Great Translators of the World – Kumārajīva
Kumārajīva was born in Kashmir in about 344 CE. He grew up to be a Buddhist monk, studying under various scholars before settling on the Mahayanan school of Buddhism, becoming a renowned scholar and orator.
By 401 CE, after having mastered the Chinese language, he led a team of translators who worked together to translate many Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese. The Xiaoyao Gardens, where the translators worked, became a centre for Buddhist scholarship, and their translations, noteworthy for their distinctive easy-to-read style, are still central to Chinese Buddhism to this day. In fact, in many cases more recent translations have been rejected in favour of the ‘Kumārajīva versions’ that many still see as key texts.
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