In the Newar cultural area, there was a phase ending in the 15th century in which Newar pandits transmitted existing texts and composed new Sanskrit texts, overlapping a period beginning in the 14th century of intense translation into what we now call Classical Newari, both of their own Newar Sanskrit compositions, and of other texts. There are textual artefacts showing this period of translation, including the lexical manuscripts that were used to compile the Dictionary of Classical Newari - on this see the very useful website at http://newari.net/index.html which lets one study the various mss of the Amarakośa.

A good example of this is the Svayaṃbhūpurāṇa, which has been studied by Brinkhaus and Rospatt. It was written in Sanskrit, expanded rapidly, and then acquired a Newari version; the Sanskrit was translated into Tibetan by the 8th Tai Situ (Yoshizaki has written on this) in the 18th century.

This process continued right up through the 20th century; a number of key texts that Newar Buddhist scholars had effectively refused to translate into Newari were finally translated, starting with the Lalitavistara around 1900 (by Niṣṭhānanda — I think Christoph Emmrich might be working on this just now).

Be well,

—WBTD.
- - -- --- ----- -------- -------------
Will Tuladhar-Douglas
Email: will@tending.to Blog: Tending to blether
Research Fellow, Hamburg University
Situgyan Consulting Ltd.



On 28 Nov 2020, at 22:01, Olivelle, J P via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

I have received a query from a scholar not on this list about translations of Sanskrit texts into other Indian languages in the medieval period, say pre- 17th century. If any of you know such translations, I’d be delighted to get some information on them.

With thanks and best wishes,

Patrick Olivelle
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