Launch of New State-of-the-Art Reading Room

84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha is pleased to announce its newly updated Reading Room and the publication of ten newly translated Tibetan Buddhist texts.

New online Reading Room (read.84000.co): The upgraded state-of-the-art platform is first-of-its-kind and features fully responsive and mobile-friendly interfaces as well as easily navigable and searchable content. The Reading Room is compatible with the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), an international standard used by libraries, museums, publishers and scholars to encode digital texts and to systematically compile important textual information.

“This new Reading Room ensures that these translations will be easily accessible and will enable practitioners and scholars alike to remember and study the words of the Buddha,” says Huang Jing Rui, 84000 Executive Director.

(Resource: Reading Room user guide)

New texts: Along with the new Reading Room, 84000 is publishing 10 new texts:

Toh No. Text Titles 85 The Question of Maitreya བྱམས་པས་ཞུས་པ། View Translation 86 The Question of Maitreya on the Eight Qualities བྱམས་པས་ཆོས་བརྒྱད་ཞུས་པ། View Translation 130 The Illusory Absorption སྒྱུ་མ་ལྟ་བུའི་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན། View Translation 134 The Absorption That Encapsulates All Merit བསོད་ནམས་ཐམས་ཅད་བསྡུས་པའི་ཏིང་ངེ་འཛིན། View Translation 186 The Teaching on the Extraordinary Transformation that is the Miracle of Attaining the Buddha’s Powers སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་སྟོབས་སྐྱེད་པའི་ཆོ་འཕྲུལ་རྣམ་པར་འཕྲུལ་པ་བསྟན་པ། View Translation 194 The Sūtra of the Inquiry of Jayamati རྒྱལ་བའི་བློ་གྲོས་ཀྱིས་ཞུས་པའི་མདོ། View Translation 431 The Tantra of Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa ཁྲོ་བོ་ཆེན་པོའི་རྒྱུད། 544 The Tantra of Siddhaikavīra དཔའ་བོ་གཅིག་པུ་གྲུབ་པའི་རྒྱུད། 558 Destroyer of the Great Trichiliocosm སྟོང་ཆེན་མོ་རབ་ཏུ་འཇོམས་པའི་མདོ། 563 Upholding the Great Secret Mantra གསང་སྔགས་རྗེས་སུ་འཛིན་པའི་མདོ།

The goal of 84000 is to translate 70,000 pages of the Kangyur in 25 years and 161,800 pages of the Tengyur in 100 years. In just six years, 84000 is supporting 38 teams of 201 translators from around the world, including both Tibetan scholars and Western academics. These teams are currently working on the translation of more than 23,000 pages, amounting to one-third of the entire Kangyur. To date, the Reading Room has published 29 texts, received close to 8 million views, and been visited by more than 138,000 people from 238 countries.

84000 is a major undertaking to build upon and further the remarkable efforts of past renowned translators and Dharma patrons (such as Trisong Deutsen, Ashoka, Wu Zetian and Xuanzang), without whom the words of the Buddha may not have been available today. “By translating and making available the Tibetan Buddhist texts to modern people, a vast swath of Buddhist civilization and culture may be saved from annihilation.” says Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

This is a rare and exciting opportunity to join a historic movement in its earliest stages. To learn more and get involved, please browse the Reading Room, subscribe to our mailing list, or sponsor a page of translation.