“The Tibetan Buddhist Canon consists of two parts: the Kangyur (bka’ ’gyur, texts ascribed to the historical Buddha and other Buddhas) and the Tengyur (bstan ’gyur, exegetical treatises mostly composed by Indians). Together they are the primary canonical authority for Tibetan Buddhism. The texts they contain have served as the basis for thirteen hundred years of indigenous Tibetan literary activity which extensively cites and analyzes them. The Kangyur and Tengyur represent one of the three principal canonical collections of classical Buddhist literature in the world: the Tibetan canon (Kangyur/Tengyur), the Chinese canon, and the Pali canon. The Tibetan canon is arguably the most complete of all three versions, and represents in many cases the sole surviving versions of Indian scriptures (in translation).” –Introduction to Tibetan Canons (thlib.org)
Kangyur (bka’ ’gyur) and Tengyur (bstan ’gyur)
About Kangyur and Tengyur
Introduction
- Facts and Figures about the Kangyur and Tengyur — 84000.co
- “Introduction to the Kangyur and Tengyur” D. Phillip Stanley — thlib.org
- Introduction to Tibetan Canons — thlib.org
- Tibetan Buddhist Canon — wikipedia.org
- Kangyur Bibliographies — thlib.org
Structure and Organization
- “Structure of the Kangyur” D. Phillip Stanley — thlib.org
- “Structure of the Tengyur” D. Phillip Stanley — thlib.org
- “The Tibetan Buddhist Canon: The Kangyur — Bka’ ’gyur and Tengyur — Bstan ’gyur” D. Phillip Stanley — thlib.org
Editions
- “Editions of the Kangyur” D. Phillip Stanley — thlib.org
- “Editions of the Tengyur” D. Phillip Stanley — thlib.org
Kangyur Tengyur Databases
840000 The Reading Room is a browsable catalog of all the texts in the Kangyur and Tengyur with a trilingual glossary- translations and definitions of thousands of terms, people, places, and texts from the Buddhist canon.
Buddhist Canons Research Database A Project of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS) and the Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies (CCBS)
Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC) Founded by E. Gene Smith. In addition to digitizing Buddhist texts in Tibetan, Mongolian, Khmer, Burmese, and other languages, BDRC works at the cutting edge of the digital humanities, including machine translation of Tibetan, handwritten text recognition, and advanced processing of etexts.
Lotsawa House Texts from and related to the Kangyur (bka’ ‘gyur), the Tibetan canonical collection of the Buddha’s Word (bka’) in translation (‘gyur) and texts from the Tengyur (bstan ‘gyur), the canonical collection of translated treatises (śāstra; bstan bcos)
Media and Other Resources
- A Brief History of Buddhist Canon: Conversations with John Canti and Peter Skilling (video) — 84000.co
- Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon: Main Introduction — dsbcproject.org
- The Nation’s Librarian of Tibetan Books: How Susan Meinheit’s Career Took Her From Washington D.C. to Lhasa and Back Again — bdrc.io
