep the lamp lit and teach all over the world. In particular, his deep and extensive insight into liberating emptiness and responsible selflessness helped many scholars of Buddhism access the extraordinarily profound and sophisticated Indo-Tibetan refinements of the critical wisdom philosophy and sciences that are among humanity’s most precious treasures. We will miss him as a friend and colleague, but will continue to benefit from his extensive legacy of wisdom and compassion.”

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