As a grants-based translation project and online publication house, we leverage and integrate new technologies to make our digital library of the Buddha’s wisdom as accessible and beneficial as possible to readers, practitioners, and scholars around the world.
Explore all of our publications by visiting the
84000 Online Reading Room
With a strong editorial team, we award text-specific grants to translation teams around the world, working collaboratively to ensure accurate and credible translations of Classical Tibetan Buddhist texts that will form a cohesive Canon upon completion. We integrate new publication technologies in order to deliver these 231,800 pages of the wisdom to you, in English, online, for free.
As of 2010, only 5% of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon had been translated out of Classical Tibetan—a language facing a serious threat to its survival. In ten years, we have published or have in-translation over 36,000 pages of the Kangyur, not only making deeper international academic inquiry possible, but as our readership grows around the world, we put the wisdom that the Canon contains at the fingertips of readers like you.
Our work relies upon the dedicated and collaborative effort of scholars, professionals, volunteers, advisors, and sponsors around the world. We work remotely and online, across timezones and continents, and we greatly value each and every member of our team. This virtual teamwork has been a major source of both pride and humility as we produce accurate and credible translations and make them available to you online, for free.
There are more answers in our frequently asked questions, such as "What are the Kangyur and Tengyur?", "What else do you do other than translate?", and "How can I get involved?"
This sūtra records an encounter between the Buddha and the four guardians of the world at an unspecified site on the banks of the Ganges River. The Buddha himself initiates the dialogue, describing four great fears—aging, sickness, decrepitude, and death—declaring death to be the chief among them, and promising to provide remedies for them.
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In this sūtra, the Buddha, who is staying in Prince Jeta’s grove in Śrāvastī, addresses the monks directly and teaches in detail about the lifespans of the beings inhabiting the different realms of existence of the Buddhist cosmos.
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Maitreya’s Setting Out narrates the stories of two previous lives of the bodhisattva Maitreya and explains the circumstances for his initial arousing of the mind set on awakening.
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The Questions of Brahmaviśeṣacintin is an important Mahāyāna sūtra that enjoyed significant popularity in Buddhist India, China, and Tibet over the centuries. The teaching itself takes the form of a lively discussion blending practical and theoretical strands of Mahāyāna and emphasizes how bodhisattvas should practice the Dharma—a training that transcends both the mundane and the supramundane.
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The Account of the Noble Deeds of Śrīsena belongs to one of the most beloved narrative genres in Buddhism, the past life story (avadāna), and deals with one of the most powerful and pervasive themes in this genre, the bodhisattva’s bodily sacrifice for the benefit of living beings.
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Over the last ten years, many scholars around the world have contributed to the translations published by 84000. To further strengthen the opportunity for younger scholars to contribute to the project, 84000 is now offering two post-doctoral grants to work on translations of texts from the Kangyur.
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The Account of the Noble Deeds of Puṇyabala is written in one the most recognizable literary forms in Buddhism: the Buddha’s past-life stories. This tale focuses on the benefits of accruing merit. Puṇyabala is a young prince whose store of merit is so great that he acquires untold riches and power.
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The Noble Dhāraṇī “The Mother of Avalokiteśvara”1 begins in the city of Vaiśālī, where the Buddha is residing amidst an assembly of monks and bodhisattvas. The bodhisattva Samantabhadra requests that he reveal the powerful dhāraṇī known as The Mother of Avalokiteśvara, and the Buddha agrees.
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As we mark the anniversary of the Bir Conference 2009 that gave birth to our growing initiative, we sit down with Ivy Ang, who—appointed by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche to facilitate those historic six days—has since been there with us every step of the way.
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With its 2,158 Tibetan pages, The Application of Mindfulness of the Sacred Dharma is a vast treasury of Dharma and a splendid piece of world literature that stands out as one of the greatest literary works of classical India, notable for its vivid and exceedingly detailed depiction of the various realms of saṃsāra.
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Building on our aspiration to revitalize interest in the foundations of the Buddhadharma, we took to the road (virtually, of course) to ask some of our friends from across the Himalayas which their favorite 84000 Reading Room features are, and why.
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