I. Brief Introduction of Tibetan Tripitaka

Tibetan Tripitaka includes two canons, namely the Kangyur and Tengyur. It is an integral part of Chinese Tripitaka, and therefore also referred to as Chinese Tripitaka (Tibetan Text Part), just for distinguishing it from other language editions of Chinese Tripitaka, such as Pali, Han Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu editions and etc.

Since the year of 2 B.C., when Buddhism was first introduced to China, a large number of Buddhist scriptures and commentaries had been translated into Han Chinese through the joint effort of many generations of lotswas and commentators and later on compiled as Chinese Tripitaka, which also covered many treaties and biographies written by eminent monks of Chinese hinterland.

Since the 7th century A.D., when Buddhism started to enter Tibetan inhabited areas, all successive kings of Tubo Kingdom had attached great importance to translation of Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan language and therefore sent consecutively more than 100 Tibetan young people to India to study Sanskrit and Buddhist scriptures. During several centuries of former and latter prosperity periods of Buddhism, there were more than consecutively 200 Tibetan lotsawas, who joined hands with commentators from India, Nepal and Chinese hinterland and translated Buddhist scriptures and treaties from Sanskrit and other languages into Tibetan language. These documents included the exoteric and esoteric Budhism tests preached by Shakyamuni, the commentary treaties written by commentators represented by Nagarjuna and Asanga (both were among the famous Buddhist scholar group of ancient India know as six ornaments and two supreme philosophers), and The five major branches of knowledge (i.e., visual arts and craftsmanship, medicine, grammar, logic and epistemology and Buddhist Buddhist Philosophy) and The five minor branches of knowledge of Buddhist Doctrines (poetry, synonymics, composition, drama and astrology), and so on. As mentioned above,  Tibetan Tripitaka includes two canons, the Kangyur and Tengyur, which gathered together more than 4000 scriptures, doctrines and treaties.

The earliest compiled Tibetan Tripitaka has only manuscripts using charcoal or gold, silver and other treasures as ink material. At the beginning of the 15th century, woodblock editions and stone-carving versions came to light. Later several centuries had seen many different versions of Kangyur and Tengyur manuscripts; twelve and four woodblock editions of Kangyur and Tengyur respectively; and more than a dozen of stone-carving versions of Kangyur and Tengyur

The above-mentioned manuscripts, woodblock editions and stone-carving versions of Kangyur and Tengyur are crystal of wisdom formed by the diligent and brave Tibetan people through centuries, and are priceless historic heritages and important carriers for Tibetan culture.

II. Brief Review of Collation and Publishing of Tibetan Tripitaka

II.1. The Initiation of Collation and Publishing of Tibetan Tripitak

As early as its founding in 1986, China Tibetology Research Center (CTRC) submitted the Report on Collating and Publishing the Chinese Tripitaka (Tibetan Text Part)  to the central government. It is written that It is of far-reaching significance in terms of both religion and culture to collate and publish Tibetan Tripitaka and make it perfectly combine with Chinese Tripitaka (Han Chinese Text Part) being publishing consecutively, thus forming the world-unique and most complete Chinese Tripitaka . The central government attached great importance to this project and decided to appropriate a specific fund for publishing Tibetan Tripitaka. In the mean time, the government authorized CTRC to undertake this project and required CTRC to be meticulous in organizing and supervising the work, making the collated edition of Tibetan Tripitaka a high quality and high level one . In the same year, this project was listed in National Key Projects of Buddhist Philosophy and Social Science in the 7'h five-year plan.

In May 1987, CTRC established The Tripitaka Collation Bureau in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. Drashi Tsering, the vice president of CTRC and former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Sichuan Province was appointed as director of the bureau, and Professor Tudden Nyima as executive director. The bureau also engaged a dozen of experts including Living Buddha Peya Rinboche, Sherab Woser, Gedun and etc., as well as more than 100 Tibetan young people gathering in Chengdu to carry out the huge project of collating and publishing Tibetan Tripitaka, as the first of its kind in the history.

Normally, the Kangyur canon should be collated first. However, considering the fact that there are up to twelve woodblock editions of Kangyur and some of them had been brought to abroad and are not easy to acquire completely; while there are only four woodblock editions of Tengyur, relatively easy to acquire, thus the bureau decided to collate the Tengyur canon first. Among the four, the Derge edition was commonly accepted as one with less writing errors, more graceful in character form and larger circulation than the others. Therefore the Derge edition was taken as the master copy, the others, namely the Beijing, Natang and Dzoni editions as reference ones. The prerequisite guideline is to keep as much as possible the original text of the master edition and not to modify any, except the very small parts where there are obvious error characters due to physical defects or writing mistakes on printing blocks. The translation variations, missing or redundant sentences, and sequential variations of compilation found during collation in the four editions were all listed in collation notes and tables after each text of the collated edition. The result of collation shows that the Derge edition has less error characters and more reasonable sequence of compilation than the other editions. It is of highest quality among the all. The Dzoni edition, except for its Praise section, was compiled by taking the Derge edition as a master copy. In that time there were no four volumes of Miscellaneous section in the Derge edition yet, which were added to the Derge edition afterwards. That is why the Jone edition has no this part, while the Derge edition has. Both Beijing and Narthang editions were compiled by taking a Tengyur manuscript (which was completed under the supervision of Desi Sangye Gyatso) as the master copy, therefore, the two editions are very similar in terms of sequence of compilation and number of volumes. Both editions have 225 volumes, 15 volumes (including 525 texts, such as The Commentaries on Tantra) more in Tantra section than that of the Derge and Dzoni editions. In the four editions, there are also a few cases such as the same original text had different translations, or some texts can be only found in one or two editions.

The first step of the working procedure of the bureau is collating, then followed by computer inputting, proofreading, editing, testing and accepting and final approving, etc. Through joint effort of over 100 armature staffs for nearly 2 decades, the collation work of Tengyur has been completed. The new collated edition of Tengyur including its catalogue has 124 volumes (each 16-mo volume covers 2 volume of the Derge edition)

The collation of Kangyur is now under way and planed to be completed in 2008. As mentioned above, there are altogether twelve editions of Kangyur, among which, eight editions, namely, the Yongle, Lijiang (Litang), Beijing, Dzoni, Natang, Derge, Lhasa and Urga editions, have been acquired by the collation bureau. Since the other four, namely, the Wanli, Ragya, Waram and Qamdo editions, were compiled by taking the Yongle, Derge and Lhasa editions as master copies, and therefore have not been used as reference copies.

The result of a preliminary collation shows that the Derge edition has less error characters and better sequence of compilation than the others. The Lhasa edition ranks the second, which is more delicate and regulated in character form, sequence of compilation and sentence partition symbols than the rests. Then the ranking for the rest is Natang, Kulun, Dzoni, Lijiang, Yongle and Yongle editions. The Urga edition has one volume of Latter Translated Sutra section more than the others. The Yongle, Lijiang, Dzoni and Beijing editions have one volume of One Hundred Thousand Dharani (all are mantra) more than the others. The Derge, Lijiang and Urga editions has one volume of Commentaries on Kalachakra Laghutantra…Vimala more than the others. The Derge and Urga editions gathered together various kinds of Dharani from different volumes of Tantra section into two volumes (for the convenience of Buddhist followers to recite).

II.2. The Necessity of Collation and Publishing Tibetan Tripitaka

At the very beginning when we started to do the collation, some scholars held that the various editions of Tibetan Tripitaka have nothing different except for some function synonymicsand judging words. However, through meticulous collation word by word and sentence by sentence, we found differences not only in function and judging words, but also in texts, e.g., some redundant or missing sentences, sequential variations of compilation, repeated texts and translation variations. In addition, the number of texts and sequence of compilation varied with the differences in collation time and sects background of the supervisors of different editions of Kangyur and Tengyur. Each edition has its own features. Therefore, it is necessary to collate all editions available.

II.3. Results of the Collation and the Features of the Collated Edition

Unifying the sequence of compilation and contents, and listing the missing, redundant and variant parts found among the editions in collation note after each text.

List the number of lines and characters of the editions in the collation tables. The new collated edition of Tibetan Tripitaka integrated features of all editions, if you own it, as if you owned all other editions, thus saving readers' and researchers' time for searching in different editions, and providing fairly-complete information of Tibetan Tripitaka. The collation and publishing is a great project for inheriting and carrying forward traditional culture and will play a positive part in studying and developing cultures of Tibet.

III. Features of Tibetan Tripitaka

Among the all language editions of The Tripitaka, the Tibetan edition is most distinctive in features. Firstly, by comparing Tibetan Tripitaka (the catalogue of Derge edition of Kangyur and Tengyur) and with Chinese Tripitaka (the catalogue of Taisho issaikyo), you can see the features of Tibetan Tripitaka as follows

The Derge edition of Kangyur and Tengyur has in total 1065 sutra texts and related treaties and 4209 tantra texts and related treaties, as well as the classics of other academic fields, among which there are only 32 treaties written by Tibetan scholars during the former prosperity period of Tibetan Buddhism, only accounting for 0.7%, while the other 99.3% were those translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan. While Chinese Tripitaka has in total 2435 sutra texts and related treaties and 3052 tantra texts and related treaties, among which, 60% were those translated from Sanskrit into Han Chinese, while the other 40% were treaties and biographies written by Eminent monks from Chinese hinterland, Japan and Korea, etc. For centuries to up the end of the 19th century, many treaties of most virtuous of Chinese hinterland had been consecutively incorporated into Chinese Tripitaka Tibetan Tripitaka had been also expanded to today's huge size through continuous addition over centuries. However, most of them are scriptures and treaties translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan. Only 32 treaties written by Tibetan Eminent monks and most virtuous in former translation period were incorporated into Tengyur, while most of such works had not been incorporated. Therefore, Kangyur and Tengyur so far can only represent The exoteric and esoteric Budhism canons and related treaties, as well as classics of other academic fields translated from Sanskrit and other languages into Tibetan; but can not represent all scriptures and treaties of Tibetan Buddhism. Only 3 volumes of Earlier Translations of Nyingma Tantra had been incorporated into Kangyur, while the other 20 or so volumes of the same and over 100 volumes of Earlier Translations of Buddha's Teaching Tantra had not. In all sects of Tibetan Buddhism, there are over 1000 Eminent monks and most virtuous who had written treaties. Among the all, one with most quantity of works were Bodong Panchen Chogle Namgyal (1375 - 1451), who has 130 volumes of works. Nearly 100 Eminent monks and most virtuous are with tens of volumes of works respectively. If all these works are incorporated into the Tibetan Tripitak, then the number of scriptures and treaties of it will be extended by many folds.

Though the total number of scriptures and treaties of Tibetan Tripitaka is more than Chinese Tripitaka, the balance is mostly the tantra part. On the other hand, Tibetan Tripitaka also lacks some scriptures and treaties uniquely in Chinese Tripitaka, such as Abhidharma-mahavibhasha shastra, Mahaprajna- paramita-shastra and many other sutra texts and related treaties. According History of Buddhism in Han Chinese Regions (Tibetan edition), there are over 160 sutra texts and 20 tantra texts in Chinese Tripitaka, which Tibetan Tripitaka has not. History and Doctrines of Different Buddhist sects also held that There are still many scriptures and treaties in Chinese Tripitaka that have not been translated into Tibetan. The actual differences between Tibetan Tripitaka and Chinese Tripitaka are yet to be further studied.

It is also not quite true to say that Tibetan Tripitaka has completely covered all The exoteric and esoteric Buddhism texts and related treaties of India, because many such scriptures and treaties had already been ruined or lost before Buddhism was introduced to Tibet., Tibetan Tripitaka can better inherit The exoteric and esoteric Buddhism of Indian Buddhism and classics of other fields in all round ways than the others due to the following advantages

The geographic advantage. Tibet is adjacent to India with easy access.

The personal exchange advantage Since the 7th century, the successive kings of Tubo Kingdom attached importance to the great undertaking Buddhist scripture translation, and sent consecutively many Tibetan young people represented by Thonmi Sambhota and Rinchen Zangpo carrying gold to India for studying Buddhist Dharma. On completion of study, many lotsawas carried Sanskrit canons and walked over mountains back to Tibet, experiencing great hardship. For centuries, the hard working Tibetan students of many generations had not only completely learned The exoteric and esoteric Buddhism in India, but also brought back a large quantity of Sanskrit canons to Tibet. In the meantime, they also invited many Indian and Kashmir Abhidhammika to Tibet, joining hand for translation of Buddhist scripture.

According to History of Buddhism by Buton, there had been more than 90 commentators from India and Kashmir coming to Tibetan inhabited areas to join the translation team. Most of scriptures and treaties were translated into Tibetan though joint effort of Indian commentators, who were proficient in both Buddhism and Sanskrit, and Tibetan translators, therefore, very close to the original meaning. This is a unique feature of Tibetan scriptures. Some of Han Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures done by famous translators such as Xuan Zang and Kumarajiva are also of high quality. However, most Han Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures were done by translators of Han or other ethnic translators alone, without cooperation of Indian commentators, therefore its quality can not compared with the Tibetan one. Many scriptures and treaties in Tibetan Tripitaka were amended or re-translated in the the latter prosperity of Buddhism. This also helped a lot to improve the quality of The Tibetan scriptures.

The time advantage. The translation of Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan inhabited areas started from the beginning of the former prosperity period of Buddhism in the 7t' century. The translation activities went into prime time between the 8t' and 9t' centuries, with focus on the Buddha's teachings which later on formed the main part of Kangyur. In the latter prosperity of Buddhism, many lotsawas represented by Rinchen Zangpo emerged, who joined hand with commentators from India and other places to do the translation. Especially at the turn of the 13th century, Indian Buddhism suffered severe damage and many commentators came to Tibet consecutively, thus making the exoteric and esoteric Buddhism texts and related treaties as well as classics of other academic fields enter Tibetan inhabited areas in a fairly complete manner. The scriptures translated in this period were known as newly or latter translated scriptures. Among the scriptures translated in the latter translation period, most are tantra texts and treaties which later on formed Tengyur. Some of The exoteric and esoteric Buddhism texts and treaties as well as classics of other academic fields translated in the former translation period were amended or retranslated in the latter translation period. The time of forming Tibetan Tripitaka is later than that of the Pali Tripitaka and Chinese Tripitaka, therefore it more completely gathered and inherited the exoteric and esoteric Buddhism and related treaties as well as the classics of the other academic fields.

The Scripts advantage. The Tibetan scripts were created based on 16 vowel letters and 34 consonant letters of Sanskrit, while reducing some compound consonants and integrating them with aboriginal Tibetan language. Therefore, compared with other language translations, Tibetan translation is more close to the original language (Sanskrit), especially the Tibetan translation of mantra are more easily converted to Sanskrit than any other language translations. Today, there are only a few original Sanskrit scriptures left in the world, while most of them had been translated into Tibetan. So we can say the original Sanskrit scriptures are still alive in Tibetan Tripitaka.

The Mongolian Tripitaka was translated from 7-1betan Tripitaka. In the 18th century A.D., according to instruction of the Qing Emperor Qianlong, the work was done under the supervision of the Chang Kya Rolpai Dorje and Tipa Losang Nyima.            

Tibetan Tripitaka is the one with relatively complete contents in the world and is a priceless traditional culture treasure covering many academic subjects with Buddhist canon as a main. In the future, the Tibetan and Han Chinese editions can learn from each other's strengths to offset each other's weakness, for example, we can translate those unique contents in Han Chinese edition into Tibetan and visa versa. We can also translate those unique contents in Pali edition into Han Chinese and Tibetan. In this sense, we can say, the most complete Tripitaka in the world is in China.

Butru, Expert on Tibetan Tripitaka of China Tibetology Research Center

Oct.11,2006