The Mahāvyutpatti, The Great Volume of Precise Understanding or Essential Etymology, was compiled in Tibet during the late eighth to early ninth centuries CE, providing a dictionary composed of thousands of Sanskrit and Tibetan terms designed as means to provide standardised Buddhist texts in Tibetan, and is included as part of the Tibetan Tengyur. It is the earliest substantial bilingual dictionary known. The Mahāvyutpatti is traditionally attributed to the reign of Ralpacan, "but as Professor Tucci has pointed out, it undoubtedly goes back to his predecessor Sad-na-legs, and one might well assume, in its actual conception, even back to the time of Khri Srong-lde-brtsan, when these problems were first seriously confronted...." So, whatever the case, it must be dated prior to 838 CE, and probably to the time of Sadnalegs. Several Indian pandits were consulted before the translation began. A committee of three Tibetan translators who had definitely been translating during the reign of Sadnalegs, 'Bro Ka.ba dPal.brtsegs, Cog.ro kLu'i rgyal.mtshan, and sNa.nam Ye.she.sde, was set up to do the actual translation. The original dictionary contained 9,565 lexical entries divided into 277 chapters, and was in three volumes – one on the Hinayana, one on the Mahayana, and one of indexes. Three editions were made and installed at pho.brang lDan.mkhar, 'Phang-thang, and mChims.phu. Another book, the sGra-sbyor bam-po gnyis-pa, or 'Word-Combination', a two-part work, definitely produced during the reign of Sadnalegs, clearly describes in its opening words how the dictionary was produced: The sGra-sbyor bam-po gnyis-pa then goes on to give the royal orders on how the texts were to be translated from Sanskrit to Tibetan, and also explains that, because the tantras "are to be secret by regulation"... "henceforth with regard to dhāraṇīs, mantras and tantras, unless permission for translation is given, tantras and mantra expressions are not permitted to be collected and translated." Later on Chinese was added to the Sanskrit and Tibetan. By the 17th century versions were being produced with Chinese, Mongolian and Manchurian equivalents. The first English translation was made by the pioneering Hungarian Tibetologist Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, also known as Alexander Csoma de Kőrös. The Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta published the first part in 1834, a second part in 1910 and the third and final part in 1944. This early dictionary is still in use today, though usually in reverse order - to discover the Sanskrit equivalents for Tibetan Buddhist terms and to recreate Sanskrit texts of which the originals have been lost from their Tibetan translations.
