Sunday, January 16, 2011

Tibetan Histories - Addenda et Corrigenda

A library at Lumbini (the LIRI)
Birthplace of Śākyamuni Buddha

Today’s blog is really nothing but a link to a Tibetological resource located at — Where else? — Tibeto-logical website. The only reason you may like to look at or download this file is because you are already familiar with a book called “Tibetan Histories” (if you haven’t seen it you can scroll through most of it at Googlebooks). Apparently Serindia, the publisher, has allowed it to go out of print, since already Amazon marketplace sellers are asking an arm and two legs for it. 


I would hang the full text up for free download, but I’m afraid it’s still under copyright for a few more years. So what I will put up here is a link to over an hundred pages of addenda.* Of course this file won’t make too much sense unless you have the original publication in hand.
(*This was already about 10 pages long when the book was released.)

I do this as a continuation of my homage to the late E. Gene Smith, who helped more than any other person with the really difficult bibliographical problems. I still have over ten pages of his detailed notes on my draft, which he sent me in Oslo when he was in Cairo. At the time we hadn’t even met, which does make his determination to help me as much as he possibly could that much more impressive.

Well, to keep this brief, if you think you will have a use for it, go download this file at Tibetological.* I’m afraid we haven’t been so diligent about adding references to the new publications that have come out during the last five or ten years, although eventually that ought to be rectified. 
(*As of 2020, that link is no longer active. Ignore everything else in this blog entry and just go to this link instead:


If I may quote here what it says there,
"We hope that having this additional material accessible to internet searches will assist in solving some of the problems in Tibetan history bibliography that remain to be solved in the 21st century."

Sarnath, where Buddhist history in some sense began
(Tibetan histories very often include histories of Indian Buddhism as well)



4 comments:

  1. Thank you for this wonderful contribution, which is also a very suitable homage to Gene Smith. It's a pity the book is out of print but at least it is widely available in libraries all over the world. If I may ask - will the Addenda & Corrigenda be online for the forseeable future, or should we be downloading (or copy-and-pasting) it straight away?

    S.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Sam, I'm afraid I've "exceeded my quota" at the free website, but the positive news is that I succeeded in temporarily hanging the thing up in the form of an ordinary Word file at Megaupload:

    http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T1T5MRM4

    Yes, the answer is Yes. Download the file form for future reference, because one never knows how long such things will last.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As of now, you may download the file (only slightly updated) here:

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37359227/%2BTibHist%20Supplement.doc

    Megaupload suffered a major setback recently, so I had to migrate my files.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anyone looking at this old blog ought to be advised that "Tibetan Histories" has changed quite a lot and may now be seen at this new website:
    https://sites.google.com/view/tibetanhistories/home

    ReplyDelete

Please write what you think. But please think about what you write. What's not accepted here? No ads, no links to ads, no back-links to commercial pages, no libel against 3rd parties. These comments won't go up, so no need to even try. What's accepted? Everything else, even 1st- & 2nd-person libel, if you think they have it coming.