Holly Gayley

Until now the voices of Tibetan Buddhist women have been difficult to discern since primary sources by and about women are scarce and those that exist extend across literary corpuses. The impetus for this collaborative reading and translation workshop comes from the Buddhist nuns at Larung Gar in eastern Tibet who recently published a groundbreaking compilation of 52 volumes of writings by, for, and about Buddhist women in the Tibetan language. Titled the Dakinis’ Great Dharma Treasury (Mkha’ ’gro’i chos mdzod chen mo) and published in 2017, this compilation opens up new horizons for the reading and interpretation of Tibetan texts. Our workshop will engage intergenerational scholars from China, Europe, and North America to collaborate in close readings and discussions about the translation of select passages from these exemplary texts and other works proposed by participants.