The Life of the Buddha and the Early History of his Order: Derived from Tibetan works in the Bkah-hgyur Bstan-hgyur, followed by notices on the early history of Tibet & Khoten

Anyone who has reviewed Alexander Csoma de Körös’s analysis of the Tibetan Bkali-ligyur, published in the 20th volume of “Asiatic Researches,” will be struck by the remarkable patience and perseverance of this exceptional scholar. The scope of his research, particularly in his analysis of the Dulva—roughly one-tenth of the entire Bkah-hgyur—is impressive. His work spans over 4000 leaves, each with seven lines of text, and each line averaging twenty-two syllables. Despite Csoma’s monumental efforts to introduce Europe to the extensive Buddhist literature of Tibet, his work remains primarily an index of the Tibetan Tripitaka. At the time of his writing, Buddhist studies were still in their infancy, and many significant topics addressed by the Bkah-hgyur had not yet been explored by scholars, leaving their importance largely unrecognized. Csoma’s untimely death also meant that he was unable to fully investigate the Tibetan Bstan-hgyut, a collection containing many crucial texts that could clarify the complexities often encountered in the canonical Bkah-hgyur.