Kawa Peltsek

Kawa Paltseg

Kawa Peltsek (ska ba dpal brtsegs སྐ་བ་དཔལ་བརྩེགས) was one of the twenty-five disciples of Padmasambhava. He was ordained as a monk by the great abbot Shantarakshita and became one of the greatest Tibetan translators.

With panditas such as Jnanagarbha and Vidyakarasimha, he translated the prajnaparamita and other mahayana sutras and Haribhadra’s major commentary on the Abhisamayalankara known as Sphutartha. He collaborated with Vidyakaraprabha in translating treatises on Madhyamika and logic; and with Jinamitra, he translated Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosha and commentary. Together with Sarvajñadeva, he was the first to translate the Bodhicharyavatara into Tibetan. He also translated many tantras later collected in the Nyingma Gyübum.

Along with Chokro Lüi Gyaltsen, he was sent to India by king Trisong Detsen to invite Vimalamitra to Tibet. He later received the Vima Nyingtik teachings from Vimalamitra in Samyé.

"Kawa" is a place name and "Paltseg" means "Mountain of resplendence." He was born in Kawa in Phenpo Valley.

Name variations

In colophons his name is frequently written as:

• Peltsek or
• Peltsek Rakṣita (dpal brtsegs rak+shi ta)

He is also referred to as:

• zhu chen gyi lo tsa ba ban+de dpal brtsegs (ཞུ་ཆེན་གྱི་ལོ་ཙ་བ་བནྡེ་དཔལ་བརྩེགས)

  where

  • zhu chen gyi lo tsa ba (ཞུ་ཆེན་གྱི་ལོ་ཙ་བ་) means "translator and editor"
  • ban+de (བནྡེ་) means "venerable one"

Selected commentaries

• Seventeenfold Appearance of the Sequence of the View (T. lta rim snang ba bcu bdun pa)
• A Manual of Key Buddhist Terms ( T. lo tsa ba ka ba dpal brtsegs kyis mdzed pa'i chos kyi rnam grangs dang, chos kyi rnam grangs kyi brjed byang bzhugs so)

Works translated into English

• Kawa Paltseg, Lotsawa. A Manual of Key Buddhist Terms: Categorization of Buddhist Terminology with Commentary. LTWA: 2015

Further reading

• Kawa Peltseg , Treasury of Lives

• Kawa Paltsek, Rigpa Shedra Wiki
• Kawa_Paltsek, Rangjung Yeshe Wiki
• Kawa Paltsek, Wikipedia