| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Edited by |
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| Publication details | |
| yes | |
| Standard abbreviations | |
| ISO 4 | Treas. Lives |
| Indexing | |
| ISSN | 2332-077X |
| Links | |
The Treasury of Lives is an online, open access, peer reviewed, [1] collection of biographical essays, which can be seen as an encyclopedia of historical figures from Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan Region.
The Treasury of Lives is an online series of biographical essays, used as an encyclopedia, that was established in 2007 with the mission of providing open access to the lived history of Tibet and surrounding regions. Biographies are intended for a wide audience of scholars, independent researchers and practitioners. Essays cover a wide range of figures, from Buddhist masters to artists and political officials, most of which are peer reviewed. Website localization into Tibetan and Chinese languages in is progress in order to meet the growing numbers of users active in those languages.
The Treasury of Lives is a collaborative resource with over 100 contributing authors. [2] It has published over 1100 biographies. Many essays are peer-reviewed and benefit from extensive internal and external links to associated art, maps, place descriptions, family and clan information, and timelines.
The Treasury of Lives was originally known as The Tibetan Lineages Project, led by Moke Mokotoff, Matthieu Ricard and Vivian Kurz. Alexander Gardner serves as the executive director and Editor in Chief. The Treasury of Lives is also closely linked with Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC, formerly known as TBRC). The late E. Gene Smith and Jeff Wallman of the BDRC were instrumental in defining the vision of the site and in forging the plan for its development; and its database is closely linked to BDRC. [1] [3] [4]
The project was initially funded and incubated by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation. It became an independent non-profit organization in 2017.
Notable authors of the biographies in The Treasury of Lives who have Wikipedia articles include:[ citation needed ]
Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from medieval India who taught Vajrayana in Tibet. According to some early Tibetan sources like the Testament of Ba, he came to Tibet in the 8th century and helped construct Samye Monastery, the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. However, little is known about the actual historical figure other than his ties to Vajrayana and Indian Buddhism.
The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug. It is one of the Red Hat Orders along with the Nyingma and Kagyu.
Atīśa was a Buddhist religious leader and master from Bengal. He is generally associated with his work carried out at the Vikramashila monastery in Bihar. He was one of the major figures in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra. He is recognised as one of the greatest figures of medieval Buddhism. Atiśa's chief disciple, Dromtön, was the founder of the Kadam school, one of the New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism, later supplanted by the Gelug tradition in the 14th century which adopted its teachings and absorbed its monasteries.
Dorje Shugden, also known as Dolgyal and Gyalchen Shugden, is an entity associated with the Gelug school, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Dorje Shugden is variously looked upon as a destroyed gyalpo, a minor mundane protector, a major mundane protector, an enlightened major protector whose outward appearance is that of a gyalpo, or as an enlightened major protector whose outward appearance is enlightened.
Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, also known by his tertön title, Pema Ösel Dongak Lingpa, was a teacher, scholar and tertön of 19th-century Tibet. He was a leading figure in the Rimé movement.
Geshe or geshema is a Tibetan Buddhist academic degree for monks and nuns. The degree is emphasized primarily by the Gelug lineage, but is also awarded in the Sakya and Bön traditions. The equivalent geshema degree is awarded to women.
Tibetan Americans are Americans of Tibetan ancestry. As of 2020, more than 26,700 Americans are estimated to have Tibetan ancestry. The majority of Tibetan Americans reside in Queens, New York.
Sangri County is a county of Shannan in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China.
Glenn H. Mullin is a Tibetologist, Buddhist writer, translator of classical Tibetan literature and teacher of Tantric Buddhist meditation.
Kathok Monastery, also transliterated as Kathog, Katok, or Katog, was founded in 1159 and is one of the "Six Mother Monasteries" in Tibet of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, built after Samye Monastery. It is located in Payul, Garzê Prefecture, Sichuan, China, in the region traditionally known to Tibetans as Kham.
Dargye Monastery is a Buddhist monastery in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Kham, Sichuan, China. It belongs to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The monastery was founded in 1642 by Jedrung Sherab Wangpo near Kandze.
Zhang Yudrakpa Tsöndru Drakpa (1122–93) (zhang g.yu brag pa brtson 'gru brags pa), also known as Gungtang Lama Zhang(gung-thang bla-ma zhang) and often simply as Lama Zhang, was the founder of the Tshalpa Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a prominent religious figure, and his extensive involvement in the political and military conflicts of Tibet was controversial at the time. Lama Zhang played a key role in the medieval Buddhist revival in Central Tibet, also called the “Tibetan renaissance”.
Shatra, was a Tibetan politician.
Pagsam Wangpo, a key figure in the history of the Drukpa Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, was born at Chonggye, in the Tsang province of Tibet a natural son of the prince of Chonggye, Ngawang Sonam Dragpa. He was an elder cousin of the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso (1617-1682).
Jeff Watt is a scholar and curator of Himalayan and Tibetan Art and well known translator of Tibetan texts.
The Bodongpa or Bodong tradition, is one of the smaller traditions of Tibetan Buddhism falling outside the classification of the four main schools.
Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) website is a "virtual museum" of Himalayan and Tibetan art, cataloging and exhibiting images of art (painting, sculpture, textiles, ritual objects, murals, etc.) from museum, university and private collections throughout the world. The website is hosted at the Rubin Museum of Art.
The Buddhist Digital Resource Center (BDRC), formerly Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to seeking out, preserving, organizing, and disseminating Buddhist literature. Joining digital technology with scholarship, BDRC ensures that the ancient wisdom and cultural treasures of the Buddhist literary tradition are not lost, but are made available for future generations. BDRC is committed to seeking out, preserving, organizing, and disseminating Buddhist literature. Founded in 1999 by E. Gene Smith with the help of the Tibetan translator Michele Martin, BDRC is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and hosts a digital library of the largest collection of digitized Tibetan texts in the world. Current programs focus on the preservation of texts in Pali, Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan.
Janet Gyatso is a Religious Studies scholar currently employed as the Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and the Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Gyatso's research interests are in Buddhism and its relationship to Tibetan and South Asian civilizations.
