Buddhist Digital Resource Center

You can read all five newly digitized papers here:
purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW1...
We’re delighted to share these foundational materials and hope they support your research and curiosity.

These essays offer a vivid glimpse of Gene’s early scholarship and the formative period of American Tibetan Studies. For a fuller account of this era, see David Jackson’s A Saint in Seattle, which chronicles Gene’s life and work.

The papers span key themes: the early history of the ’Khon family; the rise of Sa-skya power under ’Gro-mgon ’Phags-pa; nationalism and innovation in Tibetan belief; the development of the Rdo-rje-shugs-ldan cult; and Tibetan philology and literary theory.

All five papers were presented at the Inner Asia Colloquium at the University of Washington, where Gene worked closely with the great scholar Deshung Rinpoche—an intellectual partnership foundational to Tibetan Studies in the U.S.

We’re pleased to announce that BDRC has digitized and made available five early seminar papers by our founder, E. Gene Smith. Written in the early 1960s, these works mark the emergence of Gene’s remarkable voice in Tibetan Studies. #tibetanstudies

Exciting news in the world of Tibetan medicine! Tibetologist Dan Martin has again discovered important but hitherto ignored texts in the vast BDRC archive. Read the full story at tibeto-logic.blogspot.com

Have you ever seen a Tibetan typewriter? This one is held at the Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde of the University of Vienna - and it's still in working order! Read our latest blog post for the full story and a close-up view.

www.bdrc.io/blog/2025/06...

Don't miss an online talk on The Evolution and Great Diversity of Tibetan Scripts by Pentsok Whenggyel Rtsang.
June 12, 2025, 14:15 - 15:45 CEST.
Register at lmu-munich.zoom-x.de/.../TPVIaa9j...
Hosted by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

A vivid illustration of the fragility of old manuscripts, and the urgency of #digitization.

Please help BDRC complete this important work at #bostonpubliclibrary. We only need a few more donations to reach our goal! bdrc.app.neoncrm.com/forms/35?cam...

#digitallibrary #tibetanbuddhism

Revealing the Hidden Gems: Help BDRC digitize invaluable Tibetan Texts We need your support to digitize 30,000 pages of old and rare Tibetan texts from the personal collection of our founder, E. Gene Smith (1936-2010). These precious texts have survived for centuries,...

This spring BDRC is digitizing 150 extraordinary texts from the personal collection of our visionary founder, E. Gene Smith. Thanks to the our loyal community, we have already raised 58%, and only need another $4,900 to complete this important work. Will you help?

bdrc.app.neoncrm.com/forms/35

Revealing the Hidden Gems: Help BDRC digitize invaluable Tibetan Texts We need your support to digitize 30,000 pages of old and rare Tibetan texts from the personal collection of our founder, E. Gene Smith (1936-2010). These precious texts have survived for centuries,...

Will you preserve this legacy with a $108 donation to scan one volume? With your support they can be quickly scanned & published this summer!
These precious texts have survived for centuries, and it is urgent that we work together to digitally preserve them now.
api.neonemails.com/emails/track...

Over decades, Gene amassed these 30,000 pages. Each text was carefully selected for its rarity and scholarly value. Many are unique manuscripts, and others are prints that never circulated widely; most are unknown even today. They now await full-color digitization and release on BDRC. You can help!

We recently discovered 150 uncataloged and unscanned Tibetan texts in the BDRC office — collected by our founder E. Gene Smith. Most of these are rare, fragile, or not widely accessible. Yes, even our meticulously managed archives still hold surprises! Now they must be digitized, and you can help!

Now when you visit library.bdrc.io you will find the upgraded Buddhist Digital Archives, or BUDA 2.0, with a simplified search experience and an enhanced etext environment. Try it out today and send your feedback to help@bdrc.io - thank you!
#BDRC #DigitalLibrary #tibetanbuddhism

View the FPL collection on BDRC at library.bdrc.io/show/bdr:PR1...

FPL team member Somneuk Hongprayoon examines a Kamavaja text from the FPL collection.

Thanks to a grant from Khyentse Foundation, BDRC has been working with the Fragile Palm Leaves (FPL) Foundation in Bangkok since 2016, to digitize their extensive collection of Buddhist manuscripts from SE Asia. Read the full story at khyentsefoundation.org/story/the-fr...

Please note these new texts are only findable on BUDA 2.0 beta.bdrc.io.
N.B. most of the books we OCRed for this are under copyright so we can only show you contextual search results that are similar to “snippet view” on Google Books - but we allow for unlimited searches w/in copyrighted etexts.

The new etext collection also includes many volumes of traditional and contemporary Tibetan literature, including several སྙན་ངག commentaries. Recent compositions such as essay collections, local histories, and periodicals are also heavily represented in the new cache of etexts now on BUDA 2.0.

Biographies and histories lend themselves to full text searching and the new corpus of etexts includes many of these. Highlights from the new collection are:
ས་ལུགས་ཀྱི་མཁས་པས་མཛད་པའི་བོད་ཀྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་རྣམ་ཐར་ཕྱོགས་བསྒྲིགས། 11 vols
རྗེ་བཙུན་ཙོང་ཁ་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་རྣམ་ཐར་ཕྱོགས་བསྒྲིགས། 4 vols
གསོ་རིག་མཁས་དབང་ཁག་གི་རྣམ་ཐར་ཕྱོགས་བསྒྲིགས། 1 vol

We’ve added dozens of volumes of *sungbums*
རྒྱལ་དབང་སྐུ་ཕྲེང་རིམ་བྱོན་གྱི་གསུང་འབུམ་དཔེ་ཚོགས། 80 vols
ཨེ་ཝཾ་བཀའ་འབུམ། 20 vols
གསུང་འབུམ། ཏཱ་ར་ནཱ་ཐ། （དཔེ་བསྡུར་མ།) 45 vols
གསུང་འབུམ། ཀུན་བཟང་བདེ་སྐྱོང་དབང་མོ། 6 vols
མཁའ་འགྲོའི་ཆོས་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ། 53 vols
ས་སྐྱའི་ཆོས་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ། 40 vols

BDRC’s collection of searchable etexts was just increased by 900,000 pages! The full-text contents of this massive store of Tibetan literature will enhance your experience finding information and relevant passages. These 900k pages of etexts were generated by applying OCR to 3k vols of Tib. books.

A reminder to join us on Zoom tomorrow for a live demo of BUDA 2.0. All welcome on April 1st, 2025 at 11:00 Eastern. Details and zoom link on our website at www.bdrc.io/introducing-...

Don't miss this chance to learn about major upgrades to the world's largest digital archive of Buddhist texts!

Drop in to an informal Zoom session to meet BDRC staff and learn more about recent improvements to the world's largest digital archive of Buddhist texts. All welcome on April 1st, 2025 at 11:00 Eastern. Details and zoom link on our website at www.bdrc.io/introducing-...

Join BDRC staff on Tues, April 1st at 11:00 am Eastern for a live demo and training session to learn about the upgrades and improvements to BDRC's digital archive. Visit beta.bdrc.io to try the new site, then join us on April 1st.

Zoom link and more info at www.bdrc.io/introducing-...

#BDRC

This video from the Derge Printing House conveys the scale of work involved in carving woodblocks of Buddhist texts. Jigme Wangdrak Rinpoche sponsored the recarving of these woodblocks of the Nyingma Gyubum. Read the story at www.bdrc.io/.../its-a-mi... and view digital scans on BDRC's archive.

BUDA - Buddhist Digital Archives The Buddhist Digital Archives by the Buddhist Digital Resource Center. A cooperative platform for expanding access to Buddhist literature. Explore the millions of pages of texts contributed by BDRC and its many partners.

View and download this highly readable copy of Derge Edition of the Nyingma Gyubum for free on @buddhistarchive.bsky.social's digital library at purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW1...

(L to R) Anam Thubten and Chakhung Jigme Wangdrak Rinpoche at the Abhaya Fellowship in El Cerrito, CA

All 26 volumes of the Derge Edition of the Nyingma Gyubum.

March 14, 2025 is a major Buddhist holiday known as the Display of Miracles (ཆོ་འཕྲུལ་དུས་ཆེན Chotrul Düchen). BDRC is celebrating with the publication of a collection that is something of a modern day miracle: prints of a new set of woodblocks of the Nyingma Gyubum recently carved in Derge, Tibet.

BDRC Announces the Release of OCR app for Tibetan - Buddhist Digital Resource Center The Buddhist Digital Resource Center announces the release of a breakthrough Optical Character Recognition (OCR) app for Tibetan.

BDRC is excited to announce the release of the first publicly available desktop app for Tibetan OCR. This is a beta release and we plan to further refine the OCR models and add additional functionality. For the full story and github download link, visit our news site. www.bdrc.io/blog/2025/03...

For scans of Zen and other Japanese Buddhist manuscripts you can try:
www.nichibun.ac.jp/en/db/catego...
iriz.hanazono.ac.jp
21dzk.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SAT/index.html

Also, the official English trans. of the complete Shobogenzo is back in stock: sotozen.us/re-stock-off...

BDRC has archived many editions of the East Asian Canon. We have not worked directly in Japan to digitize manuscripts in part because the main temples and libraries are already carrying out this work. BDRC instead prioritizes less resourced traditions such as the Tibetan, Khmer, and Burmese.