"The Tibetan word for a translator is lotsawa, from the Sanskrit lokacaksuh, which literally means “cosmic-eye,” “world-eye,” or perhaps “public eye.” The Sanskrit loka, like the Greek cosmos, can mean either “world” or “people.” The idea is that a translator looks out from the home culture into another culture to present that other culture’s vision of the world. The translator is thus a “public eye” for her or his people."
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Excerpts from an article published in the Fall 2014 issue of Buddhadharma...