I see no need to overplay that old scenario of the precious object lost and unknown suddenly revealed to the world. It isn’t exactly cognitive science, or is it? Is it a question of ‘Who is paying attention to what?’ or ‘What’s out there that could be seen?’ Surely there must be a handful of learned people in the hills of Himachal, not to mention the high Himalayas who are aware of this historical work in some degree, some may even have read it for all we know. However, Tibetan Histories bibliography, in both its editions (1987 & 2020), has no listing for it, and a search of the worldwide web (including TBRC/BDRC/BUDA) came up with no knowledge of its existence. Search engines are not the solution to every problem, and neither is AI. I hope we know that.
The one exceptional bit of knowledge on this particular subject is in a book published earlier this year, a history of Bon dubbed Drenpa’s Proclamation. In it you can see that, in a brief passage about the ancient Tibetan Emperor Drigum, the title Bon History: Lamp of Assurance (བོན་བྱུང་ཡིད་ཆེས་སྒྲོན་མ།) is cited twice (once with variant spelling). However, this passage exists in only one of its several manuscript versions, the one called Manuscript C, from Nakchu. As the Nakchu Manuscript appears to expand on pericopes found in the other versions, we tend to think it a later recension. So even if the history translated in Drenpa’s Proclamation dates to the late 12th century as we think it does, the title of the lost history may have been written into it in a later century. Knowing this doesn’t help us very much in trying to decide questions of authorship and definitive dating. These mysteries remain.
What was not known when the book was released was that the title mentioned there does indeed belong to an identifiable and physically present text, even if that text is only made available in the form of a title page with the title on its front side (our frontispiece) along with the introduction on its back side. Given no alternative we will have to be satisfied with this fragment, so I’ve simply typed its content at the end of this file, hoping that this may bear information that will eventually allow us to find the missing pages.
But before doing that, let’s invent a brand new entry for Tibetan Histories that ought to look something like this:
- 1195a -
— [no dating possible]
Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma. The title is once given with this spelling, and once immediately afterward with the probably less acceptable spelling Bon-chung Yid-ches Sgron-ma. It seems it would have contained an account of the assassination of Emperor Gri-gum by Lo-ngam. This we may know from only one of the manuscripts of the Grags-pa Rin-chen Gling-bsgrags. See Per Kværne and Dan Martin, Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023), at p. 212. Although unknown to the authors at the time, a title page for this work, its original kept by TBMC, has been digitally preserved at the British Library's online Endangered Archives Programme, no. EAP687/1/19, at scan nos. 489-490, where the title reads Bon-byung Yid-ches Sgron-ma, and on fol. 1v likewise, only with the word lo-rgyus inserted thus: Bon-byung-gi [Lo-rgyus] Yid-ches Sgron-ma. A three-fold general outline is at least supplied here: Firstly, how it [the Bon religion] was promulgated with compassion; in the meantime, how it was made to decline due to happenstances; and finally, how it was spread once more through aspiration prayers.
+ + +
Transcription of the title page
Note: I have tacitly resolved abbreviations and accepted all inserted corrections. I ignore the penmanship practice in the bottom margin. Quotes from scriptures are in red, their titles in italics. I've created the paragraph formatting to suit my whims. The scripture cited by its short title as mdo would be the Gzer-mig, the medium-lengthed biography of Lord Shenrab.
[1r] bon byung yid ches sgron ma [b]zhugs /
[1v] sna tshogs thabs kyi[s] 'gro ba 'dren mdzad pa'i ston mchog sprul pa'i sku la phyag 'tshal lo //
'dir bon byung gi lo rgyus yid ches sgron ma la / don gsum ste / dpa'o [~dang po?] thugs rjes dar tshul / bar du rkyen gyis bsnubs tshul / tha ma smon lam gyis rgyas tshul /
dang po dar tshul la gnyis / spyir sangs rgyas kyi; gos [~dgos?] ston pa'i / [b]stan pa'i dar tshul dang po ni / sems can gyi ji ltar khyab pa bzhin / sangs rgyas kyi bstan pas dang khyab ste /
mdo las / snod bcud ting nge 'dzin mtha' yas la /
nam mkha' ji bzhin thugs rjes khyab / ces dang /
klu 'bum las / sems can gyi las ni / bsam gyis mi khyab / gsam ba'i [~bsam pa'i] tshad las 'das / de [b]stan cing drang ba'i phyir / ston pa'i bka' yang bsam gyi[s] mi khyab / gsam ba'i [~bsam pa'i] tshad las 'das / ces so /
de yang bsdus na / phyogs bcu dus gsum gyi sangs rgyas so //
phyogs bcu'i sangs rgyas ni / bon nyid snying... [the remainder of the text is lacking].
Per Kværne and Dan Martin, Drenpa’s Proclamation: The Rise and Decline of the Bön Religion in Tibet, Vajra Books (Kathmandu 2023). This is only made available in hardbound book format from the publisher. The internet monopolists have not yet listed it, so you may need to pick up a copy on your next trip to Kathmandu.
Dan Martin, Tibetan Histories: A Bibliography of Tibetan-Language Historical Works, Serindia Publications (London 1997). In collaboration with Yael Bentor. Foreword by Michael Aris. The original book is now out of print. A revised and expanded version was posted on the internet on December 21, 2020, in both Word and PDF formats that may be downloaded for free at the following URL: https://www.bdrc.io/blog/2020/12/21/dan-martins-tibetan-histories/.
Postscript
A local search of BDRC revealed more than one occurrence of that quote from the Gzer-mig. Here is a good example:
Khri Bsod-bstan, Bon-dpyad Spyi Rgya Rlabs Gcod, Kan-su'u Mi-rigs Dpe-skrun-khag (Lanzhou 2015), TBRC no. W8LS20516. As the page no. is not supplied I can’t tell you what it is. (I find that Shardza has the same quote near the beginning of his own history.)
མདོ་གཟེར་མིག་ལས།
སྣོད་བཅུད་འཇིག་རྟེན་མཐའ་ཡས་ལ།།
ནམ་མཁའ་ཇི་བཞིན་ཐུགས་རྗེས་ཁྱབ།།
Notice that here ting-nge-'dzin, meaning contemplative absorption or samâdhi, is replaced by 'jig-rten, the world with its inhabitants (like Sanskrit loka). I have to say, the reading meaning “world” suits the context a lot better. It’s a beautiful way of saying that the compassion of the Enlightened Ones extends to distant-most extremes of the environmental-biological universe just like space does.
These last years have seen some interesting and important new publications in Padampa and Zhijé studies. Included in the list are some fresh new translations of the Tingri Hundred and the Tingri Eighty. No matter which it is, Hundred or Eighty, this is the one composition Padampa is most famous for even if it is one he didn’t compose.* If anything is neglected here it wasn’t by design, so let me know what’s missing, I’ll gladly add it.
I never imagined any Padampa work could ever appear in Catalan, or that a newly found Tangut-language version of his life would be subject of a study in Chinese, but there you go. And what about that Russian article on a Padampa text in Oirat-Mongolian language found in the National Museum of Tuva? What, you never read Tuva or Bust? Sometimes you have to go quite far to demonstrate how much you’ve embraced inclusiveness.
But if you ask me to choose the two publications during the last decade that have done the most for Zhijé and Padampa studies, I answer without hesitation, [1] the 13-volume publication of 2012-2013 and [2] the new translations by Sarah Harding. Looking at the entire list, it might appear that our present-day Padampa is shifting more toward a vision of him as a prophet of things to come and an expert in some kind of divination. That could be an illusion, like so many of our mental images turn out to be. Well, once we’ve developed the ability to see through them.
(*The Tingri Thirteen is the only one that is at all likely to be his, even if hardly anyone recognizes that this is so at this moment in time. Padampa created the form of these couplets and initiated the creation of all the future examples. Look here if you want to know about the monkey and rhino recensions. My own translation of the Tingri Hundred is so far published only here on the internet. I haven't tried to cover internet postings in my list, so with one or two exceptions these are all hard copies consulted in print format.)
§ § §
Okay, here’s the list. I insert comments only when I think I can clarify the content in a general way. Since the 13-volume set doesn’t have an author exactly, I’ll list it first —
For more on this, look here. And for a title list, you might need to look here. It does contain some unique titles never before published, such as the guidebook to Tingri Langkhor that Barbara N. Aziz studied years ago, you have to look for them. Most important for future researchers, the text is done using computerized Tibetan script, so it is entirely possible to do Online Character Recognition that will make it simple to search through the entire set with a single click. Some things should never be so easy. Hear my inner Luddite talking?
Matthew Akester, “Ting-ri Langkor (Ding ri Gla/Glang ’khor/skor),” contained in: Idem., Jamyang Khyentsé Wangpo’s Guide to Central Tibet, Serindia (Chicago 2016), pp. 668-671.
Especially recommended if you wonder about the history and current state of Tingri Langkhor (དིང་རི་གླང་འཁོར་), the place where Padampa taught during his final sojourn in Tibet, with much on the holy objects and relics that we expect to find emphasized in a pilgrimage guidebook.
Evgeniĭ Vladimirovich Bembeev, “Oĭratskaia rukopisʹ «Shastra pod nazvaniem “Zolotye chetki khrabrosti”, sochinennaia nastavnikom Padamboĭ» iz fonda Natsionalʹnogo muzeia Tuvy” [The Shastra titled ‘A Golden Rosary of Courage’ Composed by Teacher Padamba: An Oirat Manuscript from the National Museum of Tuva], The New Research of Tuva, no. 4 (2019), pp. 53-61. Try this link.
I wish I could tell you more about what this text is, but really, I could use your help here, I’m mystified. If as it seems it is a prophetic text, it could prove interesting, especially as it concerns religious corruption and deceit by rulers, things we know all too well. But wait one minute, I can’t believe myself for finding it considering all the odds, but the very “same” text found in Tuva has been translated into English from its Tibetan original in Sarah Harding’s new book listed below, on p. 537 or thereabout. Sarah prefaces her translation commenting that this text seems to pop out of nowhere, “leaving no paper trail,” unmentioned in Kongtrul’s lists, perhaps explainable if it was added into the Treasury of Precious Instructions (གདམས་ངག་མཛོད་) by someone else. Oddly enough TBRC doesn’t seem to know of even one copy of this title outside of the Treasury of Precious Instructions. Now we know of one, in Oirat.
José Cabezón,The Buddha's Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles: Rog Bande Sherab's Lamp of the Teachings, Oxford University Press (Oxford 2013).
Translation of an important Nyingma text by one of the three Rog brothers, important for the Zhijé school in the early 13th century, when earlier lineages were consolidated.
Francesc Navarro i Fàbrega, tr., Un Mahâsiddha Indi al Tibet: Vida i ensenyaments de Padampa Sanguie, Editorial Dipankara (Sabadell 2011).
Catalan translation of the Tingri Eighty. Tibetan text is provided in Tibetan script.
_____, tr., Un Mahâsiddha Indio en el Tíbet: Vida y enseñanzas de Padampa Sanguie, Editorial Dipankara(Sabadell 2011).
Spanishtranslation of the Tingri Eighty. Tibetan text is provided in Tibetan script.
Carla Gianotti, “Female Buddhist Adepts in the Tibetan Tradition: The Twenty-four Jo Mo, Disciples of Pha Dam Pa Sangs Rgyas,” Journal of Dharma Studies, vol. 2 (2019), pp. 15-29. Look here.
_____, Jo mo. Donne e realizzazione spirituale in Tibet, Ubaldini Editore (Rome 2020).
This contains an Italian translation of Kunga's collective biography of twenty-four women disciples of Padampa. The title that appears in the Zhijé Collection version reads: Jo-mo Nyi-shu-rtsa-bzhi’i Zhu-lan Lo-rgyus dang bcas-pa.
_____, “The Lives of the Twenty-Four Jo-mos of the Buddhist Tradition: Identity and Religious Status,” contained in: Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Contemporary Buddhist Women: Contemplation, Cultural Exchange, and Social Action, University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong 2017), pp. 238-244.
_____, “La verità del fuoco. Le ventiquattro jo mo della tradizione tibetana e l'insegnamento di Pha Dam pa sangs rgyas,” a paper given at the first meeting of the Associazione Italiana di Studi Tibetani e Himalayani (Procida 2017).
Sarah Harding, “Pha Dampa Sangye and the Alphabet Goddess: A Preliminary Study of the Sources of the Zhije Tradition.” This was an internet publication at tsadra.org, and I'm not sure if it is still there, need to check.
_____, Zhije, the Pacification of Suffering (=The Treasury of Precious Instructions: Essential Teachings of the Eight Practice Lineages of Tibet Volume 13), Snow Lion (Boulder 2019), a hardback book in 668 pages.
This includes so much, so much there is no hope of encapsulating it in a brief statement. For now, notice at least that it does include new translations of the Tingri Eighty and the Thirty Aspirations. Most remarkable are the texts for empowerment rituals never before noticed in any publication in any language other than Tibetan that I know of.
Lozang Jamspal and David Kittay, eds. & trs., Pha Dam-pa Sangs-rgyas-kyi Zhal-gdams Ding-ri Brgya-rtsa-ma (Pha Dampa Sangs rgyas’s One Hundred Spiritual Instructions to the Dingri People), Ladakhi Ratnashridipika / La-dwags Rin-chen Dpal-gyi Sgron-ma (Leh 2011).
Translation of the Tingri Hundred. Each couplet is given in Tibetan script immediately followed by its English translation. Appended to it is a reproduction of a verse praise in honor of the late E. Gene Smith composed by Prof. 'Bum-skyabs with the title Bod-brgyud Nang-bstan Gsung-rab Dar-spel-gyi Phyogs-la Mdzad-rjes Bla-na-mtho-ba'i Sku-zhabs 'Jam-dbyangs-rnam-rgyal Mchog-la Rjes-dran-du Phul-ba Bcos-min Sems-kyi 'Bod-sgra / བོད་བརྒྱུད་ནང་བསྟན་གསུང་རབ་དར་སྤེལ་གྱི་ཕྱོགས་ལ་མཛད་རྗེས་བླ་ན་མཐོ་བའི་སྐུ་ཞབས་འཇམ་དབྱངས་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་མཆོག་ལ་རྗེས་དྲན་དུ་ཕུལ་བ་བཅོས་མིན་སེམས་ཀྱི་འབོད་སྒྲ་You may have to travel to Ladakh to find a copy of this small book, but I chose the easier path and wrote to the authors.
Matthew Kapstein, tr., “The Advice of an Indian Yogin,” contained in K. Schaeffer, M. Kapstein & G. Tuttle, eds., Sources of Tibetan Tradition, Columbia University Press (New York 2013), pp. 234-242.
Translation of the Tingri Hundred. Based on the Lhasa xylograph with the exact title Pha Rje-btsun Dam-pa Sangs-rgyas-kyi Zhal-gdams Ding-ri Brgya-rtsa-ma / ཕ་རྗེ་བཙུན་དམ་པ་སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་ཞལ་གདམས་དིང་རི་བརྒྱ་རྩ་མ་
Several texts of Zhijé in a conveniently small volume, although the texts it contains were already widely available.
Dan Martin, “Crazy Wisdom in Moderation: Padampa Sangyé’s Use of Counterintuitive Methods in Dealing with Negative Mental States,” contained in: Yael Bentor and Meir Shahar, eds., Chinese and Tibetan Esoteric Buddhism, Brill (Leiden 2017), pp. 193-214.
_____, “Divinations Padampa Did or Did Not Do, or Did or Did Not Write,” contained in: Petra Maurer, Donatella Rossi and Rolf Scheuermann, eds., Glimpses of Tibetan Divination, Past and Present, Brill (Leiden 2020), pp. 73-88.
_____, “Ritual Indigenization as a Debated Issue in Tibetan Buddhism (11th to Early 13th Centuries),” contained in: Henk Blezer and Mark Teeuwen, Challenging Paradigms: Buddhism and Nativism, Framing Identity Discourse in Buddhist Environments, Brill (Leiden 2013), pp. 159-194.
This includes a peculiar episode from the Zhijé Collection in which the South Indian Padampa performs a local Tibetan divination ritual for the benefit of a woman who was one of his Tingrian meditation students.
_____, “Yak Snot: Padampa’s Animal Metaphors and the Question of Indian-ness (Theirs and His),” contained in: Hanna Havnevik & Charles Ramble, eds., From Bhakti to Bon: Festschrift for Per Kvaerne, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, Novus Forlag (Oslo 2015), pp. 337-349.
David Molk with Lama Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche, trs., Lion of Siddhas: The Life and Teachings of Padampa Sangye, Snow Lion (Ithaca 2008). A brief review by Michelle Sorensen appeared in Religious Studies Review, vol. 35, no. 1 (March 2009), p. 78.
This doesn’t quite belong to the last decade like the others listed here, but I include it here anyway because it is such an important translation of a large number of texts not previously Englished. The translators made use of a manuscript that sometimes has significantly different readings, but it seems, based on statements found in Weber’s thesis (see below), that it no longer exists. The autobiography of Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche has been translated by Joshua Waldman and Lama Jinpa and published in 2008 under the title Hundred Thousand Rays of the Sun (I recommend an internet search for the title).
Monika Lorås Rønning, The Path of Machig Labdron: gCod, its History, Philosophy, and Contemporary Practice in Central Tibet, Master’s thesis, Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages, Oslo University (Oslo 2005). For an abstract only, look here.
Saerje (Gsar-brje), “Buddhapāla → Dam pa sangs rgyas ← Bodhidharma” [in Chinese], contained in: Wang Bangwei, Chen Jinhua and Chen Ming, eds., Studies on Buddhist Myths: Texts, Pictures, Traditions and History, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Cross-cultural Researches on Buddhist Mythology, Zhongxi Book Company (Shanghai 2013), pp. 165–176.
_____, “The Studies on the Narrative Inscriptions of Master Dharma Cave in Yunnan Province” [in Chinese with some Tibetan], contained in Wang Song, ed., Engaged Buddhism: The History and Reality of Asia, Proceedings of the 2015 Chong Sheng International Forum, Religious Culture Publishing House (Beijing 2016), pp. 97–127. See if this finds it for you.
Neldjorma Seunam Ouangmo [Rnal-’byor-ma Bsod-nams-dbang-mo], Testament Spirituel. Les cent préceptes de Ding-Ri Dernières recommandations de Pa Dampa Sangyé, en appendice Les Trente Souhaits, Editions Yogi Ling (Evaux-les-Bains 1997).
I add this, even if it lies outside the time parameters, just because it should be noticed more. With the Tibetan and French on facing pages it includes not only the Tingri Hundred, but also the Thirty Aspirations.
Alexander K. Smith, lDe’u ’phrul, the Manifestation of Knowledge: Ethnophilological Studies in Tibetan Divination with Particular Emphasis upon a Common Form of Bon Lithomancy, doctoral thesis, École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris 2017).
This and the next listing share interesting information on the pebble divination teachings given to Padampa by the Bon teacher Khro-tshang ’Brug-lha. The possibility to download a PDF of it is here.
_____, “Prognostic Structure & the Use of Trumps in Tibetan Pebble Divination,” Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft, vol. 12 (Summer 2015), pp. 1-21.
Michelle Sorensen, Making the Old New Again and Again: Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Tradition, PhD dissertation, Columbia University (New York 2013). I think it is available here, not sure.
_____, “Padampa Sanggye,” Treasury of Lives, accessed March 10, 2021.
Sun Bojun, “A Textual Research on Chos-kyi-seng-ge, the Xixia State Preceptor,” Journal of Chinese Writing Systems, vol. 1, no. 9 (2018), pp. 1-9.
At p. 5 there is a paragraph on Padampa's Tangut connections. Here Padampa is referred to by a name that corresponds to Tibetan Nag-chung. Sun Bojun has written, too, about the newly discovered Tangut text with biographical information on Padampa (a part of a Chinese version had been known before). It may be available on the internet if you belong to a subscribing institution.
Sun Penghao, “Four Texts Related to Pha dam pa sangs rgyas in the Chinese Translation of the Tangut Kingdom of Xia,” contained in: Shen Weirong, ed., History through Textual Criticism: Tibetan Buddhism in Central Eurasia and China Proper (Beijing 2012), pp. 85-97.
_____, “Pha dam pa Sangs rgyas in Tangut Xia: Notes on Khara Khoto Chinese Manuscript TK329,” contained in: Tsuguhito Takeuchi, et al.,Current Issues and Progress in Tibetan Studies, Research Institute of Foreign Studies (Kobe 2013), pp. 505-521. Try this link.
Khenchen Thrangu, Advice from a Yogi: An Explanation of a Tibetan Classic on What Is Most Important, tr. by the Thrangu Dharmakara Collaborative, Shambhala (Boston 2015).
A new translation of the Tingri Hundred with teachings in the form of commentary by Thrangu Rinpoche. His longer Tibetan name is Khra-’gu Rin-po-che IX Karma-blo-gros-lung-rigs-smra-ba’i-seng-ge (b. 1933).
Kenchen Thrangu, “On What Is Most Important: Kenchen Thrangu on the Liberatory Verses of the Tibetan Yogi Padampa Sangye,” Tricycle Magazine (Fall 2015). This is an extract from the book.
Trulzhik Rinpoche (’Khrul-zhig Rin-po-che, Kyabje Zhadeu Trulzhik Rinpoche), and Lama Sangye, The Seed of Faith: The History of the Sacred Inner Relics of Dingri Langkor in the Upper Mountain-Pass Region of Tibet, Dingri Langkor Tsuglag Khang (Kathmandu 2014), in 63 pages with color plates.
I have only seen this listed in an online book catalog. I've never actually seen it. I suppose it’s in English. I imagine it’s just a translation of the pilgrim guide sponsored and studied by Barbara N. Aziz years ago: “The Work of Pha dam pa Sangs rgyas as Revealed in Ding ri Folklore,” contained in: Michael Aris & Aung San Suu Kyi, eds., Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, Aris & Phillips, Ltd. (Warminster 1980), pp. 21-29 and Idem., “Indian Philosopher as Tibetan Folk Hero: Legend of Langkor: A New Source Material on Phadampa Sangye,” Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 23, nos. 12 (1979), pp. 19-37. The original Tibetan of this same pilgrim guide was to my knowledge first made public in a modern print publication in the 13-volume collection listed at the beginning of our list, at vol. 2 (KHA), pp. 803-821, where it has the title Bod-yul La-stod Ding-ri Glang-skor-gyi Nang-rten Byin-can Khag-gi Lo-rgyus Dad-pa'i Sa-bon(བོད་ཡུལ་ལ་སྟོད་དིང་རི་གླང་སྐོར་གྱི་ནང་རྟེན་བྱིན་ཅན་ཁག་གི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་དད་པའི་ས་བོན་).I was of the impression its true author was a nun, one named Ani Ngawang, something that may have gotten lost in the shuffle, as does happen sometimes.
Julika Maria Weber, Translation and Contextualization of Pha dam pa Sangs rgyas’s Three Cycles of Mahâmudrâ Signs, Master of Arts thesis, supervisor Klaus-Dieter Mathes, Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Universität Wien (Vienna 2020).
This thesis features in English translation three texts that represent the core of the questions-and-answers section (Padampa’s answers to Kunga’s questions) of the Zhijé Collection. The three together are often called Phyag-rgya-chen-po Brda’i Skor Gsum or Brda’i Zhus-lan Skor Gsum. They are: 1. Pointing Out the Purity of the Body as Signs, 2. Pointing Out Enlightened Verbal Expressions as Signs, and 3. Pointing Out the Realization of the Mind as Signs. You might find an abstract here. David Molk published a translation in his 2008 book, pp. 177-192 (only two titles are given, but all three texts are represented there, and what is more, evidently made use of a manuscript that ordered the paragraphs differently), and I also made a translation that I haven’t yet given to anyone.
I’m sure some of you reading this already know about it. But in case you don’t I’m happy to report that those months of struggle at my keyboard during the 2nd shutdown last year have paid off. I managed to put together the new 2nd edition of the Tibetan Histories bibliography. BDRC (often called TBRC) has put it up on their site. This already happened before Christmas. Some friends have linked it on social media. The Word and PDF versions can be downloaded to your personal computer right now. It’s just the interactive ebook version that still needs some work before it can be made available. It cost me a lot to make it, but it won’t cost you one Pfennig.
I count myself fortunate to have so many good friends in the Tibeto-logical realm scattered around the world, the kind of friends always ready and eager to help a friend in need, responding to my emailed pleas. Over the years this bibliography has become a group effort, a collective project. And if it is to continue into the future as a viable and usable digital entity, it will require more help in coming years, so I thank you in advance.
If you want to read more about the history of the project, stretching way back into the 1980’s, try these earlier blogs about it:
I recommend to download both versions. The Word file you can use to add in your own notes (use a colored font!), while the PDF will serve as a record of what was in the original, so you can make reference to it. But if you do you may need to make note of the release date, since corrections and additions will keep on coming. Oh please, don’t give me that look. No cause for dismay. We all have faults that could use a little work.
I’ve done some house cleaning around the various websites I’ve set up over the years and eliminated practically all of the earlier versions of Tibetan Histories. They are as of now entirely replaced by this 2nd edition so no reason for them to be out there creating confusion.
This is just a brief message to announce Tibschol (Tibetan Scholarship Bibliography) has today been made available to the public for the first time ever. This is a bibliography of works (primarily journal articles, but also books, etc.) about Tibet primarily in English (and Western European languages). What that means is that it will probably be of use to a larger number of persons than the more specialized Tibskrit, which I circulated once again not so very long ago.
(I should add that the 2009 version is available HERE and HERE). [Sorry, these links have expired as of Sept. 2014; try doing an internet search for "Tibskrit" and it should be findable)
Some people might think that the power of internet searches has done away with the usefulness of bibliographies such as this. I don't agree. If you think it's true, I recommend that you download Tibschol and make use of it along with your internet searches and let me know the outcome of your experiment.
I will first wish you all happy holidays, safe travel, tolerable weather, good health, and happy times with people you like to be with and who feel great having you around!
Here is a long quote from the introduction followed by the download links (which should be active for the forseeable future).
This bibliography covers primarily Tibetan studies, and only secondarily Nepalese/Himalayan and general Buddhist studies. To anticipate your next question, No, this isn't a proper bibliography in the sense that I have personally inspected every single item listed here. In fact, one of the motivations, in the beginning at least, was to keep references to articles and books that I would have liked very much, but hadn't so far been able, to see. Still, the overwhelming majority of entries do indeed result from my direct perception of the publications in question.
A few, but not many, general anthropological articles, or otherwise not especially relevant items, are included. I hope this won't irritate anyone.
Articles in non-Tibetan languages are the main emphasis, although I have included Tibetan language articles that have appeared in the proceedings of the IATS (International Association of Tibetan Studies).
I include as well Euro-American books that would very likely not be readily available in local libraries, which means in particular older and less-known travel literature, books by members of the Younghusband Expedition and the like.
There is some, but not very much, missionary, mountaineering and specialized geological literature (these have never been at the center of my personal research interests). If these are your main interests you will proably find better bibliographies elsewhere.
The word 'scholarship' in the title is used loosely, with the intention that the emphasis should be on articles in specialized periodicals and collective publications of some degree of scholarly repute; the secondary emphasis is on works that, regardless of (or because of) the metaphysical/materialist assumptions or the methodologies employed, ought to be interesting to serious researchers and academics. (Inclusion here does not mean I approve of or otherwise endorse the content. Sometimes the very badness of a publication is enough to make it interesting or remarkable.)
As far as general Buddhist studies are concerned, the emphasis is on published texts and translations of individual Kanjur and Tanjur works (although a separate bibliography, with diacritic marks, which supplies greater coverage for these has been made, entitled "Tibskrit Philology." It has already been available for free download on the internet, the link given above).
There is less emphasis on East and Southeast Asian and Sri Lankan Buddhism, and on general Indological works (a bit stronger on Central Asian and Indian Buddhism).
References to literature in Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and Russian languages are all given at second hand. Be warned.
American master's theses and doctoral dissertations are usually, but not always, accompanied with their UMI (University Microfilms International) purchasing numbers.
I estimate that there are at present at least 17,000 entries. Hence it would seem to be larger than Halvard K. Kuløy & Yoshiro Imaeda, Bibliography of Tibetan Studies,Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1986), which contains 11,822 entries. (There is, however, much in the Kuløy/Imaeda bibliography that is not included here, and vice versa; I have only on occasion made use of the Kuløy bibliography while making my own, so one ought to consult both bibliographies.)
Unfortunately, the bibliographical database "Karma dgon Tibetan Bibliography: by Erwan Temple has according to my latest information been "deactivated." It was once available at this website: http://www.bibliographietibet.org/. Although it was only possible to search through keywords or author names (and impossible to see the entire bibliography all at once), it was (and probably is) a quite extensive listing (one source estimated it had about 40,000 records!). If it were still available, or if it eventually becomes available again, I would certainly suggest using it as an alternative place to turn in order to find things that are not to be found here, or as a way of verifying or filling out bibliographic details.
I am aware of a few other major bibliographic resources, but since these are only supplied in return for payment, I will not advertise them here. I have neither purchased nor made use of any of them.
If you are fortunate to have a good research library nearby, it is likely it will have the otherwise quite expensive book by Julie G. Marshall, Britain and Tibet, 1765-1947: A Select Annotated Bibliography of British Relations with Tibet and the Himalayan States including Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan, Routledge/Curzon (New York 2004). As may be known from the subtitle, this is a specialized bibliography. I sometimes wish I owned a copy.
For more bibliographical resources for Tibetan studies, see this link.
Diacritics: Please note that certain diacritical marks in common use for Sanskrit transcriptions have simply been omitted (for typographical reasons going back to the time the bibliography was first started, but also because these may not translate into different software environments unless they are equipped for Unicode fonts). Hence, both ´s ('s' with slash mark above, in case it doesn't display properly) and .s ('s' with dot below) are represented by simple 's' (except where the original title in fact uses the 'sh' spelling). Dots above or below 'h,' 'n' or 'm' are omitted. For an example: Astamangalakamâla, in which the 2nd & 3rd letters ought to have dots beneath, and the 7th letter a dot above. Length-marks are represented by "ˆ" above the lower-case vowel, but omitted above capitalized vowels (example: Acârya, in which the initial letter ought to have a length-mark, but does not).
In order to make word searches more effective, Tibetan-language proper names & book titles have been repeated in my own preferred way of transcribing them (employing Wylie system with dashes), and "keywords" (which may include proper names) have often been added (especially when the title is in a language other than English).
So if you are ready for it, go to Tibschol by pressing HERE and following he links you will find there.In any case, have fun with it. It is free and will continue to be free forever.
TIBSCHOL is unfortunately unavailable at the moment (September 2010), but I will try to have a working link up again soon.
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