In recent years an abundance of Tibetan writing has been translated into English and other Western languages, with works on religious philosophy and practice strongly emphasized. In keeping with the concerns of this volume, however, we do not attempt to present a comprehensive bibliography, but instead introduce a broad selection of what we regard as the best and most useful works that have become available, representing a diversity of genres and including both translations and studies of varied aspects of Tibetan literature. We have drawn on some, but not all, of these publications in the preceding pages, and the sources listed throughout the book may be consulted for additional examples of Tibetan literature in translation. Though Tibetan writing is our primary focus, the reader may refer as well to M. T. Kapstein, The Tibetans, and to K. R. Schaeffer and G. W. Tuttle, eds., The Tibetan History Reader, for general bibliographies in the field of Tibetan studies. For those primarily interested in Tibetan religious writings, the Library of Tibetan Classics Series, from Wisdom Publications, and the Tsadra Foundation Series, from Snow Lion Publications, are particularly recommended. Some of their titles are included herein.
Ahmad, Zahiruddin. A History of Tibet by the Fifth Dalai Lama of Tibet. Indiana University Oriental Series, Vol. VII. Bloomington: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1995. The first complete English translation of the Fifth Dalai Lama’s influential account of Tibetan political history from its legendary beginnings down to his own day.
Aris, Michael V. “The Boneless Tongue: Alternative Voices from Bhutan in the Context of Lamaist Societies.”
Past and Present 115, no. 1 (1987): 131–164. Study of a satirical s
ūtra, “The Dharma of Intercourse,” and the bards who recite it in the villages of Bhutan.
Barron, Richard, trans. The Autobiography of Jamgön Kongtrul: A Gem of Many Colors. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2003. The life of one of the leaders of the so-called “nonsectarian” movement of nineteenth-century Kham. A key source for the cultural history of early modern eastern Tibet.
Bosson, James. Treasury of Aphoristic Jewels. Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 92. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969. Study, edition, and translation of Sakya Paṇḍita’s collection of aphoristic verses, the Subhāṣitaratnanidhi, including both Tibetan and Mongolian versions. Though Bosson’s treatment remains a standard reference, more recent research, notably on the part of Michael Hahn, has contributed to an improved understanding of Sakya Paṇḍita’s Indian sources.
Cabezón, José and Roger R. Jackson, eds. Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1995. Articles by almost thirty scholars examining the most important genres of traditional Tibetan writing.
Chang, Garma Chen Chi. The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. 2 vols. New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1962. Pioneering translation of Tsangnyön Heruka’s collection of the songs attributed to the twelfth-century adept Milarepa, a monument in the history of Tibetan poetry.
Conze, Edward. The Buddha’s Law Among the Birds. 1955; reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974. A poetic allegory in which the Dharma is taught among a flock of birds. Though the authorship was uncertain when Conze first published his work, the text is now generally attributed to Karmapa X Chöying Dorjé (1604–74).
David-Neel, Alexandra and Lama Yongden. The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling. New York: C. Kendall, 1934. An attractive plot summary of the Gesar epic as recited by a bard David-Neel encountered during her travels in far eastern Tibet.
Desi Sangye Gyatso. A Mirror of Beryl: A Historical Introduction to Tibetan Medicine. Trans. Gavin Kilty. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2010. A major history of Tibetan medicine by the regent to the Fifth Dalai Lama.
Dorje, Gyurme, trans. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Ed. Graham Coleman with Thupten Jinpa. New York: Viking, 2006. The most complete and accurate English rendition of the famed mortuary texts revealed by Karma Lingpa (fourteenth century).
——. Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings: Illuminated Manuscripts from The White Beryl of Sangs-rgyas rGya-mtsho. London: John Eskenazi in association with Sam Fogg, 2001. A luxurious reproduction and detailed study of an illustrated manual of divination from eighteenth-century Central Tibet.
Dotson, Brandon, with contributions by Gutram Hazod. The Old Tibetan Annals: An Annotated Translation of Tibet’s First History. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2009. Thorough study of some of the key Tibetan historical documents from Dunhuang, with copious documentation of administrative and geopolitical aspects of the texts.
Dowman, Keith.
The Divine Madman. Clearlake, CA: The Dawn Horse Press, 1980. The biographies of the adept Drukpa Künlek (1455–1529) are known in both an official version (translated in Stein 1972 below) and a number of popular, humorous versions satirically recounting the subject’s sexual exploits. One of the latter is presented here.
Dudjom Rinpoche, Jikdrel Yeshe Dorje. The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History. Trans. Gyurme Dorje and Matthew Kapstein. 2nd ed. Boston: Wisdom, 2002. Dudjom Rinpoché (1904–87) was among the leading Nyingmapa teachers of the twentieth century, and his major works, translated here, are compendia of the established traditions of his school. The History, in particular, includes numerous hagiographical accounts of past masters, drawn from earlier Nyingmapa historical writings.
Emmerick, Ronald Eric. Tibetan Texts Concerning Khotan. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. Authoritative editions of the histories of Khotan as preserved in Tibetan canonical sources.
Evans-Wentz, W. Y., ed. Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa: A Biography from the Tibetan. Trans. Kazi Dawa-Samdup. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928. Pioneering translation of the life of Tibet’s great poet-saint.
——. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. 1929; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1960. Pioneering translation of the “Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate State,” a key mortuary text of the Nyingmapa tradition.
Fields, Rick, Brian Cutillo, and Mayumi Oda. The Turquoise Bee: The Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994. Attractive rendition of the popular verses attributed to the tragic Sixth Dalai Lama.
Gold, Jonathan C. The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. Study and translation of Sakya Paṇḍita’s fundamental contributions to Tibetan rhetoric.
Guenther, Herbert V. The Life and Teaching of Nāropa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963. A Tibetan version of the life of the Indian mahāsiddha Nāropa, with copious commentary.
——. Kindly Bent to Ease Us. 3 vols. Emeryville, CA: Dharma Publications, 1975–76. Full translation of the verse texts of the Trilogy of Rest, the masterwork on the Buddhist path, in both its exoteric and esoteric aspects, composed by the Nyingmapa master Longchen Rapjampa (1308–63).
Gyatso, Janet. Apparitions of the Self. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. The foremost study of Tibetan autobiography, with detailed consideration and translation of the “secret autobiography” of the renowned visionary Jikmé Lingpa (1730–98).
Hartley, Lauran and Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani, eds. Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Several of the contributions in this useful collection examine the relation of contemporary Tibetan writers to Tibet’s literary past.
Imaeda, Yoshiro. Histoire du Cycle de la Naissance et de la Mort. Geneva/Paris: Librairie Droz, 1981. Study and translation of an important group of Dunhuang manuscripts, recounting a divine search for the secrets of rebirth. A revised English version may be found in: Yoshiro Imaeda, “The History of the Cycle of Birth and Death: A Tibetan Narrative from Dunhuang,” in Contributions to the Cultural History of Early Tibet, ed. Matthew T. Kapstein and Brandon Dotson, Tibetan Studies Library 14 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 105–182.
Jackson, David P.
A History of Tibetan Painting. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1996. The major history to date of Tibetan artists, including many references to literature about Tibetan art.
Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé. The Treasury of Knowledge. Trans. the Kalu Rinpoche translation group. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1995–. An in-progress English translation, in many volumes, of the great nineteenth-century encyclopedia of Tibetan Buddhist learning and culture.
Jinpa, Thupten, trans. Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight and Awakening. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. A wide-ranging and well-chosen anthology of Tibetan religious poetry.
——. Mind Training: The Great Collection. Boston: Wisdom, 2006. Complete translation of the major anthology of Kadampa works on “mind training” (lojong), the systematic cultivation of the enlightened outlook of a bodhisattva.
Kapstein, Matthew T. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Offers, among other things, a detailed analysis of one of the earliest and most important Tibetan histories, the Testament of the Ba Clan.
——. “The Indian Literary Identity in Tibet.” In Literary Cultures in History: Perspectives from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003, 747–802. Historical survey of the role of Indian influences in the formation of Tibetan literary culture.
Karmay, Samten Gyaltsen. The Treasury of Good Sayings. London Oriental Series 26. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. An important history of the Bön religion.
Kaschewsky, Rudolf, trans. Das Leben des Lamaistischen Heiligen Tsongkhapa Blo-Bzan-Grags-Pa (1357–1419). Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1971. Translation of a major biography of Tsongkhapa by the important eighteenth-century Inner Mongolian scholar Chahar Lozang Tsültrim.
Lopez, Donald S., Jr., ed. Religions of Tibet in Practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Anthology of religious texts translated and introduced by leading scholars in the field.
Macdonald, Alexander W. Matériaux pour l’étude de la littérature populaire tibétaine, Vols. I and II. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967–72. Thorough study, with text edition and French translation, of a version of the popular “vampire stories,” an important genre of folktale inspired in part by the Vetala tales of ancient India.
Nalanda Translation Committee. The Rain of Wisdom. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1980. A remarkable anthology of poems by the Kagyü masters, first compiled by Karmapa VIII Mikyö Dorjé (1507–54).
——. The Life of Marpa the Translator. Boulder, CO: Prajña Press, 1982. The life of the famous translator and Kagyü founder, as retold by the fifteenth-century adept and author Tsangnyön Heruka (1452–1507).
Padmakara Translation Committee. The Words of My Perfect Teacher. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994. Fluent rendering of Dza Peltrül Rinpoché’s classic introduction to Buddhist practice in the Nyingmapa tradition.
Palmo, Ani Jinpa, trans. The Great Image: The Life Story of Vairochana the Translator. Boston: Shambhala, 2004. An important version of the hagiography of the great eighth-century translator Pagor Vairocana.
Ricard, Matthieu et al., trans.
The Life of Shabkar: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Eminently readable translation of one of the masterpieces of Tibetan autobiography; an unusually rich source touching on many areas of Tibetan life.
Richardson, Hugh E. A Corpus of Early Tibetan Inscriptions. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1985. Clear presentation of texts and translations of the principal surviving inscriptions of the Tibetan empire.
Roberts, P. A. The Biographies of Rechungpa: The Evolution of a Tibetan Hagiography. London: Routledge, 2007. Study of the elaboration of a Tibetan hagiographical corpus, with reference to the life of the important Kagyü teacher Rechung Dorjédrak (1084–1161).
Roerich, G. N., trans. The Blue Annals. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976. Gö Lotsawa’s Blue Annals is often considered the greatest of Tibetan religious histories, and is certainly the most comprehensive and balanced in its scope. Roerich’s pioneering translation is an essential reference.
Schaeffer, Kurtis R. Himalayan Hermitess: The Life of a Tibetan Buddhist Nun. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. A rare example of an autobiography by a Tibetan woman before modern times.
——. The Culture of the Book in Tibet. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Studies in the composition, publication, and dissemination of literature in premodern Tibet.
Sgam.po.pa. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation. Trans. Herbert V. Guenther. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1971. The major treatise on the Mahāyāna path, as taught in the Kagyü traditions.
Smith, E. Gene. Among Tibetan Texts: History and Literature of the Himalayan Plateau. Boston: Wisdom, 2001. Edited by Kurtis R. Schaeffer. A selection of the most important essays on the history of Tibetan literature by the late E. Gene Smith.
Snellgrove, David L., ed. and trans. The Nine Ways of Bon. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. Remarkable summation of the teachings of Bön, following the fourteenth-century encyclopedic work the Ziji, or “Splendor.”
Sopa, Geshe Lhundup and Roger R. Jackson, eds. and trans. The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems: A Tibetan Study of Asian Religious Thought. Boston: Wisdom, 2009. Annotated translation of Tuken Chöki Nyima’s masterwork on the philosophical traditions of India, China, and Tibet.
Sørensen, Per K. Divinity Secularized: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Form of the Songs Ascribed to the Sixth Dalai Lama. Vienna: Arbeitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 1990. Detailed study of the Sixth Dalai Lama’s songs in their various recensions.
——. Tibetan Buddhist Historiography: The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994. Thoroughly annotated translation of the history of the early Tibetan emperors attributed to the Sakyapa teacher and ruler Lama Dampa Sönam Gyeltsen (1312–75).
Stearns, Cyrus, trans. King of the Empty Plain: The Tibetan Iron Bridge Builder Tangtong Gyalpo. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2007. The life of the adept, visionary, author, and engineer Tangtong Gyelpo (1361?–1485?), one of the great Tibetan folk heroes.
Stein, Rolf A.
L’épopée tibétaine de Gesar dans sa version lamaïque de Ling. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956. Text and translations of three episodes from the Gesar epic in a nineteenth-century version from Kham, composed under the direction of figures associated with the “nonsectarian” movement.
——. Recherches sur l’épopée et le barde au Tibet. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959. An encyclopedic and still unsurpassed study of the Gesar epic.
——. Vie et chants de ’Brug-pa Kun-legs le yogin. Paris: G.-P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1972. The official version of Drukpa Künlek’s biography, in contrast with the popular version translated in Dowman 1980.
Sujata, Victoria. Tibetan Songs of Realization: Echoes from a Seventeenth-Century Scholar and Siddha of Amdo. Leiden: Brill, 2005. A study and translation of the songs of the famous Amdo poet Kelden Gyatso (Skal ldan rgya mtsho). Includes a detailed discussion of meter and style in Tibetan spiritual songs (mgur).
Thubten Jigme Norbu and Robert Ekvall, trans. The Younger Brother Don yod, Being the Secret Biography from the Words of the Glorious Lama, the Holy Reverend Blo bZang Ye SHes. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969. One of the few examples of early modern narrative literature in translation, this popular work, attributed to the Second Paṇchen Lama, is thought to be an allegory on Central Tibetan politics.
Toussaint, Gustave-Charles, trans. Le Dict de Padma, Padma thang yig, Ms. de Lithang. Bibliothèque de l’Institut de Hautes Études Chinoises, vol. 3. Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1933. [Trans. from the French by Kenneth Douglas and Gwendolyn Bays as The Life and Liberation of Padmasambhava, 2 vols. (Emeryville, CA: Dharma Publications, 1978).] The epic retelling of the legendary deeds of the Indian tantric master Padmasambhava.
Tsangnyön Heruka. The Life of Milarepa. Trans. Andrew Quintman. New York: Penguin, 2010. This new translation seems sure to become the standard English version of a renowned Tibetan classic.
Tshe ring dbang rgyal. The Tale of the Incomparable Prince. Trans. Beth Newman. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. Often referred to as the “first Tibetan novel,” the eighteenth-century aristocrat Tsering Wanggyel’s work is in fact an elaboration of the traditional Buddhist genre of the avadāna, a marvelous tale of a bodhisattva, and is regarded in Tibetan literary circles as a tour de force in the Tibetan adaptation of Sanskrit poetics.
Tsong-kha-pa. The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. Trans. Joshua Cutler et al. 3 vols. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2001–04. Tsongkhapa’s masterwork on the path of the bodhisattva, in a complete and felicitous English rendering.
Tucci, Giuseppe. Tibetan Folk Songs from Gyantse and Western Tibet. 2nd ed. Ascona, Switzerland: Artibus Asiae, 1966. Tibetan folk song traditions are particularly rich and vary considerably from one region to another. Tucci’s is one of the best studies, and contains wedding songs collected during his expeditions in Tsang and points farther west.
Verhagen, Pieter C. A History of Sanskrit Grammatical Literature in Tibet. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–2001. A comprehensive survey of the Tibetan traditions of Sanskrit grammar.
Vostrikov, A. I.
Tibetan Historical Literature. Trans. Harish Gupta. Calcutta: Indian Studies Past & Present, 1970. Completed in 1936 but not published in the original Russian until 1960, this was the first major survey of Tibetan historiography. It remains exceptionally useful.
Wangdu, Pasang and Hildegard Diemberger. dBa’ bzhed: The Royal Narrative Concerning the Bringing of the Buddha’s Doctrine to Tibet. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000. An early version of the Testament of Ba/Wa, with complete English translation.
Wangyal, Geshe, trans. The Prince Who Became a Cuckoo. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1982. A wonderful example of Tibetan didactic narrative, integrating allegorical elements from the Indian rebirth tales with Mahāyāna Buddhist ethics.