Tibetan Studies > Finding Texts > Kangyur & Tengyur Text Finding Aids

Kangyur & Tengyur Text Finding Aids

Contributors: Jann Ronis.

Starting with an Abbreviated or Alternative Title

How do I find the full title and bibliographic information for a Tibetan canonical text when I have only a title--keeping in mind that texts are often cited by abbreviated or alternate titles?

There is no easy solution to the first question. In traditional Tibetan writings canonical citations are usually identified by an abbreviated title or just a mention of the name of the chapter that is the source of the citation. Sometimes only the author’s name or the type of text is mentioned, followed by a quote. An example from one single page of a recent scholarly translation of a typical Tibetan treatise will give an indication how traditional Tibetan practices of citation are terse to the point of being nearly useless. On this one page, chosen at random, from a reputable scholarly translation of a typical exegetical work on Buddhist philosophy there are three citations that are all equally opaque. The first citation reads, “the sūtra says…;” then, “Likewise, the glorious Rong zom Chos bzang said…;” and finally, “Also, a gsang ’grel says….” The author of the Tibetan text does not identify the sūtra, the title of the text by Rong zom, nor which “gsang ’grel” (commentary on the Guhyagarbhatantra) is being referred to. The amount of information given here – especially for the sūtra citation – will not get one very far in trying to track down the originals that these excerpts come from. Moreover, not infrequently a Tibetan author will cite a scriptural passage verbatim, but attribute it to the wrong text or chapter.

There is a reason for this esoteric form of citation, however. The impenetrable shorthand that is typical of Tibetan citations was never intended to be self-sufficient as a reference. Traditional Tibetan writings were written with the expectation that a teacher will unpack the laconic citations for the students, including the names of the cited texts. Even so, when modern scholars research obscure works for which there is no extant tradition of oral commentary then sometimes not even learned lamas can be of assistance. The best that can be done in these cases is to simply record the citation and look for variations of it in other sources, and in the meantime to leave it an open question. In fact, most modern translations of Tibetan works contain at least a few citations for which the translator was unable to track down their sources.

Finding the Actual Text

Once I have (some amount of) bibliographic information on a text, how do I locate the actual text in one of the Tibetan canonical collections?

The dilemma posed in the second question is helped by an abundance of digital and print reference materials, and therefore much easier to solve. In keeping with THDL’s emphasis on humanities computing and technologically driven research, the electronic resources devoted to the Tibetan canons will be presented first. The best resource currently on the internet for finding bibliographic information on texts in the Buddhist Kangyur and Tengyur is the Peking Tripitaka Online Search produced by Otani University in Kyoto; http://web.otani.ac.jp/cri/twrp/tibdate/Peking_online_search.html. This resource is not only very convenient and portable, but it is actually the ideal way to search for titles because you do not need a text’s complete title in order to execute a search on it. The print resources, on the contrary, are alphabetized on the basis of the complete titles of the canonical works. If you only have an abbreviated title, which is often the case, the print resources can be very difficult to use. The Peking Tripitaka Online Search, however, is not bound by the alphabetical order of the texts in the canons and will search all words within its database for whatever title fragments you enter.

Peking Tripitaka Online Search contains information on titles in the Peking, Degé, and Narthang Kangyurs and Tengyurs, and for the so-called Golden Manuscript Tengyur (recently published in the PRC). It can be used to search for text titles based on the Extended Wylie Tibetan and the Kyoto-Harvard Sanskrit transcription systems. Again, one or two words of a title are enough to help you find the text you are looking for. Each search result provides the section of the canon in which your text is located, as well as its volume (poti) and pagination. Catalog numbers are also given for the Peking and Degé editions. To give an example, a search of the title fragment “rgyud bla ma” – a common abbreviation of the title of the Tibetan translation of the Uttaratantraśātra – yields five results. When faced with a number of records one needs to be discerning about selecting the relevant text. Criteria you should use in your decision include the appropriateness of the section of the canon, the genre of the text (i.e., sūtra, śātra, commentary, and so forth), and the like. The correct entry for the text from our example is formatted by the search engine as follows:

• theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos / (mahAyAnottaratantrazAstra.)
• P. No. 5525, sems tsam, phi 54b7-74b6 (vol.108, p.24-32)
• D. No. 4024, sems tsam, phi 54b1-73a7. N phi 48b3-69a3. Kinsha 3524, phi 64b1 (p.33-3-1)

Armed with this information you can go directly to any of these editions and find this text with relative ease. This electronic search engine is indispensable for people needing to locate texts within the widely available Peking and Degé editions.

A digital catalog that treats even more editions of the canon and offers a comparative analysis of texts within each canon as well as between canons is currently being finalized by Phil Stanley of Naropa University and should be released by the end of 2004. It will be a detailed analytical database designed to compare the different editions along such parameters as their treatment of the different genres, duplicate texts, omitted texts, size variations of individual texts, and so on. The first stage of the public version will contain data on the Narthang, Derge (Tohoku), Peking, Coni, Lhasa, and Urga editions of the Kangyur and Tengyur. Negotiations are underway for this resource to be hosted on the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library.

The most comprehensive and detailed information about the texts in the Buddhist Kangyur and Tengyur currently available is found in print resources. Some of the reprint editions of the canons include their own indices and other reference materials, while comprehensive indices have been made of some of the other editions of the canon by scholars uninvolved in the actual publication of the collections themselves. Among these, the eight volume index of Dharma Publishing’s reprint of the eighteenth-century Degé Kangyur and Tengyur (The Nyingma Edition of the sDe-dge bKa'-'gyur and bsTan'gyur. Oakland, Calif.: Dharma Press, 1980) is particularly well-regarded. Pages 1-84 of volume One give the actual poti, page, side, and line data for the beginning of each text, cross-referenced for the Narthang, Peking, Derge (Tohoku), Coni, Lhasa, Urga, and Bechk Kanjurs, and for the Narthang, Peking, Derge (Tohoku), and Coni Tengyurs. That is to say, this cross-reference chart gives the volume data unique to each edition. The bulk of these eight volumes of reference materials provide detailed information about each text, including tables of contents, names of the translators and revisers, and bibliographic references to Western language translations. Volume eight has an author and translator index.

The eighteenth-century Peking Edition of the Kangyur and Tengyur (The Tibetan Tripitaka. Tokyo and Kyoto: Tibetan Tripitaka Research Foundation, 1955-1962) includes four volumes of reference materials (no. 165-168). The first three of these volumes are a volume-by-volume index of the contents of the Peking Edition. Each entry is described in terms of four fields: 1) the number of the work, referred to as the "P number." beginning with the Kangyur (note: the numbering is sequential but not contiguous); 2) text title in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and also in Chinese or Japanese translation; 3) names of author, translator, and revisers; 4) pagination of the text both within the Peking edition's format; and within the edition in its original block-print form. Citations to the Peking edition are written, for example, vol. 108, 75-3-1 (some scholars use periods to separate these numbers). 75 refers to the page number within the volume, 3 to the folio number, and 1 to the line number of the folio in which the citation begins; 5) a list of the text's chapter titles (when they exist) and pagination; 6) footnotes. The footnotes are typically about comparisons with other versions of the text in other Tibetan canons, the Chinese canon, and Sanskrit editions. Volume 168, the final volume, is comprised of four different name indices: text title, author name, translator name, and text title of supplementary volumes (the Collected Works of Tsongkapa and Jangkya Rolpé Dorjé, vol. 152-164).

Some of the less widely distributed Kangyurs and Tengyurs are the subjects of detailed indices in print form. Many of these books also include well researched essays on the history and philology of their respective editions. Here are a few of the relevant bibliographic references:

• Eimer, Helmut. Die Xerokopie Des Lhasa-Kanjur: Beschreibung Des Herstellungsverfahrens, Liste Der Bèande Description of Technical and Editorial Process, List of Volumes, Bibliographia Philologica Buddhica: Series Minor; 1. Tokyo: The Reiyukai Library, 1977.
• International Academy of Indian Culture. Catalogue of the Lhasa Kanjur. Vol. 324, Śata-Piṭaka Series. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1983.
• Vira, Raghu, and Géza Bethlenfalvy. A Catalogue of the Urga Kanjur in the Prof. Raghuvira Collection at the International Academy of Indian Culture. Vol. 246, Śata-Piṭaka Series. New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1980.
• Kun-mkhyen, 'Jigs-med-dbang-po. Co-Ne'i Bstan-'Gyur Dkar Chag. Par thengs 2. Ed., Kan-Su'u Grangs Nyung Mi Rigs Kyis Gna' Dpe. Lan-chou: Kan-su'u mi rigs dpe skrun khaçn, 1989.
• Ngor-chen, Kun-dga’ bzang-po, and Helmut Eimer. The Early Mustang Kanjur Catalogue: A Structured Edition of the Mdo Sngags Bka' 'Gyur Dkar Chag and of Ngor Chen Kun Dga' Bzang Po's Bka' 'Gyur Ro Cog Gi Dkar Chag Bstan Pa Gsal Ba'i Sgron Me. Vol. Heft 45, Wiener Studien Zur Tibetologie Und Buddhismuskunde. Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1999.
• Vogel, Claus, and Universität Bonn. Indologisches Seminar. Indo-Tibetan Section. The Brief Catalogues to the Narthang and the Lhasa Kanjurs: A Synoptic Edition of the Bka'-'Gyur-Rin-Po-Che'i-Mtshan-Tho and the Rgyal-Ba'i-Bka'-'Gyur-Rin-Po-Che'i-Chos-Tshan-So-So'i-Mtshan-Byang-Dkar-Chag-Bsdus Pa. Vol. Heft 40, Wiener Studien Zur Tibetologie Und Buddhismuskunde. Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1998.

Finding Sanskrit and Chinese Parallel Texts

How can I determine if there are extant Sanskrit and Chinese versions of certain texts in the Tibetan canons? And the reverse, If I have a canonical work in Sanskrit or Chinese, how do I determine the bibliographic information of the Tibetan translation? (This question is germane only to the Buddhist canons.)

The third question is about locating Sanskrit originals and Chinese translations of texts in the Tibetan canons; and finding Tibetan equivalents of Chinese and Sanskrit materials. The best resources for the former are the reference volumes that accompany the so-called Nyingma Edition of the Degé Kangyur and Tengyur. It does a fairly comprehensive job of identifying published Sanskrit editions of works in the Tibetan canon. The Peking canon is also good for giving the title and text number of works that are also in the Chinese canon. Moreover, many academic books based on Tibetan canonical materials do mention Sanskrit editions of the texts, when available. Find reputable and recent works on a topic of Buddhism you are interested in and comb their bibliographies for Sanskrit editions of materials in the Tibetan canons.

An excellent resource for working from the Chinese canon is the The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue by Lewis R. Lancaster, in collaboration with Sung-bae Park (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). It does a fairly exhaustive job of giving the Tibetan titles and volume numbers of texts for which there is a Tibetan translation. This work has been digitized and will be available at the homepage of Charles Muller (www.acmuller.net) in the near future.