Sara McClintock and John Dunne Win Khyentse Foundation’s 2025 Award for Outstanding Translation

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Sara McClintock and John Dunne Win Khyentse Foundation’s 2025 Award for Outstanding Translation

By Craig Lewis
November 17, 2025

Sara McClintock and John Dunne. Image courtesy of Khyentse Foundation

Khyentse Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the revered Bhutanese lama, filmmaker, and author Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, announced that it has awarded this year’s Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Translation to Sara McClintock and John Dunne for their book Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland: Ratnāvalī (Wisdom Publications 2024).

“The Ratnāvalī, the Precious Garland, is one of the best-known works of the famous Indian philosopher and poet Nagarjuna (c. second century),” Khyentse Foundation said in an announcement seen by BDG. “In 500 verses, Nagarjuna offers a king guidance on the ethical and philosophical foundations of the Buddhist teaching from a Mahayana perspective. In so doing, he masterfully conveys profound religious ideas in an exceptionally graceful poetic form. The work continues to exert a strong influence throughout the Mahayana world, particularly within Tibetan Buddhism.”

A Buddhist philosopher and scholar of religion, Sara McClintock received a master’s degree in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1989, and a PhD in the study of religion from Harvard University in 2002. McClintock has studied and conducted research at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath, India, and at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and now serves as associate professor of religion at Emory University.

John Dunne earned a PhD from Harvard University in 1999 and currently serves on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, holding the distinguished chair in contemplative humanities at the Center for Healthy Minds. Dunne is also distinguished professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and is a member of Mind and Life Europe and a fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. His academic collaborations include a senior advisory at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Buddhist Translation was established in 2011 to recognize and encourage excellence in the field of translation that contributes to the accessibility of Buddhist wisdom and literature in the public domain. To qualify for the prize, works must have been published in the two years preceding the award, and can include translations into English from any of the classical languages of Buddhism: Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese.

“Khyentse Foundation’s five-member selection committee unanimously approved Prof. Jens-Uwe Hartmann’s nomination of Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland: Ratnāvalī for this year’s award,” the foundation noted. “Their decision was based on both the translation’s exemplary quality and the way in which it connects content with broader context.

“In their English translation, Sara McClintock and John Dunne have succeeded in capturing both the precision and beauty of Nagarjuna’s original text, making this foundational teaching accessible to Western readers in a highly engaging form. A detailed introduction explains the work and situates it within its historical and religious background.”

Khyentse Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in 2001. Its aim is to promote the Buddha’s teaching and support all traditions of Buddhist study and practice. The foundation’s activities include major text preservation and translation projects, support for monastic colleges in Asia, a worldwide scholarship and awards program, and development of Buddhist studies at major universities, alongside training and development for Buddhist teachers and developing new modes of Dharma-inspired education for children.

Khyentse Foundation’s achievements over the last 20 years include: more than 15 million pages of Buddhist texts preserved and made available online; education provided for the children of more than 1,000 families; support for Buddhist studies at more than 35 major universities through endowed chairs and professorships, graduate support, and the establishment of Buddhist studies centers; more than US$1 million in sponsorship for Buddhist teacher-training granted; sacred Buddhist texts translated into more than 15 languages, thanks to the efforts of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, the Kumarajiva Project, and the Khyentse Vision Project; over US$1.8 million in funding granted to uphold Buddhism in its mother countries, including grassroots partnerships to revitalize interest in Buddhism in India; more than 2,000 scholarships and awards in recognition of excellence in Buddhist study and practice; support for over 3,000 monks and nuns to maintain the tradition of Buddhist scholarship in a monastic setting; and more than 120 open-access Ashoka and Trisong grants distributed to support Dharma and well-being programs.

Craig Lewis

Craig Lewis grew up in a transplanted Scottish family in southern England before setting off against all advice to seek light and wisdom in far-off places, rather than staying put and looking within. After repeated encounters with the Buddhadharma as a journalist working in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and across Asia, he eventually found refuge as senior editor at BDG, where he reports and writes with a focus on engaged Buddhism and social equity as well as the diversity of contemporary manifestations of the Dharma and Buddhist practice. In his column for BDG, “Chasing Light,” Craig seeks to document encounters, experiences, and epiphanies resulting from his own tentative and faltering path toward liberation. Craig is also a keen mountain trekker and photographer, finding particular inspiration in the peoples, cultures, and Buddhist expressions of the Himalaya. Contact: [email protected]

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