Geshe Chodrak Dictionary

Geshe Chodrak’s dictionary is one of very few native Tibetan-Tibetan dictionaries written; it is also the least influenced by Chinese thought and needs. It features short but precise definitions and includes obscure terms not found elsewhere, making it extremely useful to students of the language at all levels.

There have not been many native Tibetan dictionaries. The few that were made in earlier times were almost unusable because they were written in a style that did not allow for easy look-up of terms. In the 20th century, three dictionaries were made that were, for the first time, usable as dictionaries. The first was made in Lhasa in the 1940’s prior to the Communist takeover. It was the dictionary presented here, made by Geshe Chodrak with the assistance of the remarkably erudite and modern scholar, Gendun Chophel. The two other major dictionaries were made in the 1970’s and 1980’s after the Communist takeover; they are the dag yig gsar sgrigs New Style of Compilation Pure Letters and the bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo The Great Chinese-Tibetan Dictionary. All three dictionaries are useful. However, the two later dictionaries have both been considerably influenced by Chinese thought and needs, often in a way detrimental to the contents of the dictionary. Geshe Chodrak’s dictionary on the other hand has was written in a purely Tibetan situation without another culture overseeing the work and insisting on changes that suited its own needs.