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A detailed catalogue of the precise textual contents of the canonical collections from Drakmar Monastery in Dolpo has just been published along with the digital images of the manuscripts on the rKTs archive (under “handlist” or “viewer”) and also shared with BDRC.

The manuscripts comprise altogether 116 volumes, with larger sets or individual volumes being produced and added to the collection at different times. A substantial part of the collection is constituted by a Sūtra collection (30 volumes) and a Tantra collection (18 of 20 volumes are present). Further, there are different sets of Prajñāpāramitā and other larger sūtras as well as collections of dhāraṇīs and related volumes. While the collection thus contains many of the typical building blocks of a Kangyur, it was clearly not produced as a coherent set in this sense. It rather reflects a phase prior to the formation of structured Kangyurs, when larger text collections of a similar type were transmitted independently. These collections feature individual works but also alternative textual versions not found in later mainstream Kangyurs.

Reports on the documentation of the manuscripts in 2023 and 2022 including images of the site were already published.

In a recent blog post, our long-term cooperation partner BDRC provides a report about the so-called “Matho Manuscripts.” These consist in fragments of over 433 texts that were excavated from demolished stūpas in the village of Matho, Ladakh, in 2014. As estimated in a preliminary report on the manuscripts by Helmut Tauscher, the majority of the manuscripts was produced between the 10th-12th century and hence must be seen as an extremely important early source for mostly canonical but also non-canonical texts in this region. All of the manuscripts were investigated and digitized by the TMPV and are now accessible through the rKTs archive and also shared with BDRC’s BUDA archive.

During the past year, the Resources for Kanjur & Tanjur Studies (rKTs) database has received a substantial makeover and is now reached at its own dedicated domain: http://www.rkts.org.

The database was also significantly enlarged and now provides information (with varying detail) on more than a hundred Kanjurs, Tanjurs, Tantra collections, and other collections of Tibetan canonical literature. This includes searchable text catalogues, with information on contents and translators, all linked to the images of the original sources.

While some other tools are still under development, the search options (Search in the Canon) are fully functional: http://www.rkts.org/search.php?id=1.

We further produced a short video tutorial that explains how the search functions are used (How to use rKTs): http://www.rkts.org/Video/index.php

In case you encounter technical problems with the database, please report these to Bruno Lainé, the webmaster of the archive, at: brunogml@gmail.com

The main documentation work for this year was conducted in the Tarap valley, Lower Dolpo, Nepal. During a month-long trip, the remainder of the highly endangered manuscript collection of Drakmar Monastery, comprising a total of 116 volumes, was fully digitized. Further, this opportunity was also used to digitize a collection of Old Tantra (rnying rgyud) of nearby Ghagar Monastery.

As a highlight, a public reading of some of the canonical volumes from Drakmar was conducted, during which the volumes also received new covers. The video and audio documentation of this event is planned to be made available in a short documentary. A more detailed account of the documentation work will be provided in the documentation section.

Computational Humanities is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary field that uses computational and quantitative methods for processing, analyzing, and modeling complex data. Within Buddhist Studies, these methods have emerged as an important tool for those working with Buddhist texts, enabling large-scale analysis, facilitating preservation and increased accessibility, and providing new ways of visualizing and understanding data.

The symposium “Advanced Computational Methods for Studying Buddhist Texts” will bring together scholars conducting research on Buddhist texts by computational methods ranging from natural language processing, optical character and handwriting recognition, geographic information systems, cross-linguistic alignment, to content analysis.

The symposium is organized by Patrick McAllister (Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, IKGA, Austrian Academy of Sciences), Rachael Griffiths (ERC project The Dawn of Tibetan Buddhist Scholasticism (11th-13th c.) TibSchol, IKGA), and Markus Viehbeck (Tibetan Manuscript Project Vienna TMPV, University of Vienna).

Detailed program and information on registration is provided here.

Welcome to the new project website of the TMPV. On this site, we provide information on the background of the TMPV and inform about latest developments. We share our published research results and, from time to time, also pressing matters in ongoing research.