Tibetology

This may be difficult to find. It has additional notes on Helmut Hoffmann's identifications of the foreign prophets mentioned in the first chapter of the Kâlacakra Tantra.  For his main studies on this topic, see Kâlachakra Studies I: Manicheism, Christianity and Islam in the Kâlacakra Tantra, CAJ vol. 13 (1969), pp. 52-73.  Kâlachakra Studies II, CAJ vol. 15 no. 4 (1972), pp. 298-301.

Tibet har givet næring til mange fantasier om et afsidesliggende, fredeligt og ophøjet Shangri-la. Det er især den kultur og filosofi (og i dag livsstil), som associeres med den tibetanske buddhisme, der har haft magnetisk tiltrækningskraft på eventyrere, missionærer, skattejægere, dharma bums – og videnskabsfolk. I hendes undersøgelse af de historiske dansk-tibetanske forbindelser, har Tibetolog Trine Brox gennemgået Nationalmuseets Tibet-arkiver og talt med både tibetanske og danske fagfæller for at genfortælle Tibetologistudiet ”skabelsesberetning.” Tibetologistudiets historie er fyldt med fantastiske beretninger og blandt disse er H.K.H. Prins Peter af Grækenland og til Danmark’s store arbejde for at hjemskaffe tibetanske manuskripter og etnografika.

This work, prepared by Dpal ldan bkra shis, has 19 chapters, a section on verb conjugation, three appendices, and a bibliography. Numerous exercises, dialogues, texts, and special phrases are also provided. Each chapter consists of course texts, language notes, exercises, a vocabulary list, examples, and supplementary grammar. The texts focus on daily Tibetan life. Sentences are short and syntactically not overly complex. Exercises provide focus-related examples to reinforce chapter contents and include dialogues, sentences, and phrase completion. Dialogues are a major focus and provide a backdrop of communication for practice. Language notes deal with various grammatical, syntactic, and semantic points. A Tibetan-English wordlist is at the end of each chapter. The supplemental grammar section addresses unique grammatical concepts, new phrasal words, and function words and phrases.


《ཨམ་སྐད་ལམ་འཇུག》ཅེས་པ་ཨམ་སྐད་སྤྱི་མཚན་ཁོལ་ཕྱུང་མ་འདི་ནི་ས་བཅད་བཅུ་དགུ། བྱ་ཚིག་འགྱུར་ལྡོག་ཚན་པ་གཅིག  ལེ་ལག་གསུམ་དང་དཔེ་ཆའི་ཐོ་གཞུང་གཅིག་བཅས་ཀྱིས་གྲུབ་ཅིང་། གཤར་སྦྱང་། ཁ་བརྡ། སློབ་ཚན་དང་ཡིག་ཚོགས་ལྷག་པོས་མཚན་ཡོད། ས་བཅད་རེ་རེ་ལ་སློབ་ཚན། བརྡ་དོན་གནད་འགྲེལ། གཤར་སྦྱང་། ཐ་སྙད་ཤན་སྦྱར། དཔེར་འཇོག་དང་བརྡ་སྤྲོད་ཁ་གསབ་བཅས་བྲིས་ཡོད། སློབ་ཚན་གྱིས་བོད་པའི་རང་གའི་འཚོ་བ་བྲིས་ཡོད། ཚིག་ཀ་ཐུང་ཞིང་ཚིག་སྡེབ་མི་ཉོག གཤར་སྦྱང་གི་ནང་དུ་མདོ་རྩ་གཟས་པའི་དཔེར་བརྗོད་བཞག་སྟེ་ས་བཅད་ཁག་གི་དོན་ཁོག་ཞིབ་རྒྱས་སུ་བཏང་ཡོད་ལ། ཁ་བརྡ་དང་ཚིག་ཀའམ་ཡིག་ཚོགས་ཁ་སྐོང་སོགས་ཤོང་ཡོད། ཁ་བརྡ་ནི་ཆེད་དམིགས་ཅན་ཏག་ཏག་ཡིན་པ་དང་ཤུགས་ནས་ཁ་བརྡའི་རྒྱབ་ལྗོངས་གོ་ཐུབ། བརྡ་དོན་གནད་འགྲེལ་གྱིས་བརྡ་དོན། ཚིག་སྡེབ་དང་ཚིག་དོན་ལྡེམ་པོ་བསེད་ཡོད། ས་བཅད་རེ་ལ་མཇུག་ན་བོད་དབྱིན་ཐ་སྙད་ཤན་སྦྱར་རེ་ཡོད། བརྡ་སྤྲོད་ཁ་གསབ་ཀྱི་ནང་དུ་བརྡ་དོན་སྒྲ་སྤྱི་ལྷག་པོ་དང་ཡིག་ཚོགས་ལྷག་པོ། རྐྱེན་ཡིག་དང་རྐྱེན་གྱི་ཡིག་ཚོགས་ཁན་འཇོག་བྱས་ཡོད།

《安多藏语导教》这本规范性的安多藏语专著由十九章、一节动词的时态变化、三个附件和一个书目提要组成，包含大量课文、会话、特殊用语和词组以及相关的练习。专著每章由课文、语法注解、练习题、单词表、例句和补充语法组成。课文以描述藏人日常生活的文章为主，句子简短、句法不甚复杂。练习题以会话、句型和词组的练习题为主，通过有针对性的例句来加强和丰富章节的内容。会话练习在强调内容的针对性的同时， 提供了会话的背景知识 。语法注解针对语法、句法和语义上的难点进行了解释。每一章的末尾有一个藏英词条对照。补充语法部分则强调一些藏语特有的语法概念和一些词组、助词和助词短语的用法。

This is a 3 Credit Certificate Course offered by Sikkim Central University, conducted at Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, Sikkim, India. This course is designed to give exposure the students to analyze a wide range of artistic creations of Himalayan region of India, Nepal and Tibet by illustrating the influence and integration of scholastic traditions of Buddhism. A part of the course is to study the salient features of Buddhist philosophy and its impact on Himalayan art and culture; the Buddhist ritual practices and their interconnection with visual and performing arts and, the influence of tantric mandala on the development of Buddhist architecture. The course also points to the significance of the conservation of Himalayan Buddhist heritage.

This history of Tibetan Studies derived from the text I wrote for the lectures I gave twice during my time of teaching in Hamburg, the second time in 2001.
I decided to make the text available to interested colleagues as a “draft” on Academia.edu.
D. Jackson,

So it needs a lot to be brought up to date. The contents include:
A. Main Sources for a History of Tibetan Studies
B. A Historical Sketch

Part 1: Early Missionary Activities (1624 to mid-19th Century)
Part 2: Pioneers of Tibetology: Csoma de Körös and His 19th-Century
Successors (from the 1830s until about 1904)

Part 3 (3) Early Tibetology in Countries Outside the UK:
1. Early Tibetology in Russia
1. B. Early French Tibetology
1.C. Early German Tibetology
1. D. Early Tibetology of British India—the Pundit-Explorers
1. E. Early Japanese Tibetology
1. F. Early American Tibetology

Part 4: The Period of More Direct British (and Government of India)
Involvement (1904‒1959): Beginning with the Younghusband Expedition (1904)

1. Central Asian Discoveries: the Dunhuang Documents
2. Tibetology in India
3. Later Tibetology in the Soviet Union and Russia
4. Tibetology in Italy
5. Tibetology in France
6. Tibetology in Great Britain
7. Tibetology in Germany
8. Tibetology in Austria
9. Tibetology in Holland
10. Tibetology in Poland
11. Tibetology in Czechoslovakia
12. Tibetology in Hungary
13. Tibetology in Scandinavia
14. Tibetology in North America
15. Tibetology in Japan
16. Tibetology in China
17. Tibetology in Modern Tibet

This research investigates the Mahāmudrā interpretation of the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorjé (1507-1554), particularly regarding his text Recognizing the Blessings of Mahāmudrā (Phyag rgya chen po’i byin rlabs kyi ngos ’dzin). Drawing upon contemporary research, historical developments, and textual evidence, this work argues that the Eighth Karmapa’s Mahāmudrā thought can be understood as reaction, re-appropriation, and resolution. Though Mikyö Dorjé reacted to Sakya and Gelug critiques of Kagyü Mahāmudrā, and accepted that one could re-appropriate Mahāmudrā by incorporating aspects of sūtra and tantra onto the path of Mahāmudrā, he ultimately sought to adhere to the subitist tendencies of early Kagyü masters by resolving all conventional tensions of the ground, path, and fruition via a holistically non-dual union (Skt. Yuganaddha; Tib. zung ’jug). This demonstrates that both doctrinal eclecticism and upholding the transcendence of Mahāmudrā were pillars of Mikyö Dorjé’s thought, and that his theory of union provided rhetorical and philosophical consistency and justification for these views.

The student-teacher relationship is important in Buddhism, main teachers being called spiritual teacher or spiritual father. Such a spiritual father serves as a good example for one’s own spiritual path, passes on teachings, and provides the student with further guidance, explanations, and helpful advices. Zurpukpa Rinchen Pelzang (Zur phug pa Rin chen dpal bzang, 1263–1330), a master belonging to the Drukpa Kagyu (’Brug pa bKa’ brgyud) tradition, was the main teacher of Gyeltsen Pelzangpo (rGyal mtshan dpal bzang po, 1310–1391), who is also known as Je Barawa (rJe ’Ba’ ra ba).The aim of this article is to present the connection between Je Barawa and Zurpukpa as an ideal example of a student-teacher relationship. First, the life of Zurpukpa will be presented. This is followed by his relationship with his heart disciple Je Barawa. Both of them stood in the transmission lineage of the Richökorsum (Ri chos skor gsum) by Yanggönpa (Yang dgon pa, 1213–1256/8). Furthermore, the significance of trilogies (skor gsum) within the Barawa Kagyu tradition will be set in context.

This philological study presents a collation of Old Tibetan Dunhuang fragments of the Avaivartikacakrasūtra compared against a text-critical edition of Tibetan Kanjurs. The Avaivartikacakrasūtra is a Mahāyāna Buddhist discourse that describes how bodhisattvas become irreversible (avaivartika) from perfect Buddhahood and how they achieve irreversible bodhisattva status, a prestigious attainment among Mahāyāna Buddhist movements in South, Central, and East Asia. Although previously unstudied, this prominent scripture is one of the most influential of Mahāyāna sūtras in Buddhist culture, preserved and transmitted in South, Central, and East Asia over many centuries. Analysis of the Old Tibetan Dunhuang Avaivartikacakrasūtra provides a number of valuable contributions to the study of the formations of Mahāyāna Buddhism, to the understanding of Old Tibetan language, and to the systematic study of Tibetan Kanjurs. Enhancing the scholarly knowledge of the transmission history of the Tibetan collected teachings of the Buddha (Kanjur), this monograph contributes to the philological study of Tibetan Buddhist canonical texts and traces the genealogical development of the Tibetan language in translating Indian Buddhist canonical texts.

An initial investigation on three remarkable manuscripts from Bhutan containing materials relevant to Pha-dam-pa and the earlier phases of the Zhi-byed School of Tibetan Buddhism. Emphasis is on inter-sectarian connections with Bön, Nyingma and Cutting (Gcod) schools.

In 'Tibetanness' Under Threat?, Adrian Zenz pioneers an analysis of significant recent developments in Qinghai's Tibetan education system. Presently, Tibetan students can receive native language education from primary to tertiary levels, while university minority departments offer Tibetan-medium majors from computer science to secretarial studies.

However, positive developments are threatened by the dire career prospects of Tibetan-medium graduates. Tibetans view marketisation as the greatest threat to ethnocultural survival, with their young generation being lured into a Chinese education by superior employment prospects. But Zenz questions the easy equation of Tibetan education as 'unselfish' ethnic preservation versus the Chinese route as egocentric careerism, arguing that the creative educational strategies of Tibetans in the Chinese education system are important for exploring and expressing new forms of 'Tibetanness' in modern China.

REVIEW:
'not many works carry the potential of injecting fresh perspectives into the polarized understandings of development in Tibet as either domination/subjugation or liberation/progress. Adrian Zenz offers this potential in his book (...). With a focus on the ever-sensitive subject of education, the book strikes a nuanced balance between the agency–structure dualism of Han Chinese dominance versus Tibetan-led initiatives that subvert or counter this dominance. In particular, it offers a rare insight into the dynamics of minority education that will unsettle the dominant view that Tibetan-medium education has been eroded since the “golden years” of Tibetanization in the 1980s.(...) Overall, the value of his work is immense for our understanding of contemporary Tibet, minority nationality policy in China, and the anthropology of education more generally.'
Andrew M. Fischer, The China Quarterly, 219 (2014)

https://www.tibshelf.org/the-wondrous-light-of-lunar-nectar
Kunga Pelden was a twentieth-century yogin who resided around Dzogchen Monastery. He was a heart student of Orgyen Tendzin Norbu, himself a disciple of Patrul Rinpoche. He mostly spent his life in retreat and was a proponent of The Guru's Inner Essence, or Lama Yangtik, and the practices of the channels, vital-energies, vital-essences, and physical yogas of the Heart Essence of the Great Expanse, or Longchen Nyingtik. Kunga Pelden received Lama Yangtik, Longchen Nyingtik, and the physical yogas from Orgyen Tendzin Norbu and the practice of the channels, vital-energies, and vital-essences from Pema Tekchok Loden.

Some years ago, Cantwell discovered that a substantial Dunhuang text, IOL Tib J 331.III, was reproduced verbatim within Nyang-rel Nyima Özer's (1124–1192) famous Treasure Text, Eightfold Buddha Word, Embodying the Sugatas (bKa’ brgyad bDe gshegs ’dus pa). This paper presents the main findings of an in-depth textual study of the core sections of the “’phrin las phur pa [Action Phurpa]” part of Nyang-rel Nyima Özer’s (Tib. Myang ral Nyi ma ’od zer) revealed corpus of the bKa’ brgyad bDe gshegs ’dus pa [The Eightfold Buddha Word, Embodying the Sugatas]. This suggests that at least this part of the Eightfold Buddha Word revelation represents the survival of an archaic form of practice on the tantric deity, Vajrakīlaya. Its six sections constitute a coherent whole covering complementary aspects of the tantric rituals, while the second section parallels in its entirety a text from the archaeological recovered manuscripts from a Library Cave in Dunhuang (IOL Tib J 331.III), which dates back over a century before Nyang-rel’s time. Here, a critical edition of that second section of Nyang-rel’s Action Phurpa is presented, taking account of all current extant versions, and supported by consideration of the accompanying materials found in the five other sections.

This paper takes up the complexities and significance of the Tibetan stūpas (Tib. mchod rten),  especially  when these outstanding pieces of Buddhist material culture travel to other continents. It highlights examples wherein non-Buddhists erect them on public grounds and asks questions about relocated traditions. Can the spiritual values, symbolic meanings, and religious significance of the stūpa remain unchanged if it is constructed without the motivation of Buddhist beliefs? What new meanings might accrete that may never before have existed in the history of the stūpa? This essay is embedded in the ongoing debates over the transformation of art and architecture within cultural flows between Europe and Asia. Based on a case study of a stūpa located in a public botanic garden in Germany, it addresses some of the key issues and discussions that arise when an ancient tradition is emplaced in a new cultural context.

This book is a slightly expanded and revised edition of my M.A. thesis, submitted at Universität Hamburg in June 2018.
Chapter One, after an overview of the extant editions of the (extra-canonical) *Sarvadharmacaryopadeśābhisamayatantra and its (canonical) commentary (the gZi brjid snang ba), deals with the controversy surrounding the disputed Indian origin of the two texts, and the ambivalent figure of dGe-tshul Khyung-grags, the translator/forger.
Chapters Two and Three are the core of the study, the former containing a critical edition of the Tibetan text of the tantra (with a description of the two unpublished MSS from the 'Bras-spungs-gnas-bcu-lha-khang), and the latter an annotated English translation (both including the interlinear glosses found in the two MSS).
Appendix One contains the transcription of two lengthy passages of the commentary omitted from its canonical editions, but transmitted in the MS version of the text from the 'Bras-spungs-gnas-bcu-lha-khang.
Appendix Two closes the work with a tentative chronological list of citations of the scripture in other Tibetan sources, and confronts a few textual issues concerning a verse from the Madhyāntavibhāga often misattributed to the tantra.

'Indigenous elements in Tibetan tantric religion'. In  Mongolo-Tibetica Pragensia ’14, Volume 7, No. 2, Special Issue "Indigenous Elements in Tibetan Religions" Edited by Daniel Berounský. Charles University, Prague, 2014.  This paper is an attempted overview of the still only partially understood topic of indigenous elements within Tibetan tantric religion, with particular focus on the underlying historical and cultural dynamics. Drawing on the research Cathy Cantwell and I have done together in recent years, and above all greatly indebted to the discoveries of many other schol- ars, it was inspired by the need to communicate the topic to non-specialist academic colleagues, on the one hand avoiding excessive technical obscurantism, but on the other hand utilising up to date research.

Draft of a forthcoming paper for the Atisha conference at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi (January 2013). 
This paper was made available as part of an e-book in November of 2018
(look here: http://ignca.gov.in/PDF_data/29112018_Atisa_Ebook.pdf) but beware that the footnotes in particular were chewed up and spit out by the software resulting in an indigestible mashup. 
Please make reference only to the draft you find here, and not to the e-publication.

The vast literary legacy left by Buddhist monasteries of Buryatia and Transbaikalia, till now remains insufficiently explored. The well-known fact that by the late 19th and early 20th centuries Aginsky datsan was the biggest center of Buddhist book  printing in Buryat lands has long to be in need for comprehensive justification. The existing view on the scale of the book publishing of the said datsan does not fully reflect the real state of things. The analysis of one of the Aga's catalogues of xylographs held in comparison with this printery's other hand-lists, for the first time made it possible to determine the full set of published tibetan script books and comprehend the real scale of book publishing in Aginsky datsan.
Keywords: Aginsky datsan, karchag, catalogue, woodblock  printing, monastic printery, xylography, rare editions, Tibetan literature, Buryat Buddhism, Buddhism in Russia, Transbaikalia.

Мир «своих» и «чужих». По праву кровного родства: родовые структуры и брачные стратегии в прошлом и настоящем народов Евразии / The world of ‘Self’ and ‘Others’. By Right of Consanguinity: Clan structures and matrimonial strategies in past and present of Eurasian peoples

В этом выпуске мы предлагаем авторам и читателям рассмотреть проблему взаимоотношений между «своими» и «чужими» в рамках такого исследовательского направления как kinship studies.
Здесь, как ни в какой другой дисциплине, можно обнаружить нагляднейший и в то же время нетривиальный материал, который дает нам возможность изучать механизмы социального группирования и отчуждения / исключения. Различные системы родства и соответствующие им терминологии и иерархии могут показать внимательному наблюдателю как сходства, так и различия в стратегии и тактике интеграции / дифференциации сообществ, а метафоричность языка этих систем позволяет нам вернуться, возможно, на более высоком уровне обобщения, и к масштабу макро-анализа.

In this issue of “Tartaria Magna” we offer our authors and readers to consider a problem of interrelations between “insiders” and “outsiders” within kinship studies research trend. Here, as in no other scholarly discipline, one may come across most illustrative and, at the same time, unconventional research material giving us a chance to study mechanisms of social grouping and estrangement/exclusion. Various system of kinship and their relevant terminologies and hierarchies may expose to an attentive eye both similarities and differences in the strategy and tactics of community integration/differentiation. The metaphorical character of these systems allows us to return, perhaps, at a higher level of generalization, to macro-analysis.

Pema Tekchok Loden was a twentieth-century Nyingma master from Kham. He was educated at Śrī Siṃha College at Dzogchen Monastery, where he served as the twentieth abbot, from 1904 to 1912. He spent the last four decades of his life in retreat in a cave above Dzogchen.

An examination of the principal cultural and musical associations of the sgra-snyan, examining the terminological and organological features, cultural and religious meanings and musical use of the instrument. Reformatted edition of the original 1991 dissertation text submitted for Masters of Music.

The article can be found on the Treasury of Lives page:
https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Rigpai-Reltri/10617

Rigpai Reltri was the younger son of Do Khyentse Yeshe Dorje. He was recognized as the reincarnation of Jigme Lingpa's son, Jigme Nyinche Wozer, and became a well-respected guru in Minyak during his time. Rigpai Reltri was a lineage holder of his father's treasure cycle of The Heart Essence of the Exceeding Secret Ḍākinī, or the Yangsang Khandro Tugtik, containing The Self-Liberation of Fixation, or Dzinpa Rangdrol. He entrusted this lineage to his younger son Do Rinpoche Gyepa Dorje.