THE ILLUMINATOR

Tibetan-English
Encyclopaedic Dictionary

ONLINE EDITION
Published November, 2021

By Tony Duff
© Tony Duff 2000-2025. All rights reserved.
Padma Karpo Translation Committee
pktc.org

Foreword

The Illuminator Dictionary was written from the ground up by Tony Duff. Significant editorial assistance was provided by the Ven. Karma Ozer and Mr. Peter Schaffranek. The dictionary has a number of distinguishing features as follows.

1. Accuracy and clearness of explication of terms
There has been considerable confusion over many Tibetan terms, especially terms of the Buddhist vocabulary. Therefore, many of the terms in this dictionary have extensive commentaries to elucidate their actual meaning.
There are a number of free Tibetan-English dictionaries available at the time of writing; many of them are not dictionaries with clear explanations of the meaning of terms but are merely compilations of terms extracted from various sources. They often provide multiple definitions from many differing sources without defining the meanings of the words or showing which connotations correctly fit and which do not. They also often include mistaken words or definitions and these have then found their way into mistaken translations because so-called translators these days seem to value the fact that these dictionaries are free over their quality and reliability. The Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary has been singled out by academics and trenchantly criticised for these faults. As the person who first prepared that dictionary for electronic distribution, I have seen its enormous faults first-hand and can only concur with the others who criticize it so heavily.
This dictionary takes a much more refined approach. Each entry has been composed by the author on the basis of his extensive study and practice over more than forty years with all of the major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. It includes portions of translations of various texts as needed.

2. Comprehensive content
The dictionary contains both terms from the ཆོས་སྐད་ dharma vocabulary and from the ཕལ་སྐད་ colloquial vocabulary. Both are given full treatment though some of the dharma terms have very extensive explanations.

• It also has a fairly complete Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen (རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ which is translated as "Great Completion" throughout) vocabularies with it.

• It contains the entire contents of the ལི་ཤིའི་གུར་ཁང་ House of Cloves a rare text written by the Tibetan translator Skyogton Rinchen Tashi in the Fire Monkey year (1476 C.E.). The work is a lexical work (dag yig) which shows the difference between བརྡ་རྙིང་ old and བརྡ་གསར་ new signs; it contains over 1000 terms and is the only explication of its type available. Many of the entries cannot be found in any other dictionary at present.

• It contains the entire contents of the enumeration of dharmas text མདོ་རྒྱུད་དོ་རྒྱུད་བསྟན་བཅོས་དུ་མ་ནས་འབྱུང་བའི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྣམ་གྲངས་ཤེས་ལྡན་ཡིད་ཀྱི་དགའ་སྟོན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། A Festival for Intelligent Minds An Enumeration of Dharmas Taken From Many Sūtras, Tantras, and Śhāstras by དཀོན་མཆོག་འཇིགས་མེད་དབང་པོ་ Konchog Jigmey Wangpo.

• It contains an extensive range of terms connected with secret mantra ritual and commentaries are given where appropriate.

• There is a class of terms belonging to experiential vocabulary (see མྱོང་ཚིག་) which simply do not have equivalents in English. The bulk of these terms refer to various states of mind that are encountered on the path by a practitioner. Many of these terms have been misunderstood, even by translators, so a considerable effort has been made to collect the important ones and provide a clear enough commentary for the reader to be able to understand the particular quality of each term.

3. Verb listings
The verb listings are a major feature of the dictionary. To start with, the verb listings are very complete. Moreover, the verb entries were not made on an ad hoc basis as has happened with all other Tibetan-English dictionaries where entries have been added without checking and many errors in the verb listings have been included. In this dictionary, the verb listings are based on The Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary, which is the most reliable of Tibetan dictionaries available. Some additional listings have been added but only after verification that they are authentic.
A further feature of the verb listings is that they clearly and correctly distinguish between transitive and intransitive verb forms. It is quite interesting to look up other Tibetan-English dictionaries and compare entries for two verbs which are exactly the same in meaning except that one is transitive and one intransitive. In many cases the verbs are listed with meanings that do not match! This dictionary always has consistency between transitive and intransitive definitions and the entries for transitive and intransitive forms aways cross-reference the other form.

4. Parts of speech identified
Entries are clearly marked as being nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so on.

5. Tibetan script and Tibetan transliterated into English versions of the dictionary.
Many of our dictionaries come as two separate dictionaries, with the content being the same but with one dictionary having Tibetan primarily in Tibetan script and the other dictionary having it primarily in Tibetan transliterated into English. The latter form of the dictionary is for those who are not familiar enough with Tibetan script for it to be useful but who can understand Tibetan in transliteration. Regardless of which of the two forms of the dictionary is being viewed, the headwords of every entry are given in both Tibetan script and Tibetan transliterated into English. The transliteration into English follows a modified form of Turrell Wylie's system; see the section on transliteration (TIBETAN TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM) in the preface.

6. Sanskrit represented using transliteration with diacriticals
The IATS academic system for transliteration of Sanskrit is used. The letters with diacriticals needed for that are fully supported in the software. To type any of those letters, for example as you would need to do in a search, press Ctrl+d and follow the prompts.
Note that the the search system has an option for finding letters with diacriticals as simply the base letter. For example, in the search box with that option turned on, simply type for example an "a" to find both "a" and "ā". For more information see the section on transliteration (SANSKRIT TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM) in the preface.

7. Dates for persons
Dates for persons are difficult to ascertain reliably in Tibetan and Indian Buddhism for many reasons. The dates for persons where given do not represent an exhaustive investigation of the dates but are culled from relatively authoritative sources so that the reader will have some sense of the person's times. Padma Karpo Translation Committee also offers a free dictionary of important figures of Tibetan history on its web-site, with each entry containing a significant amount of biographical information.

8. Operating systems
The dictionary is available with software programmed for a variety of operating systems. Details of the various operating systems supported are available on the Padma Karpo Translation Committee web-site: http://www.pktc.org/pktc.

Tony Duff,
Director of Padma Karpo Translation Committee,
October, 2015
Kathmandu,
NEPAL