Translation of the Abhidharmasamayalamkara

The translation of the root-text and the 5th Zhwa-dmar's commentary has been released :

GONE BEYOND: The Prajnaparamita Sutras, The Ornament of Clear Realization, and Its Commentaries in the Tibetan Kagyu Tradition

translated and introduced by Karl Brunnhölzl, a Tsadra Foundation Series book, Snow Lion Publications, 2011.

Volume 1: 942 pp., cloth, 54.95
Volume 2: 688 pp., cloth, $44.95

The Abhisamayalamkara summarizes all the topics in the vast body of
the Prajnaparamita Sutras. It especially comes to life through its
Indian and Tibetan commentaries. Together, these texts not only
discuss the "hidden meaning" of the Prajnaparamita Sutras-the paths
and bhumis of sravakas, pratyekabuddhas, and bodhisattvas-but also
serve as contemplative manuals for the explicit topic of these
sutras-emptiness-and how it is to be understood on the progressive
levels of realization of bodhisattvas. Thus, these texts describe what
happens in the mind of a bodhisattva who meditates on emptiness,
making it a living experience from the beginner's stage up through
buddhahood.

Gone Beyond contains the first in-depth study the Abhisamayalamkara
(the text studied most extensively in higher Tibetan Buddhist
education) and its commentaries in the Kagyu School. This study
includes translations of Maitreya's famous text and its commentary by
the Fifth Shamarpa, Goncho Yenla (the first translation ever of a
complete commentary on the Abhisamayalamkara into English), which are
supplemented by extensive excerpts from the commentaries by the Third,
Seventh, and Eighth Karmapas and others. Thus, it closes a
long-standing gap in the modern scholarship on the Prajnaparamita
Sutras and the literature on paths and bhumis in Mahayana Buddhism.

The first volume presents an English translation of the first three
chapters of the Abhisamayalamkara and its commentary by the Fifth
Shamarpa.

The second volume presents an English translation of the final five
chapters and its commentary by the Fifth Shamarpa.

"In a stimulating and accessible way, Karl Brunnhölzl's Gone Beyond
brings us into the vast and profound world of prajaparamita
literature. In these two volumes of Gone Beyond, we discover the
foundation of the Mahayana path in all its glory."-Elizabeth Callahan,
translator of The Treasury of Knowledge, Book Six, Part Three:
Frameworks of Buddhist Philosophy.

Karl Brunnhölzl was trained as a physician and presently works as a
Tibetan translator and Buddhist teacher. He studied Tibetology,
Buddhology, and Sanskrit at Hamburg University and Tibetan language
and Buddhist philosophy and practice the Marpa Institute for
Translators in Kathmandu. Currently he works as a translator and
interpreter for the Tsadra Foundation, Nalandabodhi, and the Nitartha
Institute. In 2009 he was appointed as the first Western khenpo (abbot
in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages) by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. He is
the author and translator of The Center of the Sunlit Sky (2004), the
first in-depth study of the Kagyu interpretation of Madhyamaka in a
Western language; Straight from the Heart (2007), an anthology of
Buddhist pith instructions; Nagarjuna's In Praise of Dharmadhatu
(2007) with commentary by the Third Karmapa; and Luminous Heart
(2009), the Third Karmapa on buddha nature, consciousness, and wisdom.
(Jeff Cox)