THE ASIAN CLASSICS INPUT PROJECT Release Three Including: Continuation of "The Philosophical Dictionary of Asia" to incorporate Buddhist Logic and Middle-Way Philosophy Material from the Kangyur and Tengyur collections of classical Sanskrit philosophical literature in Tibetan translation TibEasy, a free new computer program for viewing and searching ACIP data in native Asian script Newly Released Catalogs of Sanskrit and Tibetan Classical Literature The Asian Classics Graphics Library: first release of a series of traditional Asian woodcuts, with a program to view and use them The International Asian Scholars Database, a free computer listing of the names and addresses of Asian-studies specialists worldwide Digital form and documentation of The Asian Classics Input Project, Release Three, copyright (c) The Asian Classics Input Project,1993. With the written permission of the Asian Classics Input Project, this data may be freely copied, used, and distributed for non-profit private and institutional research or education. It may not be copied and re-sold for any purpose. Any modification of the data prior to its re-distribution requires written permission of the Project and a prominent notice of such modification. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Digital form of the Update for the Cataloged Listings of Sanskrit Works of the United States Library of Congress copyright (c) The Library of Congress, except in the USA, 1992. This data has been licensed from, and a fee paid to, the United States Library of Congress. Requests for permission to copy or distribute the records in any form should be referred to the Cataloging Distribution Service of the Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA 20541. TibEasy Asian-script viewing and searching program copyright (c) The Asian Classics Input Project, 1992. All rights reserved. List file viewing and browsing utility copyright (c) Vernon D. Buerg, 1983-92. All rights reserved. See copyright/license/warranty section on the accompanying documentation file. SeekEasy search program copyright (c) Correlation Systems, 1984-92. All rights reserved. See registration information on the accompanying documentation file. MultiLingua international spelling checker (c) Concepts Info, 1990-92. All rights reserved. See registration information on the accompanying documentation file. XTree file management program (c) XTree Company of Executive Systems, Inc, 1985, 1989. All rights reserved. See registration information on the accompanying documentation file. Graphics Workshop package (c) Alchemy Mindworks, Inc, 1989, 1992. All rights reserved. See registration information on the accompanying documentation file. Registered trademarks: WordPerfect is a trademark of the WordPerfect Corporation. Gofer is a trademark of Microlytics, Inc. Windows and Write are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation. Magellan is a trademark of the Lotus Development Corporation. Limits of liability and disclaimer of warranty: The staff of the Asian Classics Input Project have to the best of their ability assured that the data, printed information, and programs contained or reviewed in this complementary release are accurate and effective. ACIP though makes no warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, with regard to these materials, and shall not be liable in any event for incidental or consequential damage in connection with, or arising out of, the furnishing, performance, or use of the release. ACIP Release Three is available on 5.25" and 3.5" low or high-density floppy disks. To order, please fill out the enclosed form, or contact the addresses below. Additional distribution centers are also listed in this brochure and may also be contacted. ACIP offices currently request a $15 donation, by personal check or money order in the US and by international money orders in US dollars only from outside the US, for the costs of disks and handling for each order of Release Three. ACIP will continue to supply all releases free of charge to any individual or organization who submits a written statement that the $15 donation would represent a hardship for them. To order disks, brochures, ACIP programs, print-outs in native script; to make a tax-exempt contribution of used computer equipment; or for general project updates, contact: The Asian Classics Input Project Washington Area Office 11911 Marmary Road Gaithersburg, Maryland USA 20878-1839 telephone and fax (call voice first for fax): (301) 948-5569 electronic mail: acip@well.sf.ca.us contact: Dr. Robert Taylor, assistant project director For questions on editorial content, text input schedules, project participation, submission of errors found, or support of proposals for related efforts, contact: The Asian Classics Input Project New York Area Office c/o The Princeton Club of New York Box 57 15 West 43rd Street New York New York USA 10036 telephone and fax (same number): (908) 364-1824 electronic mail: acip@well.sf.ca.us attention: Michael Roach, project director John Malpas, chief programmer To learn more about the ACIP overseas data entry center, or for advice on setting up a similar operation overseas, contact: Sera Mey Dratsang Mahayana Philosophy University Bylakuppe 571-104, Mysore District Karnataka State, India attention: Manager, Sera Mey Computer Center TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Purpose 1 Project History and Sponsors 2 Texts in Release Three 3 Continuation of the Philosophical Dictionary of Asia 3 The Logic Primer of Rato, with Commentary 3 Overview of the Middle Way 6 Material from the Kangyur 7 Material from the Tengyur 9 Works of the Lam-Rim Tradition 10 Reference Works in Release Three 11 The Library of Congress Delhi Acquisitions Catalog 11 Handlist of PL480 Acquisitions by E. Gene Smith 12 Catalog to the Library of Trijang Rinpoche 13 International Asian Scholars Database 14 Asian Graphics in Release Three 15 Computer Programs in Release Three 18 TibEasy: ACIP's Asian-Script View and Search Program 18 List Viewing and Searching Program 19 Seekeasy Search Program 20 GREP Search Programs 20 Updated Multilingua Spell-Checker 20 Updated WordPerfect Tibetan Printing Macros 21 XTree File Management Program 21 Using ACIP Data with DOS and Windows 22 Update on Available Asian-Language Computer Programs 23 "Tibetan!" from the Tibetan Computer Company 24 Tibetan on the Macintosh 27 Tibetan for Windows 28 L.I.R.I. Multiple-Language Package 30 Sambhota 30 Update from LaserQuill 32 Programs from Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences 33 The "Pema" System 33 TTPS and Atisha 33 General Notes and Commercial Software for Using ACIP Data 34 On-Line Dictionaries Update 34 The Dharamsala Dictionary 34 The Valby Dictionary 35 Preliminary Report on Scanned Input of the Mahavyutpatti 36 ACIP Cataloging Projects 36 The Saint Petersburg Catalog 36 Preliminary Agreement with the Library of the University of Saint Petersburg 38 Preliminary Agreement with the Library of the Government of Mongolia 38 ACIP Operations Update 39 Derge Tengyur Acquisition Update 39 ACIP Data Distribution Centers in Europe and Asia 39 Contacting ACIP, and Project Job Openings 40 ACIP Overseas Data Entry and Editing Expansion 41 ACIP Prioritization Policy 42 Sera Mey University Text Series 44 ACIP Transcription Chart Update 45 ACIP File Nomenclature Update 46 Participating Correction Plan 46 Profile of ACIP Users 52 ACIP Text Input Production 54 The Marriage of Ethics and Emptiness: An Interactive Hypertext Essay 55 Catalog of Titles Input to Date 79 Catalog of the Asian Classics Graphics Library 107 RELEASE THREE THE ASIAN CLASSICS INPUT PROJECT Welcome to the Asian Classics Input Project Release Three. This brochure is designed to help you get the most out of our latest release, which ACIP staff have spent over a year of hard work in preparing. In this new release you'll find many useful and exciting texts and tools for studying the classics of Asia: - we finally have a screen viewer (free) for seeing and searching the texts in native Asian script - a group of works including the text of the oldest printed book in the world, an original and important explanation of one of the greatest classics of Asian philosophy, and the only known copy of the only known commentary to the first of the great logic primers of Tibet - news about ACIP efforts to locate more rare Asian texts worldwide - our first release of classic Asian woodcarved images, and a program to see and use them - more useful catalogs of classical Asian literature, along with the first installment of our International Asian Scholars Database--a free listing of the names and addresses of your colleagues worldwide who use ACIP data, and who have agreed to be listed - updates on the best computer programs for viewing and printing native Asian scripts - descriptions of on-line Asian dictionary projects that will make your work easier and more accurate; including a computerized Tibetan-English dictionary now available from ACIP - progress reports and a catalog of nearly 15,000 pages of texts input by the Project to date. Statement of Purpose The purpose of the project was put forth as follows in the brochure accompanying the first release of data in March, 1990: The Asian Classics Input Project has been organized for the purpose of preserving and furthering the study of important examples of Asian literature, through the creation and distribution of inexpensive computer disks containing these works in a simple and accurate digital form. The initial goal of the project is to input the Kangyur and Tengyur collections of classical Sanskrit literature in Tibetan translation. The 4,500 works of these collections represent the cream of Asian philosophical thought from the period of 500 BC to 900 AD. With few exceptions the Sanskrit originals have been lost, and survive only in faithful Tibetan renderings protected over centuries by the natural barrier of the Himalaya mountains. The project aims to make these texts, along with research tools such as dictionaries and bibliographies, easily accessible on the personal computers of researchers around the world. This will stimulate the translation of the collections, and gradually open this treasure of knowledge to the general public. This influx of the great ideas of the other half of mankind will deeply enrich our Western culture, and inevitably lead to greater understanding between the peoples of the world. The choice of Tibetan-language texts is also dictated by a concern that recent political events may quickly erase the Tibetan people themselves and the rich store of Asian classics they have carefully collected and preserved over a complete millennium. The entire input work has therefore been accomplished at a traditional Tibetan monastic university by native refugee scholars trained, equipped, and salaried by the project. Project History and Sponsors The Asian Classics Input Project was founded by Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, the former head of Sera Mey Tibetan University and one of the senior native scholars of Asian philosophy in the world. Early advisors who helped the Project define itself were Prof. Samuel Atkins, Prof. William LaFleur, and Dr. David W. Packard. The Project was begun with a grant from the Packard Humanities Institute and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which was started by one of the founders of the Hewlett Packard Corporation. Other ACIP sponsors include the Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Center, USA; Andin International Diamond, Inc, New York; the Buddhist Cultural Exchange Research Institute of Yuisho Ji, Japan; Sera Mey Tibetan University; and various other private and organizational contributors. ACIP staff in the United States work entirely on an unpaid volunteer basis, with the occasional exception of clerical or programming help. ACIP staff at the overseas data entry and editing centers are paid a modest wage in local currency. All ACIP data is provided for the cost of duplication and mailing only; and even these expenses are waived in the case of needy individuals, such as native refugee scholars. ACIP is pleased to announce that it has recently been awarded funding from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. This grant will go a long way in allowing the Project to meet its many ambitious goals for the preservation and dissemination of classical Asian literature over the next few years. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the staff of the National Endowment, who provided Project staff with constant assistance during the grant review process; these include especially Ms. Helen Agera and Ms. Adrienne Lo. We are also very grateful to the individuals who provided recommendations to the Endowment on behalf of ACIP: these letters from specialists, some whose names were suggested by the Project, and others selected by the Endowment, expressed unanimous support and appreciation for our efforts to date. NEH forwarded the Project copies of these reviews, with the names of the authors blacked out, and they have provided Project staff with a great deal of encouragement for our future endeavors. Texts in Release Three ACIP Release Three contains 2.5 million bytes (or about half a million words) of important Asian philosophical works, organized into the four groups described below. Continuation of the Philosophical Dictionary of Asia The Logic Primer of Rato, with Commentary The second release of ACIP data introduced the concept of the Philosophical Dictionary of Asia. The release included 12 major texts of Asian philosophy and described a search method that allows scholars to find the descriptions, definitions, and divisions of important Asian philosophical ideas within minutes. The parts of the Dictionary contained in the second release were devoted chiefly to the Svatantrika group of classical Middle-Way or Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy, as well as to the Mind-Only (Cittamatra) School of medieval India. Release Three now expands the Dictionary into the third of the four classical systems of Buddhist philosophy--the Sautrantika, as well as into the higher section within the Middle-Way School: that of the Prasangika. The former of these two schools is represented in Release Three by the Logic Primer of Rato (Rva-stod bsdus-grva), which is generally regarded as the great predecessor of the many later works of this genre. Little concrete information is known about the author, whose name appears as both Chokhla Oser (mChog-lha 'od-zer) and as Chokle Oser (Phyogs-las'od-zer). He is also referred to with the honorific of Jamyang Lama ('Jam-dbyangs bla-ma), and a reference in the Great Dictionary (Tsig-mdzod chen-mo) indicates that he passed on in the year 1500 AD. Chokhla Oser's work covers some 20 different elementary philosophical topics which are basic but essential tools for working with all the classical philosophical texts. Typical topics covered are defining the concept of definition itself, outline of the categories of existing things, the idea of cause and effect, formal logic, and so on. He was a member of Rato Tibetan Monastic University, located just outside Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and founded in the fifteenth century by the master Drakpa Sangpo, a direct student of both Je Tsongkapa (1357-1419) and Rong Tonpa (1367-1449), two of the greatest philosophers the country has ever produced. Rato has thus been the site where Chokhla Oser's masterpiece was traditionally published, from woodblocks kept under Rato Monastery's care. With the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 and subsequent destruction of most books and centers of learning, no copy of the Logic Primer could be located for republication by the refugee scholars in India. Over 20 years elapsed before its first reprinting, in 1983 at Dharamsala. For input of the text ACIP has used a newly carved Tibetan edition, completed under the supervision of a printer in Lhasa commonly known simply as Palden and presented by him to Khyongla Rinpoche, Ngawang Lobsang, the titular head of Rato. Unfortunately the carving contained a good number of spelling and other errors; these were corrected with the help of Khyongla Rinpoche himself. In keeping with ACIP editorial policy, each of these corrections is accompanied in the data by the original reading. Several years ago a Tibetan refugee scholar arrived unexpectedly at the ACIP data entry center in South India with a tattered edition of a woodblock print which he suggested be input, since as far as he was aware it might be the last copy. ACIP staff were delighted to find that it was a commentary to the Logic Primer of Rato, since to our knowledge no commentary to the Primer was even known to exist. It was immediately input at the center. A study of the colophon to the text shows that it was composed by Jampel Gendun Gyatso ('Jam-dpal dge-'dun rgya-mtso), a scholar in the lineage of the Tongkor Shabdrung (Stong-'khor Zhab-drung). Tongkor is an area of eastern Tibet, and "Shabdrung" refers to a high scholastic title. There is a handwritten copy of a brief history of the lamas of this line in the possession of Ven. Lobsang Ngudup of Rongpo College of Sera Mey Monastic University, and from this we can date the author of our commentary to the late 1700s. The commentary itself is of the dka'-gnas variety, which means that it treats only the most difficult points of the Primer, without covering every one of its sections. The condition of the print was quite poor, and in fact half of the final page had been ripped off and repaired later, with the contents of the new half written in by hand. This page includes a section of Sanskrit in Tibetan transcription which is the text of a Recitation for Wisdom (Shes-rab blo-'phel gyi gzungs). Sections of the Recitation seemed as though they might be corrupt, but because of the wide local variations in Sanskrit and the lack of any traditional authority we have left the section as is. A comparison version of the recitation may be found in volume tha of the rGyud-'bum section of the Lhasa edition of the bKa'-'gyur, beginning from folio 471B. There were a significant number of doubtful readings in the Commentary itself, and ACIP was fortunate to obtain the offices of Khen Rinpoche Kachen Sopa, the current abbot of Tashi Lhunpo Monastic University and a renowned scholar of Asian logic, who read over the entire text and offered corrections. Again, the original readings are also included in the disk version. The ACIP disk catalog numbers for these two works are S0033 (for the Primer) and S0020 (for the Commentary). Overview of the Middle Way The second part of the Philosophical Dictionary in ACIP Release Three is dedicated to Middle-Way (Madhyamika) philosophy. Here we have input the entire text of the dBu-ma spyi-don of Kedrup Gendun Tenpa Dargye (mKhas-grub dGe-'dun bsTan-pa dar-rgyas), who was born in 1493 at Lungshu (kLung-shod), northeast of Lhasa. He studied at both Ba and Ganden Monasteries, and composed a great number of works currently used as textbooks at Sera Mey Monastic University. Kedrup Tenpa Dargye is counted among the principal students of Jetsun Chukyi Gyaltsen (rJe-btzun Chos-kyi rgyal-mtsan, 1469-1546), who himself authored many dialectic textbooks for the curriculum of Sera Jey, the sister university of Sera Mey. Tenpa Dargye served as the Ganden Tripa, the highest ecclesiastical position of the country except for that of the Dalai Lama, and moreover officiated at the ordination ceremony of the third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso (rGyal-ba bSod-nams rgya-mtso, 1543-1588). This would indicate that he was considered one of the leading scholars of his era. The Overview is written in the traditional yig-cha genre, that of a textbook for students of a monastic university, in a skilful combination of philosophical disputation and sections listing formal definitions and divisions of the subject at hand. It is meant as a guide to studying earlier works on Middle-Way Philosophy dating from the fifteenth century, which are themselves necessary for understanding a family of texts from seventh-century India, which in turn were written to elucidate teachings of the fifth century BC. Both the Logic Primer of Rato and the Overview of the Middle Way will be extremely useful to students of classical Asian philosophy, especially if used with a search program such as Gofer (described below in the section on search tools), which allows Boolean parameters such as "a but not b," or "a in the proximity of b." To obtain the definition of an important concept such as philosophical negation, for example, one would search for the word mtsan-nyid ("definition") within two lines of the word dgag-pa ("negation"), which immediately moves one to woodblock folio 66A, where a negation is defined as "any existing object which can only be perceived through the process of the thought which ascertains it first eliminating directly that thing which the negation denies." To find the definition of the concept of Great Compassion we search again for the word mtsan-nyid occurring within two lines of the word for "great compassion"--snying-rje chen-po. This takes us within a few seconds to woodblock folio 13B, where this emotion is defined as "an uncontrived state of mind wherein one looks upon any living being in pain, no matter who he may be, and automatically feels a concern to free him from his pain--a concern which is in no way less powerful than the love that a mother has for her one and only son." The Overview was input on the basis of an edition from woodblocks carved at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, we believe in the year 1751. Again the carving and two subsequent editions used for comparison had a fair number of doubtful readings, and a group of select scholars (including two former abbots) from Sera Mey University was consulted in each case. As before, the original readings are also included in the data. We believe that the resulting edition is the most authoritative ever produced for this important work. The ACIP disk catalog number for the Overview is S0021. Material from the Kangyur To date, ACIP has input some 14 million bytes (nearly 3 million words) of texts from the Kangyur (bKa'-'gyur), or standard collection of the Tibetan translations of early Buddhist Sanskrit classics. A group of editors has been formed at Ganden and Drepung Tibetan Universities to perform the final manual review of these texts, the majority of which have already been printed out and shipped through Bombay. ACIP hopes to present many of these works in Release Four. In Release Three we have included the Diamond-Cutter Sutra (Vajracchedikasutra), a brief but important work on the subject of the praja paramita, the Perfection of Wisdom, which refers to a combination of compassion and the understanding that nothing occurs outside of ethical cause and effect. This text was selected because ACIP has recently been able to obtain what to our knowledge is the only native Tibetan commentary to this work, which has played such a key role in Asian philosophical life that the Chinese translation, dated to 868 AD, is the oldest complete printed book known in the world. There are two existing Tibetan translations of early Sanskrit commentaries on the work; these are contained in the Tengyur collection of philosophical commentaries and will be input by ACIP in the near future. The edition used for the Diamond-Cutter itself was the very clear 1730 carving from Derge, Tibet. A second version has also already been input; it is in the dpe-thung format and is probably fairly recent in publication; although the colophon mentions no date of publication, it does mention the sponsor as one Palden Tsultrim (dPal-ldan tsul-khrims). The present commentary was composed by Chone Lama Drakpa Shedrup (Co-ne bla-ma Grags-pa bshad-sgrub), who is the author of an alternate series of textbooks for Sera Mey University. Chone is a famous monastic university in the Amdo region of eastern Tibet, and this is where representatives of Sera Mey were able to make a photocopy of the master's entire collected works, after over 30 years and many attempts to do so. Chone Lama Drakpa Shedrup's dates are 1675-1748. Most students are likely to find Master Shedrup's commentary easier to follow than either of the early Indian commentaries. It adheres closely to the root text and explains in plain language the point being made in each of the many cryptic lines of the original. In a number of places, Master Shedrup gives very helpful glosses of specific terminology of the Sanskrit, such as his treatment of the Tibetan translation sems-can. The original woodcarving for the commentary was unusually corrupt, a problem complicated by the fact that for input we had only a photocopy of an often blotchy xylograph print. Fortunately ACIP was able to take advantage of the availability of several highly qualified native scholars to reconstruct unclear readings in a great number of cases. Hopefully conditions in occupied Tibet will one day improve to where a better original can be consulted. It is interesting to note that the word "diamond" occurs nowhere in the Diamond-Cutter Sutra except for the title. And yet the title itself contains perhaps the most profound message of Asian philosophy, which is fitting for the oldest book in the world. Diamond is the closest thing to an absolute in the natural world: nothing in the universe is harder than diamond; nothing can scratch a diamond. Diamond is absolutely clear: if a diamond wall were built around us we would not be able to see it, even if it were many feet thick. In these senses diamond is close to what Buddhist philosophy terms "absolute truth," or emptiness, which is described below in the hypertext essay, The Marriage of Ethics and Emptiness. Absolute truth is first perceived directly in a deep state of concentration; the state of mind at this point is called the "path of seeing." Subsequent to seeing absolute truth directly, we understand that reality as we normally experience it, though valid, is something less than absolute. All objects possess a quality of absolute truth, or emptiness: all objects are void of any self-nature which does not depend on our projections. In this sense we are surrounded by absolute truth, but have never been able to see it: it is as if this level of reality were like a wall of clear diamond. The diamond is close to ultimate reality, but it is not ultimate. In this sense it can be "cut": it can serve only to remind us of the real ultimate. And so it is important to refer to the work with its full name, the Diamond-Cutter. The ACIP disk catalog numbers are KD0016 for the Diamond-Cutter and S0024 for Master Shedrup's commentary. Material from the Tengyur As described below, ACIP has finally been able to obtain at least a good part of an edition of the Tengyur which is accurate enough to allow input. Our overseas input center is now largely dedicated to inputting these sections, beginning with the volumes on dBu-ma, or the Middle-Way philosophy described above. In the meantime we are fortunate to be able to release a new and important commentary to one of the most important works of the Tengyur: the Commentary on Valid Perception (Pramanavarttika) of Master Dharmakirti, who is dated to the seventh century AD. The commentary incorporates the root text and gives a clear explanation of what is otherwise one of the most difficult expositions in the Tengyur. It was finished last year by Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk (dGe-bshes Ye-shes dbang-phyug), a distinguished scholar from the original Sera Mey in Tibet who was not able to come out to India in 1959. Geshe Wangchuk has suffered greatly, particularly during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, but during the recent relative relaxation in Tibet has been able to complete a number of volumes such as the present one, on the principles of Buddhist formal logic and theories of perception. Master Dharmakirti's text was written as a defense of the Compendium on Valid Perception (Pramanasamuccaya) by Master Dignaga, who Western scholars believe was born around 400 AD. It forms the basis of the study of reasoning in Tibetan universities and its study is required of every monk scholar. Several months of each year are usually set aside for teaching and philosophical disputation of its four chapters, most often utilizing the brilliant exegesis of the text by Gyaltsab Je Darma Rinchen (rGyal-tsab rJe Dar-ma rin-chen, 1364-1432). It was a custom for the greatest scholars of logic to meet once a year at the monastery of Jang, just outside of Lhasa, to study and debate the work together all day (and sometimes all night as well), for a solid month. These were known as the "Winter Debates of Jang," and a man's knowledge of logic was often judged by the number of these winter debate sessions he had under his belt. Gyaltsab Je's commentary is so deep that philosophers attending the Jang Debates could rarely cover more than a few of its 750 pages per day, and as a result there are very few scholars alive who are capable of expounding on his explanations of the third and fourth chapters. For this reason, and because Geshe Wangchuk's treatment of these chapters has never been published before, we have selected this volume for release first. The companion first volume, containing the commentary to the first and second chapters, has already been input and will be released at a later date. The text of Master Dharmakirti's root work has already been provided to ACIP users in the first release, under catalog number TD4210. Users who have a solid background in the subject of Buddhist logic will be able to choose a line from the original work and search for it in Geshe Wangchuk's commentary. Since this latter work incorporates the root text, the search will take them within a few seconds to the correct location and its explanation. Native students of the subject have already become accustomed to referring to Geshe Wangchuk's elucidation of the earlier chapters, and Western researchers may find this commentary an excellent way to crack a particularly difficult section. Furthermore, Geshe Wangchuk is a highly inquisitive scholar who has already played a major role in collating an entire new version of the Tengyur collection from existing editions; and we can expect that the version of the root text presented in its entirety within his commentary will make a good comparative version. The ACIP disk catalog number for the commentary is S0023B. Works of the Lam-Rim Tradition Also included in Release Three are two important works of an important philosophical tradition known as lam-rim, or steps to be taken by a student to reach the highest levels of knowledge and personal development. Here first is the text of The Three Principal Paths (Lam-gtzo rnam-gsum), a very concise presentation of the entire lam-rim composed by Je Tsongkapa Lobsang Drakpa (rJe Tzong-kha-pa bLo-bzang grags-pa, 1357-1419), often considered the greatest philosopher and most eloquent writer Tibet has ever produced. Je Tsongkapa's root text is accompanied by a commentary, Notes on the Three Principle Paths (Lam-gtzo gsum gyi zin-bris), written by one of the most famous Tibetan teachers of this century, Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche, Dechen Nyingpo (sKyabs-rje Pha-bong-kha-pa, bDe-chen snying-po, 1878-1941). Pabongka Rinpoche received the full traditional training of a monk scholar at the Gyalrong College of Sera Mey University, and after his graduation gained a reputation for his ability to interpret the highly technical monastic curriculum to ordinary citizens of his country in large public gatherings. A careful study of the commentary here, which was collated by the Ven. Lobsang Dorje from some five different sets of lecture notes, reveals how Pabongka Rinpoche has grasped and internalized the great concepts of classical Buddhist philosophy, and then expressed them in the language of the everyman, without diluting their force or meaning. The ACIP catalog file number for Je Tsongkapa's root text is S5275P, and Pabongka Rinpoche's commentary has been assigned S0034. Reference Works in Release Three ACIP has been able to provide a large quantity of reference materials in past releases, and is pleased to provide five more items with Release Three. The Library of Congress Delhi Acquisitions Catalog As described on page 48 of the brochure which accompanied ACIP Release Two, staff from the Project were engaged in 1989 by the United States Library of Congress to produce a catalog of potential purchases for its renewed Tibetan-language Acquisitions Program. Over 120 monastic universities and other native Tibetan institutions in the countries of India, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan were invited to submit lists of books. A summary of over 1100 available titles was completed within several weeks with the help of native data entry operators trained at the ACIP data entry center in south India. The catalog was then provided on disk by the Library to institutions around the world who might be interested in receiving the new acquisitions. ACIP has recently received permission from the Library to provide this catalog to its users on diskette. Many of the books listed were previously unavailable to individual scholars, who if they require a personal copy of a particular text can order it from the institution or publisher listed. If more institutions worldwide join the Library's effort and agree to sign up and receive books as they come in, then the program will hopefully stimulate a higher level of native Tibetan publishing activity, which was one of the very positive results of the Library's successful Tibetan acquisitions drive under the PL480 program. Therefore users of ACIP data who think their institutions may wish to acquire the new books are requested to contact the Library; a good contact to write there is Ms. Susan Meinheit, the Tibetan Specialist, c/o US Library of Congress, Washington, DC, USA 20540. The ACIP file number for the catalog is R0008. Please note that the catalog originally prepared by ACIP staff was edited somewhat by the Library prior to distribution to potential program participants, apparently due in part to political considerations with China. This edited version is the one which ACIP has been authorized to release. File number R0022 contains the names, addresses, and contact persons for institutions and private publishers who are listed in the catalog, so that individual scholars can either purchase private copies of texts or make personal visits to examine manuscripts of interest that are not yet available for purchase. Handlist of PL480 Acquisitions by E. Gene Smith ACIP is privileged to be authorized to release on disk the contents of a private list kept by E. Gene Smith, Asian Field Director for the US Library of Congress, of acquisitions made by the Library during his 20-year tenure as the Head of the Library's Delhi Office. It is no exaggeration to say that the Library's efforts under Gene Smith's guidance virtually saved Tibetan literature itself, which has been described as the largest collection of philosophical writings on earth. ACIP would again like to express our gratitude to the Library and Mr. Smith for their efforts. In theory, the listings of the Library already released by ACIP should contain all the items in Mr. Smith's Handlist, but in practice either certain volumes never reached participants or the Library itself, or in some cases glitches in the system have made the cataloging data incomplete. Therefore it is likely that certain works will appear on the Handlist that are not found in the cataloging data. ACIP would be very grateful to hear from its users of any such "missing" texts which they note. Then we will make an effort to inform the right people at the Library so that they can try to make the text available. Since the Handlist contains only the barest essentials of the author and title, many users might find it very convenient to search and use, for example with a laptop computer, where there may not be disk space enough to devote to the full listings from the Library. Catalog to the Library of Trijang Rinpoche Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche (full name sKyabs-rje Khri-byang rin-po-che bLo-bzang ye-shes bstan-'dzin rgya-mtso, 1901-1982) was the junior tutor to the present Dalai Lama, one of the two religious scholars traditionally responsible for assuring that the Dalai Lama, who is chosen as a small boy, is properly educated in the great philosophical classics. Obviously this distinction is reserved for the most capable teachers of any particular generation, and the fact that the XIVth Dalai Lama grew up as a great textual scholar and also a Nobel laureate is an indication of the caliber of his instructors. Trijang Rinpoche was a student of the illustrious Pabongka Rinpoche and contributed much to the success of his teacher's activities, editing for example the entire text of Pabongka Rinpoche's great masterpiece, Liberation in Our Hands (Lam-rim rnam-grol lag- bcangs). Aside from being one of the most eloquent writers of his time he played an important diplomatic role during the difficult years of the invasion of Tibet. Even during his final years of failing health he constantly toured the refugee settlements in India, continually teaching and exhorting the Tibetans to retain their culture and religion. What is perhaps less known about Trijang Rinpoche is that he was one of the premier collectors of classical texts in his generation, and moreover that he made a pioneering attempt to organize and catalog his collection in ways that no native scholar had ever done before. In 1988, ACIP staff had a chance to review the late Rinpoche's collection, and with the permission of the director of the Rinpoche's estate, Kungo Palden, made a photocopy of a handwritten catalog to it. This catalog is included here in Release Three under its ACIP disk file catalog number, R0020. The catalog is valuable for a number of reasons. First of all, the books which Trijang Rinpoche chose to collect obviously represented to him the most important texts for a scholar of classical Buddhist philosophy. The catalog therefore can act as a very authoritative guide to building a similar library, and in fact the current faculty of Sera Mey Tibetan University is utilizing it in this manner to create a core collection for their new philosophical research library. Secondly, the collection includes a number of rare woodblock and handwritten manuscripts that can hopefully be reprinted or input for both preservation and wider availability. For example, ACIP staff used the catalog to find in the Rinpoche's collection a copy of the Steps of the Teaching (bsTan-rim chen-mo), written by Geshe Drolungpa (dGe-bshes Gro-lung-pa), an important figure from the early Kadampa school of Tibetan philosophers in the opening years of this millennium. This text is said to have been the model for the Steps of the Path (Lam-rim chen-mo), composed in the fifteenth century by Je Tsongkapa and considered by many scholars to be the greatest philosophical work ever written in Tibetan. Geshe Drolungpa's early work had been missing for many years after the destruction of the libraries of Tibet, until a copy was located among the little-known Buddhist collections of Buryatiya, in Siberia. We do not know how or when Trijang Rinpoche obtained his copy, but it was exciting to learn that a second print was available, which will certainly facilitate the eventual republication of this sizable text (some 550 woodblock folios long). The copy found is in excellent condition, and the carving very legible. Scholars who study the Rinpoche's catalog may find other important works as well. The final point of interest in the Rinpoche's collection is how he organized his collection: scholars from the time of Buton Rinchen Drup in the early 1300s up to the cataloging pioneers of the Tohoku University Catalog, E. Gene Smith, and the native keepers of Tibetan collections in present times have struggled with the question of how to structure this immense body of literature, thought to include some 20,000 separate works on every imaginable subject of philosophy. It would be difficult to find a more eminent and inquisitive scholar than Trijang Rinpoche, and much can be learned by a careful review of how he has organized his own collection; which books were wrapped together to constitute a similar sub-category, and which groups of books he felt warranted their own Tibetan letter, designating a similar subject category. International Asian Scholars Database ACIP in the few years since its inception has received a deluge of correspondence from scholars of Asia in some 40 countries, which is just about anywhere that personal computers are used. We have supplied well over 5,000 diskettes of data, and provide other complimentary services such as technical advice and native script printing. As a result the Project has built up a rather large database of the names, addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers of interested scholars worldwide. Two years ago the Project began requesting permission from its correspondents to include their information in a database that would be provided free of charge to all ACIP users, and updated with each release. The first instalment of this International Asian Scholars Database appears here in Release Three, under the file number R1001. The file, like all ACIP data, is in a flat ASCII format and can therefore be searched with almost any word processor or other editing program, as well as with the List or Seekeasy programs provided with every ACIP release to date. We suggest that you keep the file in a handy directory on your home or laptop computer, and use it to call up the address or number of any colleague worldwide whom you wish to write or phone. It is ACIP's hope that the International Asian Scholars Database will facilitate interaction and cooperation between scholars of this important body of literature worldwide. Asian Graphics in Release Three ACIP is very pleased to announce the release of its first instalment of the Asian Classics Graphics Library. Ever since ACIP began releasing data from woodblock prints we have been considering ways to include as well the exquisite line drawings that are often carved onto the xylograph block, normally depicting the author of the text and the great philosophical masters who preceded him in his particular school or field of philosophy. Since the Philosophical Dictionary in Release Three is providing data for the Middle-Way or Madhyamika system of Asian philosophy, we have selected a series of 11 woodblock images that show the great thinkers of this school over history. These images were scanned in from a famous edition of the 8,000 Verses on the Perfection of Wisdom (brGyad-stong-pa, or Astasahasrika), a presentation of Middle-Way philosophy given by Shakyamuni Buddha in 500 BC. The edition contains 577 xylograph folios and according to the colophon was carved in the Wood-Horse year of the 16th Cycle (1954) at Lhasa, under the sponsorship of Dingriwa Chukyi Gyaltsen (Ding-ri-ba Chos-kyi rgyal-mtsan) of Shelkar Dzong (Shel-dkar rdzong). According to the Library of Congress listings, he was born in 1897. Each folio of the edition contains a pair of woodcarved images, and the entire collection traces historically the lineages through which specific schools have developed over the centuries. From the style of the carvings it would seem that a number of different artists contributed; the forms range from orthodox depictions of Buddhas to Picasso-like interpretations of great medieval masters. After scanning, a great deal of computer editing work was required to remove extraneous ink marks and so on. This work was accomplished by Ms. Barbara Taylor of the ACIP Washington Area Office, with some assistance from Mr. Robert Lacey. The equipment used was a Logitech Scanman and the Ansel graphics editing package, also from Logitech. There are over 1,000 images from this one text still to be input and touched up; ACIP would be happy to provide the necessary programs and advice to any volunteer who would like to assist. We are also aware that individuals around the world have been scanning in similar images, and we would be pleased to receive copies on disk in any format, IBM or Macintosh, to be considered for inclusion in our future releases, with proper credit to the contributor. A second group of images is supplied which consists of a selection of some 28 traditional auspicious symbols such as vases, angels, or mirrors, often used as ornaments in Tibetan printing. These pictures were scanned in from a single sheet measuring 10" x 15.25", printed on Indian paper in gold-colored ink and published at the Sera Mey University Printing Press in about 1989. The images apear to be copies of early traditional woodblock prints from Tibet, arranged somewhat arbitrarily on a the page. There are several standard formats for graphics images, and ACIP has utilized what we believe to be the closest to a universal standard: the PCX format. Graphics files in this format can be utilized with most major word processing programs, which means that an ACIP user can import the image into a document or book on subjects relating to Asian philosophy. Word processing programs like WordPerfect even analyze the image as it enters the document, and supply an appropriate frame with the correct dimensions automatically. ACIP has gone one more step and supplies with Release Three a copy of the shareware program Graphics Workshop, a product of Alchemy Mindworks Inc of Ontario, Canada. The firm has allowed ACIP to supply copies to our users, and we request that if you find the program useful you follow the instructions for submitting the registration fee indicated in the program's documentation file. With Graphics Workshop, an ACIP user can not only view the file but also print it out, and convert it to other standard graphics formats for use in programs that require them. One note to users: the Workshop manipulates files to achieve some of its results, and ACIP has noted a few bugs in this process that can change the original files. We suggest that you always make a back-up copy of a file before utilizing the program to view or change an image. Start the program by typing "GWS" followed by the "enter" key in the directory which contains it. To get additional instructions, type a question mark and hit the "enter" key for help. Type the letter "p" (for path) and hit the entry key to tell the program the directory where you have put the graphics files, then choose the file you wish to view. Computer Programs in Release Three Release Three has a good number of computer programs that come along with the data disks, and provide ACIP users with effective tools for getting the most from release. TibEasy: ACIP's Asian-Script View and Search Program Many scholars who received the first two releases from ACIP wrote back requesting information on computer programs for viewing and searching the data in the native scripts, rather than in the standard transcriptions. ACIP's policy has been to provide data in a plain ASCII transcription that can be read on any IBM-compatible computer worldwide, without any special programs or hardware requirements. We are pleased to announce that Mr. Edward Softky of New Jersey, USA, has presented the Project with a specially designed program, named TibEasy, which allows users to view and search ACIP data directly without purchasing any additional software or equipment. ACIP expects that this new program will open up the Project's work to a whole new group of users, especially to older native Tibetan scholars who are unable to work with the language in transcription. ACIP users should note that the version of Tibeasy presented in this release is an alpha or test version only. The program is completely new, and we are asking you to help us test it out and find out what "bugs" it has. ACIP staff have spent many hours refining the program, but we would like to hear your reaction to it, and any problems you find. The program presently works only for viewing and searching classical Tibetan script, although you will find that you can also view the Roman transcription along with the Tibetan if you wish, by using the "transcription" option. Although TibEasy is technically a DOS and not a Windows program, it comes up on the screen with an attractive look like Windows, and also utilizes the same command format. The program was purposely designed to fit in a very small amount of disk space, and is excellent for laptops or other computers with limited memory. The program can be used either with a mouse, by clicking on the appropriate selections, or with a keyboard only, by using the various commands clearly outlined in the "Help" screen. To begin TibEasy, just insert the disk with the program and type "TIBEZ" followed by the "enter" key at the prompt. Then follow the directions to use the program. Mr. Softky has included a very useful search function, which can find both exact matches of text and also "fuzzy" or approximate matches, whichever the user requests. A "go to" function takes you automatically to a particular page or woodblock folio number of the original text. TibEasy is designed to be a simple Asian-script viewer and searching program, but not to replace the more powerful, full-function commercial programs described below. It does not currently allow printing of the text, although we hope to add this capability in the near future. The characters on the screen are meant to be large and highly readable, especially to native scholars (who often have quite poor eyesight, due to years of reading texts in poor lighting), and they were not drawn with aesthetics in mind. ACIP hopes to add a basic English and Sanskrit viewing capability in the near future; in the meantime, users must restrict themselves to ACIP Tibetan-language data. ACIP would like to express its sincere thanks to Mr. Softky for his skilled and unselfish contribution to the cause of preserving and disseminating the classical knowledge of Asia. Suggestions for improving the program, and comments on any "bugs" found, may be directed to the ACIP Washington-area office at the address listed at the front of this brochure. List Viewing and Searching Program ACIP has also included in Release Three an updated version of List, a Roman-text viewing and search program which is generally considered one of the finest pieces of shareware ever written. The program is extremely fast and intuitive, and users of ACIP data who can read the Roman transcription fluently may prefer to use it rather than TibEasy. One great advantage of List over even the much more expensive commercial word-processing programs is the ability to specify the exact upper or lower case during a search. Again, ACIP requests that any user who finds the program of value read the accompanying instructions for registering his copy, which also brings the benefits of a detailed manual and phone support. Start the program by typing "LIST" followed by the "enter" key, from the directory where you have put the program. Graphics Workshop The program Graphics Workshop has been described above on page 16; it allows viewing, conversion, and printing of the ACIP graphics files containing woodblock carvings of various images and important personages in the philosophical tradition of Asia. You can start the program by inserting the disk marked "Graphics Workshop," entering the correct directory, and typing "GWS" followed by the "enter" key. Please submit the requested registration fee to the developers of the program if you find it useful. Seekeasy Search Program The Seekeasy text search program provided in earlier releases has been updated by its developers, and ACIP has included this more powerful version in Release Three. Again, we request that you follow the instructions in the program for registration if you find that you use it frequently. GREP Search Programs The GREP search utility was originally developed for use on the UNIX platform, which over the years has been preferred by many advanced developers to DOS and other systems. In Release Three, ACIP is including two different versions (GREP and EGREP) of this program, which like the fine Gofer search tool allows various parameters such as "either a or b" to be specified in the search. These commands must be typed in at the command line and are therefore less convenient than the toggle switches of Gofer, but the GREP programs are shareware, whereas Gofer is commercial software and must be purchased (more information on Gofer follows below on page 34). The GREP programs also permit more sophisticated logical statments than any of the other search utilities we have reviewed. Mr. John Malpas, ACIP chief programmer, has added similar and more powerful routines to ACIP's in-house data entry and comparison programs, and we hope to utilize these in grammar checking and automated translation applications. More on this in the next release. Start the programs by typing either "GREP" or "EGREP," followed by the "enter" key, in the directory where you have put the program. Updated Multilingua Spell-Checker In Release Two, ACIP provided a very effective spell-checker named Multilingua, which can be customized for any language that can be represented in Roman transcription. ACIP supplied the program set up to spell-check Tibetan, based on a standard list of words from data released to that point. This list has been updated for Release Three, and users are reminded that by following the instructions provided with the program it can be utilized to perform word-counts or similar linguistic analysis, as well as historical checks that help date and place a text, or establish its author, by loading in words from texts for which this information has already been established. Despite its simplicity, the program therefore has a tremendous capacity to aid in textual studies, depending on the creativity of the user. Again please note that, by registering this program with its developer, you will be eligible to receive further documentation and, moreover, an even more powerful version of it. Start the program by typing "ML-D" followed by the "enter" key after entering the directory where you have put the program. Please note that the program will not work if the disk you are using has been write- protected, since it will not be able to edit at that point. Updated WordPerfect Tibetan Printing Macros ACIP Release Two included several macros, or recorded key sequences, that were written by ACIP staff and automatically convert the Project's data to the necessary transcription system required for printing and viewing Tibetan script with the Tibetan! program--which is described below and works with the popular WordPerfect word-processing program. One of the macros (Alt-T) makes the necessary conversion, while the other (Alt-S) inserts a set of commands which put the document into the standard format which ACIP has developed for publishing Asian classics in book form. Both of these macros have been updated to work with the latest version (3.50) of the Tibetan! program, and also to improve their usability on computers with different WordPerfect set-ups. These macro files must be copied to your WordPerfect program directory and are invoked like any other WP macro. XTree File Management Program ACIP is very pleased to provide with this release a demonstration copy of the XTree file management program. XTree is one of the most useful programs a user of the Project's data could have, since it includes utilities for file copying, moving, deleting, viewing, searching, and much else, all in one slim package that requires very little memory. The copy included in the release is meant to acquaint users with the program, and again we hope that if you find it useful you will follow the instructions for obtaining a registered copy. To start the program, enter the proper directory and type "xtree" followed by the "enter" key. Using ACIP Data with DOS and Windows ACIP anticipates that a number of its users over the past year may have switched over from the traditional DOS operating system to Windows, which has already gained tremendous popularity. Will ACIP data still work on this new platform? The answer is "yes": because all the Project's data is released in standard ASCII format, it works fine with Windows and for programs written for Windows. Readers can even view and search ACIP data with the Windows operating system itself, by utilizing the basic word processor called Write, which is included with each copy of the system. When Windows is loaded onto a system, Write is automatically copied to the "Accessories" folder. To use it, click your mouse on this folder and then click on the Write icon. Select the disk drive where you have the ACIP data and then select the option "all files" for the "file type" box, which will bring up a list of all the files available. Before the file is opened, you will be asked whether Write should convert your file to the proprietary Write file format. Answer "no" to this question, since if the file is converted to the new format it will no longer be a straight ASCII file, and may not run in other programs after that. The file will then come up and can be conveniently viewed or searched. The search function is very basic and allows no Boolean or "either-or" type of parameters, but is quite sufficient for most purposes. Many users may not be aware that recent versions of the ubiquitous DOS operating system itself also include a basic word processor called MS-DOS Editor, which is quite sufficient for viewing and searching ACIP files. At the DOS prompt in the proper directory, just type the word "edit" followed by a single space and then the ACIP file name, along with its extension; for example, "TD4089F.ACI" if you wish to view the Treasure House of Knowledge, which was included in Release One. When the text comes up on the screen, you can again perform basic search functions using the "Alt-S" key combination. MS-Dos Editor includes a useful bar at the bottom which keeps you posted with the current line and column number. It also has excellent functions for blocking out sections of a text and printing them, or moving them to another file with the "paste" command. The best part is, you probably already have MS-Dos Editor on your own computer! Update on Available Asian-Language Computer Programs In the documentation to Release Two, ACIP provided a detailed review of all the major programs available for printing, viewing, and creating files in Tibetan, the principal foreign language represented so far in the Project's data. Sanskrit programs were also listed, though not tested and reviewed by ACIP. Here we would like to give some updated information on a number of these programs. Please note that ACIP is a non-profit effort and that the Project makes no commercial endorsements beyond presenting its opinion of the relative strengths of each product available. Generally speaking, we see certain trends emerging in the computerization of foreign scripts. Efforts are under way worldwide to standardize codes by which all computer hardware will be able to represent the letters of all the major languages of the world, and ACIP staff have been asked to review for example the Tibetan proposal for the Unicode standard. Another effort, on the Macintosh platform, is the WorldScripts project. We can foresee in the near future that many major programs for operating systems such as Windows or OS/2 will probably incorporate these standards, so that the routines for seeing and printing foreign-language text become commonplace, and the main development work will come in drawing additional fonts. (As of press time, ACIP has learned that the Unicode proposal has been tentatively accepted by the International Standards Organization, ISO. For more information about the Tibetan part of Unicode, contact Mr. Glen Adams, a member of the concerned committee, c/o Metis Technology, 358 Windsor Street, Cambridge, MA 02141, USA, telephone (617) 868-8010. For information about WorldScripts, contact Dr. Yoshiro Imaeda at the address listed below in this section on page 32.) In the meantime we see two broad approaches to writing foreign-language word processors: one in which the author of the program attempts to write the necessary code for the various functions of the processor, and another where the foreign-language capacity is simply linked to an existing major word processor. We anticipate that the former approach, which was common in the pioneering days of foreign-language editing, will die out, except with small "convenience" programs such as TibEasy. Another trend is the increasing resolution and drop in prices of laser and other types of printers. The latest offerings of products in the laser-printer market, for example, have brought the resolution from 300 dots per inch up to 600 d.p.i. Even at 300 the output was nearly as good to the naked eye as most regular printing, which has made sending books out for typesetting obsolete. Much of the work of the print shop will now be done at home by increasingly sophisticated users. One more broad shift we see is the blurring of the border between the Macintosh and the IBM-compatible worlds; and this is reflected below in the description of the Tibetan for Windows program, brought over from the Mac. As the machines become more and more able to share each other's programs completely, users will be able to take advantage of the strong points of Asian script programs originally written for the platform that they lack. A final pattern we see developing is the problem of long-term support for most of the currently available Asian-font programs. Most were written by talented and dedicated individuals attempting to provide for the needs of a limited group of interested scholars, which means that commercially the programs are not usually viable. This fact eventually makes it difficult for many developers to continue their work, and since the program is not backed up by a company, support or assistance for the program lasts only as long as the author is available and still interested. The solution is probably dual: first of all, users should be more willing to pay prices for these programs that are closer to typical commercial program prices, and thereby keep the developers in business. Developers on their part should try to consider their own impermanence and seek more to work in groups, or cooperate with existing commercial or non-profit enterprises, to ensure that their work can be sustained in the long run. "Tibetan!" from the Tibetan Computer Company ACIP is based mainly on IBM-compatible platforms, which are used by some 90% of our users worldwide. The Tibetan! program from the Tibetan Computer Company of Colorado, USA, is the IBM-compatible program most utilized by the Project for its in-house publishing work, particularly in the Sera Mey University Text Series which, as described below, has required thousands of pages of high-quality output suitable for offset reproduction. The Tibetan! program is piggybacked onto the WordPerfect word-processing program, which is one of the most popular and powerful programs of its kind available. This means that, once a user has been able to learn the many sophisticated features that the program provides, he can produce documents in Tibetan much in the way that English ones are. Piggybacking though does have some drawbacks, since the developers of a secondary program are locked into the peculiarities of the base program. The developers of Tibetan! studied ACIP's original review of the product and made many of the changes suggested. A status line now reminds the user that he is in Tibetan mode, and the program drops out of Tibetan mode whenever a command is issued: in the previous version, the command would not be recognized and the machine would appear to have freezed up. However we would like to see the ability to produce a needed character with the "Control-V" command (which is often necessary) and return to the program without dropping out of Tibetan mode. There also seems to be a bug in editing a Tibetan-language header to appear at the top of a page of text: the screen begins to produce "garbage" or unintelligible symbols, and it is impossible to return to normal without re-booting the computer and losing the most recent changes input. The latest version of the program, 3.50, includes a number of new typefaces, the first being an improved version of the Tibetan Machine font, which was based on the standard mechanical typeface developed in Calcutta during the early part of this century. ACIP has printed hundreds of pages of new publications with this improved font and found the reaction from native scholars to be very enthusiastic. A sample page of this output is included at the beginning of this brochure. Version 3.50 also includes a new font called Tibetan Calligraphic, which is an attractive alternative to the Tibetan Machine. The bitmapped versions of the fonts are now available in more point sizes, ranging from 18 up to 48. The program also now supports some 400 of the stacks of Tibetan letters required for Sanskrit represented in Tibetan transliteration, although we have had some trouble getting all of them to print correctly. These stacks were crafted as separate characters, which makes their appearance far superior to programs where the stacks are automatically generated by piling up the composite letters. Both of the fonts listed above are said to be available in Postscript versions, but these have not been received for evaluation by ACIP. Although the new version is a little more "user friendly" than the old, Tibetan! still requires a good level of computer experience to work with proper results. For example, the user must still leave the program to execute the "WPC" and "WPCheck" functions that enable the correction and conversion of transcription. Vowels are still not seen in their proper place directly under or over the consonants, although there is a "print preview" option which is not likely to be accessed much by users under a deadline. The required size of a text file and excruciating slowness of the search function are drawbacks for anything but the most powerful hardware. But perhaps the greatest problem with the new version is that lines of English text no longer line up automatically with the Tibetan, but must be lowered manually with the "advance down" command. This all requires a little more work and expertise than such a program should in order to reach a good number of users. Our review of the Tibetan! program is a little more detailed and critical than those of the other available programs, simply because we use it on a constant basis here at ACIP. In our opinion the printed output is still unmatched, and the partnership with WordPerfect allows a lot of power. Incidentally, ACIP has found that the Hewlett Packard LaserJet series with resolution enhancement gives an excellent level of clarity (in fact, this entire brochure has been produced with Tibetan! and the Diacritics program also available from the same company). The Tibetan Computer Company offers a number of additional programs for alphabetizing Tibetan and spell-checking texts created with the base program. It also offers LaserTwin, a side program that allows output to dot-matrix rather than laser printers, although ACIP has not been able to evaluate this function fully. The company reports that it is near to completing a Windows version of their Tibetan! program, and expects to release it in early 1993. A Macintosh version of the program is under development, as is a special conversion program which will allow the user to feed in ACIP data directly. (The printing macros supplied by ACIP, described above, also perform this function.) The Tibetan! and its sister programs are expensive, but we feel they are worth it for organizations that are doing a serious amount of Tibetan printing and are dedicated to IBM-compatible hardware. Prices and ordering information can be obtained from the Tibetan Computer Company at two addresses: c/o Mr. Tony Duff, 891 12th Street, Boulder, Colorado, USA 80302, phone (303) 442-9980; or c/o Mr. Gerry Wiener, 3929 Orchard Court, Boulder, Colorado, USA 80304, phone (303) 442-3676, fax (303) 442-5410. Tibetan on the Macintosh Tibetan on the Macintosh, written by Mr. Pierre Robillard of Ontario, Canada, tel (416) 699-5718, has established itself as one of the most complete and polished Tibetan publishing programs available. Organizations such as the fine Tibetan Language Program at the University of Virginia have produced a good number of attractive publications with the program, which also sells at a very reasonable price. The following update for the program is summarized from a report supplied to ACIP by the author. Tibetan on the Macintosh works on any Macintosh computer, with any Macintosh program--whether a word processor, database, or whatever. The program runs under either operating System 6 or 7; the former requires the additional purchase of the MacKeymeleon II program, but the new System 7 includes the needed functions automatically. Both Adobe Type 1 and TrueType versions of the Tibetan fonts are included; these are the two major competing font formats, so all bases are covered. The program works on any laser, dot-matrix, or ink-jet printer. If the PostScript language isn't available in the printer, Adobe Type Manager (ATM) and the Type 1 or TrueType fonts (and System 7 or TrueType init and System 6) can be used to give the highest resolution of the printer in any size. Essentially every Sanskrit transcription stack is completed, and Roman fonts with the diacritics required for Sanskrit transcription are also included. Hand-tuned screen fonts are also supplied, as are custom keyboard files (for both System 6 and 7), along with keyboard stickers. Two additional utilities come with Tibetan on the Macintosh. The first is called Marpa, which generates Tibetan sort keys for alphabetization; allows touch-typing of Tibetan using a "stack" key; and converts ACIP files. This ACIP file conversion function has been tested by the author of the program on all the texts of ACIP Release One and Release Two; moreover, Mr. Robillard is continuing development of this feature to cover the entire range of possible Sanskrit transcriptions defined in the expanded ACIP input standard. The second utility is WylieEdit, which converts Roman transcription input with the Wylie method instantly into Tibetan script as you type. Tibetan for Windows Just before this documentation for Release Three went to press, ACIP received a review copy of Tibetan for Windows, which is an effort to move Tibetan on the Macintosh, along with all its associated utilities, to the Windows system for IBM-compatible computers. According to the accompanying literature, Tibetan files can be exchanged between an IBM-compatible machine and any Macintosh computer equipped with the Robillard LTibetan font, so that both computers can be used to work on the same project. Tibetan text can be cut and pasted between different Windows programs as well. ACIP has run some preliminary tests on the program and found it to be quite exciting. Input is easy, and the print-out attractive, especially with interspersed Roman and Tibetan. We believe there is great promise for this program and hope to review it more carefully in the next release, once we have put it through its paces. The developer who ported the program to Windows, Marvin Moser, has included a free utility called the Tibetan File Convertor, which runs under either DOS or Windows, and converts formats between Wylie, ACIP, and Robillard fonts. Phonetic transliteration can also be generated as output from any of these standards. The following technical summary is excerpted directly from the product literature. Tibetan for Windows requires Microsoft Windows, version 3.0 or 3.1. An AT class or faster computer is needed to support the font display. EGA or higher resolution graphics are recommended. The DOS version of the Tibetan File Convertor will run on any IBM- compatible PC. The Tibetan font is based on the Macintosh Robillard LTibetan font, and comes in both PostScript and TrueType formats. The PostScript version requires Adobe Type Manager for Windows. The Tibetan keyboard driver works with the Write editor (described above) that comes free with Windows; it also has some functionality with the Word for Windows word processor (version 1.0 only). Routines such as Wylie translation are contained in a documented Dynamic Link Library (DLL) which programmers can use in other applications without royalty. The Tibetan File Convertor can take any Tibetan text file in ASCII format as input, although some Sanskrit stacks may not be completely translated. Tibetan for Windows is offered at a very reasonable price and can be ordered through Mr. Bob Bryant, 1311 West Arthur, Chicago, Illinois, USA 60626, telephone (312) 743-7135. The description states that all orders are backed by a money-back refund if the user is not satisfied with its operation. Users should finally be aware that due to personal commitments the author of the program may not be able to continue any work on it for an extended period, and any "bugs" might not be resolved until that time. L.I.R.I. Multiple-Language Package In the documentation to Release Two, ACIP reviewed an extremely powerful word- processing system from the Linguistic Information Research Institute (L.I.R.I.) Co Ltd, of Tokyo, Japan. The system works in conjunction with the KOA-TechnoMate OS/2 program, which enables a user to view, print, and write in some 20 different languages of the world. The package requires a somewhat large commitment financially in a high- powered NEC computer and the KOA software, but the resulting capacity and printed output are excellent. The system has been expanded by L.I.R.I. to include now five different Tibetan fonts, including what we believe is the first U-me (dbu-med, or handwritten script) ever to be computerized. The result is quite attractive, and a sample is displayed here in the brochure. Other relevant languages for which exceptionally high-quality output is available are: Japanese, Chinese, Pali (in Roman transcription), Sanskrit (in both Devanagari script and Roman with diacritics), Mongolian (in Cyrillic), Thai, Hindi, and Nepali. For information please contact L.I.R.I. at 4-9-14 Koyama, Shinagawaku, Tokyo 142, Japan; telephone (03) 3783-9428, fax (03) 3788-6180. Sambhota ACIP has received the following description, which is quoted verbatim, about a new Tibetan publishing program for the Macintosh: The Sambhota package is a new one, consisting of a Tibetan calligraphic font along with a keyboard entry program that works on Macintosh computers. The calligraphic font was designed by a Tibetan calligrapher on the Macintosh and took approximately two years to develop. It comes in both Postscript and TrueType formats, allowing for easy printing of multiple point sizes as well as good screen display. All the Tibetan character stacks have been custom designed and are not built of component parts (except for sub-achungs and vowels). Multiple shapkyus have been designed to fit the various main letters and character stacks precisely. In a number of cases, multiple main letters have been designed to prevent shapkyus from overprinting characters on the next line. For example, main letters with "long legs" such as ka, ga, and so forth have both long and short versions. The Tibetanized-Sanskrit version of the package contains approximately 250 customized character stacks allowing the user to print [typical Sanskrit materials...with customized vowels and other attached symbols] for quality appearance. In addition to the font, the package contains a simple editor combined with a keyboard entry program allowing one to create files containing multiple fonts up to 32K in length. One can use this editor to create larger documents by using multiple document files. Such files can be easily imported into a word processor or layout program of choice for precise formatting, publishing control, and for the creation of Tibetan texts larger than 32K in size. One can print files using the editor, making it easy for beginners to publish Tibetan documents without having initially to purchase a word processor or layout program. A separate word processor such as WordPerfect or Microsoft Word or a layout program is recommended, however, for serious publishing. The keyboard entry program is built into the editor, making it quite easy to type Tibetan characters from the keyboard. One can also change the keyboard mapping, which allows one to customize the placement of the various Tibetan keys. The package should be available for purchase in January 1993. Programs allowing for conversion of ACIP and Wylie transliteration into Tibetan script, as well as Tibetan alphabetization, are under development and should be available next year. A Windows 3.1 version running on the PC is also being scheduled. Inquiries about Sambhota, which is moderately priced, may be submitted to Sambhota, at either of two addresses: c/o Ugyen Shenpen, 1878 North Broadway #6, Boulder, Colorado, USA 80304, telephone (303) 444-4076; or c/o Gerry Wiener, 3929 Orchard Court, Boulder, Colorado, USA 80304, telephone (303) 442-3676, fax (303) 442-5410. Update from LaserQuill In the documentation to Release Two, ACIP described a program called Druk Mac, by Mr. Peter Lofting of LaserQuill, in England. The Project has received an update on the program from Mr. Lofting, which we summarize here. The Druk Macintosh will not be made available; it is a solely Bhutanese edition for the Royal Government of Bhutan. Nonetheless, a new Tibetan Macintosh system is under development by Mr. Steve Hartwell and Dr. Yoshiro Imaeda. The new program will be compatible with System 7.1, and is scheduled to be launched in the spring of 1993. Further information can be obtained from Dr. Yoshiro Imaeda, 12, Chemin de la Bourellerie, 18100 Thenious (Cher), France, phone telephone 33-48-520-463, fax 33-48-520-467. Mr. Lofting has offered to make available to the Project the disk files for Druk Font, and has authorized ACIP to distribute it freely upon request. There are files for both Macintosh PostScript Type 1 and TrueType, as well as TrueType for Windows version 3.1, under the IBM platform. The condition of the distribution of these files is that they are for non-profit use, and are not for re-sale by ACIP or by any person or institution who receives them through ACIP, unless LaserQuill grants prior permission. Mr. Lofting has prepared a series of impressive technical manuals for the font. These document the details of the typeface, its use, a "dependency analysis," and ligatures. The manuals total some 600 pages; ACIP has reviewed sections and believes that these would be very useful for anyone seriously involved with Tibetan font work. There is a charge for duplication and shipping. For information on ordering, please contact Mr. Peter Lofting c/o LaserQuill, 38 Thames Street, Windsor, Berkshire, England SL4 1PR, telephone Windsor (0753) 830-270, fax Windsor (0753) 831-138. Upon receipt of the font disk files, ACIP will be happy to supply them without charge to interested not-for-profit parties. Programs from Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences ACIP has received copies of a pair of programs for Tibetan typing and viewing produced by representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The programs are called Latibus and Syllable. Latibus is named from the fact that it can be used to input and view three different languages: English (in Latin characters), Russian, and Tibetan. To produce the Tibetan stacked letters, it utilizes the Syllable program of stack models in an accompanying window, which conceptually is an interesting approach. ACIP staff have held discussions with the developers to try to help make it a good basic package with printing capability, which it now lacks. We believe this will be an important program for the computerization of Russian materials on Asian classics; for example, it would be very good for inputting the huge Tibetan-Russian-English Dictionary with Sanskrit Parallels, by Y.N. Roerich. We also anticipate that the program could be useful for low-budget entry and printing, for example by native data input centers. For information contact: Leonid V. Andreyev, Institute for Problems of Information Transmission, and his brother Sergey V. Andreyev, Computer Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vavilova str., 40, Moscow, Russia, 117967. Since mail service is very poor at this time you may wish to use their E-mail address: anserg@sms.ccas.msk.su. The "Pema" System ACIP has received advance information about a new IBM-based Tibetan printing program relatively far along in development: the Pema system from Germany. The strength of this program, which ACIP has been asked to test in an alpha version in coming weeks, seems to be that it incorporates a "matchlist" concept which will allow a user to input text in any transcription system he himself has defined to the program. It also includes tools that allow the user to modify the appearance of the font to suit his taste. Pema runs under DOS (version 3.0 or higher) and utilizes the word processor of the user's choice. Several printers are presently supported. For information, please contact Mr. Alex Wilding, Glashuttenstrasse 17, 2000 Hamburg 36, Germany, telephone (++49) 40-430-1393. TTPS and Atisha As this brochure was going to print, ACIP received word from the Linguistics Information Research Institute of Tokyo that its Managing Director, Mr. Hitsuo Nakada, had completed a version of the Tibetan Text Processing System (TTPS) to operate on the NEC computers that are pretty much the standard machine in Japan. TTPS, perhaps the first Tibetan program ever, was developed by members of ACIP's staff. It is appropriate for basic viewing and printing work. Please contact L.I.R.I. at the address listed below for more information on the NEC version. The Atisha program of Dr. Peter Ebbatson is another of the early Tibetan processing programs. Dr. Ebbatson is planning to develop the program further, especially with the Sanskrit stacks, and this should make it a good basic package for low-budget operations without powerful hardware, such as at the Tibetan communities in India. General Notes and Commercial Software for Using ACIP Data Since ACIP data is in standard ASCII format, it will work for both IBM and Macintosh types of computers. About 5% of the orders received by the Project are requests for Macintosh format. Since we don't at present own the necessary Macintosh equipment, we must send the disks out for copying, and it takes a little longer to ship. So we ask our Macintosh-based users to allow a little more turn-around time. There are a few commercial software programs that ACIP feels can help a user immensely. One is the XtreeGold file management utility, which is excellent for copying disks, viewing the contents of a hard disk, changing the structure of directories, and so on. If you like the sample version supplied with Release Three, we ask you to follow the instructions on disk for upgrading to the commercial version. The single best program for using ACIP data is still probably the Gofer search utility from Microlytics. It allows simultaneous searches for up to eight different citations, with easy-to-use Boolean search parameters, that make a find more likely and precise. ACIP has talked with the company about possibly customizing a version for the Project, and we hope to follow up on this in 1993. At present the most current version of the program is 2.0, which doesn't seem to have any significantly improved features over version 1.0, as reviewed in the ACIP Release Two documentation. For the public version, Microlytics reports that it does not intend to commit substantial resources for its further development in the near future. The program can be ordered directly from the company for about $39, by calling (800) 828-6293. Lotus Development Corporation, makers of the well-known Lotus spreadsheet, offer an extremely powerful search utility called Magellan, which was reviewed in the documentation to Release One. This program allows Boolean parameters and is a good additional option for ACIP "power users," although we find the less expensive Gofer to be more practical. Magellan can be ordered through just about any computer store. The latest version (5.2) of WordPerfect for Windows, which has only just been announced, includes a similar feature called QuickFinder. On-Line Dictionaries Update The Dharamsala Dictionary: Collaboration with the Government of Tibet ACIP has good news about a number of on-line dictionary projects. Six months ago the Project received a letter from the private office of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and secular head of Tibet, proposing that ACIP join in a collaborative effort to input and disseminate a major English-Tibetan dictionary which has been in preparation by the Tibetan government's Department of Education for some ten years. Beyond providing standard Tibetan translations of English, the emphasis of the dictionary is the very important task of establishing Tibetan words for concepts and objects, such as "computer," for which no Tibetan word now exists. ACIP views this work as another opportunity to contribute to the preservation of Tibetan literature and culture, particularly in the difficult years until Tibet is able to recover her independence. ACIP staff held meetings with representatives of the Department of Education in New Delhi last July, and concluded an agreement by which ACIP would complete the input of tens of thousands of notecards in the fall of 1992. ACIP has been authorized by the Department to provide the dictionary on diskette to its users, while the "hard copy" dictionary in book form will be brought out by the Department itself, with technical assistance from the Project. We are happy to report that the majority of the input has already been completed at the Sera Mey Computer Center in south India. ACIP hopes to put the work out on disk in 1993, once the Department of Education has completed some final editing. The Valby Dictionary: Collaboration with Russian Programmers In the documentation to Release Two, ACIP described an on-line Tibetan-English dictionary developed by Mr. James Valby of New York, USA. The dictionary utilizes special routines programmed by Mr. Valby to allow incredible speed. In format the dictionary is really more of a word list, compiled from existing Tibetan-English dictionaries; it is not appropriate for technical research, nor is it comprehensive. It will, though, be of tremendous use to the vast majority of beginning and medium-level students of the Tibetan language, as a quick look-up tool. ACIP is pleased to report that it has been authorized by Mr. Valby to distribute his dictionary as shareware. On behalf of students of the Asian classics throughout the world we would like to express our gratitude to Mr. Valby for his contribution, which is the result of years of persistent work. We are also glad to report that ACIP has been able to work with programmers in Russia to turn Mr. Valby's dictionary into a TSR, or "Terminate and Stay Resident" program. The TSR format is perfect for a dictionary of this type; it enables a user to put the dictionary in the background as he works, ready to be called up at any moment into a window on the screen, at the touch of a "hot" key. The user checks the translation of the unknown word, then tucks the dictionary away out of sight, with another touch of a key. For several years ACIP has been corresponding with very talented programmers from Russia, who were first introduced to the Project by Mr. Daniel Entin, the director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York. It seems fitting that this collaboration began through the Museum, since one of the first great Tibetologists of history was Y. N. Roerich, the nephew of the great painter, Nicholas. One of these programmers is Mr. Sergei Malykh of Yekaterinburg (previously Sverdlovsk), north Russia. Mr. Malykh is a government physicist, accomplished programmer, and student of Asian philosophy. At ACIP's suggestion, he began work several years ago to develop a pop-up routine for an on-line dictionary. He has utilized the new technology of the FoxPro language to complete an impressive and powerful capacity, which he has now applied (after much programming work) to Mr. Valby's own special routines. While this work was being completed, Mr. Valby continued work on his dictionary, which is now considerably expanded. Because of the immense size of the files (now totalling several million bytes), ACIP is releasing it separately: look for an announcement from us in the first half of 1993. Preliminary Report on Scanned Input of the Mahavyutpatti ACIP has recently received a small sample of an effort by Mr. Robert Lacey of New York State, USA, to produce a definitive edition of the famed Sanskrit-Tibetan lexicographical work, the Mahavyutpatti, in digital form. This is certainly an important undertaking, although bound to take a considerable amount of time to complete. Mr. Lacey is an advisor to the Project in scanning technology and is utilizing this method to input the data of several existing hard-copy editions, for comparison. ACIP will continue to issue updates of this project. ACIP Cataloging Projects The Saint Petersburg Catalog Perhaps the most exciting development at ACIP in the last year has been the conclusion of a contract with the Saint Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for the joint production of a catalog of the Institute's collection of Tibetan classical philosophical literature. With the destruction of the native libraries of Tibet, this collection is thought to be one of the largest, if not the largest, depositories of such books in the world. It is estimated that there could be fifty to seventy thousand separate works. Over the years, the xylograph woodblock prints have been carefully shelved and preserved, with notes on the contents of each text written out and attached to each text by the Librarian of the Collection, Dr. L.S. Savitsky. Until now, however, there has been no formal catalog to the collection, and therefore no record of its contents for scholars worldwide to purview for books they might need for their particular research specialty. In July 1992, ACIP staff visited the Institute and conducted several days of discussions with its staff and director, Prof. Yu. A. Petrosyan, about the possibility of a collaborative effort. An agreement was signed by which staff from ACIP's data entry facility at Sera Mey Monastic University in south India will come to St. Petersburg and complete the necessary input of titles at a specially prepared office in the Institute itself. A committee consisting of the following members will oversee the production of the catalog: Dr. L.S. Savitsky as Director; Mr. Michael Roach (ACIP's head) as Assistant Director; Dr. V.L. Uspensky, Assistant Director; and Dr. E.A. Rezvan, Computer and Commercial Support. The catalog will include basic information such as title, author, place and date of publication, xylograph measurements, number of pages, and so on. The completion of this basic catalog could require several years of work, so parts of it will be released at regular intervals. ACIP will produce, disseminate, and have the copyright to the catalog on disk. It is also authorized to release a book copy of the catalog if it wishes. The Institute has well has the right to produce a book copy, and hopes to do so after its staff has included more annotations of each title. The diskette version will be labeled with the Institute's name, along with ACIP's name as collaborator. The catalog is envisioned as a definitive list of the contents of the collected works of native Tibetan philosophers, since every separate work, no matter how brief, will be given a unique catalog number and entry. ACIP intends to assist the Institute in defining especially rare and valuable works, and to provide technical assistance and data entry services should the Institute wish to publish such texts. The Project and the Institute will work together to define and equip a program by which scholars worldwide who use the catalog may submit orders for copies of selected materials; this will also provide some of the financial support that the Institute will need in future years to properly maintain the collection. Finally, ACIP has been granted permission to copy and input a specified number of texts which are of particular importance in the traditional curriculum at Sera Mey Tibetan University, but which are not otherwise available. As evidenced in the user profile charts shown here in the documentation, ACIP is a truly pan-world effort. The proposed collaboration worked out with the Institute of Oriental Studies after many hours of talks is a good example of the spirit of scholarly cooperation we would like ACIP to reflect. ACIP would like to express its gratitude to a number of parties who have made the St. Petersburg proposal possible. The talks and agreement could never have taken place without the good work of Lama Lobsang Tharchin, a young Buriat Mongolian monk scholar, and Ms. Elena Kharkova, a dedicated Russian linguist, both from the Kuntsechnoinei Datsang Buddhist Society of St. Petersburg. Other members of the Datsang provided ACIP staff with much hospitality and assistance during the trip as well. Dr. L.S. Savitsky and Dr. V.L. Uspensky, both respected Orientalists at the Institute, spent many hours in meetings with ACIP staff to make the final agreement possible. Dr. Yu. A. Petrosyan, the Director of the Institute, welcomed the ACIP representatives with a sincerely international warmth and concern for the common good of the world scholastic community. Most importantly, ACIP would like to express its thanks to the Buddhist Cultural Exchange Research Institute of Yuisho Ji, Japan, which was approached by ACIP several years ago to help with such a project, and which has kindly agreed to provide the principal share of the funding needed for its completion. Preliminary Agreement with the Library of the University of Saint Petersburg During the trip to St. Petersburg, ACIP workers also had an opportunity to visit the library of the Oriental Studies Department of the University of St. Petersburg, which has a fine tradition of Asian scholarship stretching back well over a hundred years. The University has a collection of Tibetan woodblock texts which is not as large as that of the Institute nearby, but which nonetheless contains an exquisite selection of the most important works of Tibetan scholarship, chosen carefully by the famed Orientalists at the University throughout its history. ACIP received a warm welcome from the Director of the Oriental Library, Dr. A. Zhukovskaya, and held cordial talks with Dr. Natalja Sheshina, the Chief Director of the entire library system at the University. A preliminary agreement was reached by which ACIP data entry operators will be able to create a disk catalog of this collection too, as a side project while they are in the city. Preliminary Agreement with the Library of the Government of Mongolia In September 1992, several ACIP staff members met with Dr. Rinchen Otgon, the Director of the State Library of Mongolia, and Ms. Dugersuren Tuva, the Director of the State Children's Library. These congenial talks ended with the conclusion of a preliminary agreement by which ACIP will create a diskette catalog of the collection of classical Tibetan philosophical manuscripts at the State Library. This collection is said to rank in size with that of the Institute in St. Petersburg, although it may contain a larger number of repeated titles. ACIP staff intend to meet again with government officials in Mongolia during the first half of 1993, to finalize a written agreement, and then send a team of entry operators to Ulan Baatar once the St. Petersburg project is well under way. ACIP Operations Update Derge Tengyur Acquisition Update ACIP Release One included a file of errata which documented the fact that the only commonly available edition of the Tengyur, the classical collection of Sanskrit texts in Tibetan translation targeted for input by the Project, was too corrupt for entry. Since that time ACIP has been combing the world for another edition which might be made available for entry. We were looking for a Derge edition, since this is considered an accurate edition and has also been the subject of various cataloging efforts previously. We are happy to report success in two areas. First of all, the Project has been presented a complete set of all the volumes of the Derge Tengyur published so far by Tokyo University. This subsumes the sections on Madhyamika (dBu-ma), Cittamatra (Sems-tzam), and Pramana (Tsad-ma), which account for much of the strictly philosophical sections of the collection and were in fact the parts that ACIP had intended to input first. We therefore have sufficient accurate Tengyur material to input for the next few years. Again this gift has been made through the Buddhist Cultural Exchange Research Institute of Yuisho Ji, Japan, and ACIP would like to express its sincere gratitude to the sponsors there who made it possible. The books have all been received at the ACIP New York area office, and due to the uncertainty of India's mail system, staff members visiting the overseas data entry center have been carrying the volumes over personally in their luggage. So far the entire Madhayamika section has arrived at the Center safely, and input is well under way. Secondly, ACIP is close to concluding an agreement which will provide it with a complete copy of a traditional woodblock print of the entire Derge Tengyur; this will be reported on further in future literature on the Project. ACIP Data Distribution Centers in Europe and Asia As mentioned in the documentation to ACIP Release Two, the Project has concluded agreements with data distribution centers in Europe and Asia to provide users in these areas with a local source for ACIP data. These centers charge a modest fee for the cost of duplication and mailing; and any request for diskettes will also be honored by the ACIP offices in the United States (see the front of this brochure for ordering information). Users in Japan may call, fax, or write to the ACIP Contact Office in Tokyo to request data. The address and staff information are as follows: ACIP Contact Office in Japan c/o Linguistics Information Research Inc 4-9-15 Koyoma, Shinagawa-ku Tokyo, Japan telephone: 3783-9428 fax: 3788-6180 contacts: Mr. Hakumyo Niisaku, Project Director Mr. Hitsuo Nakada, Managing Director Mr. Yoichiro Takeda, Systems Engineer Mr. Kelsang Tahuwa, ACIP Project Representative Users in Europe may contact the Oxford University Text Archive, as follows: The Oxford Text Archive 13 Branbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN England telephone: (0865) 273-200 fax: (0865) 273-275 electronic mail: archive@uk.ac.oxford.vax contacts: Dr. Lou Burnard, Director, or Dr. Alan Morrison Contacting ACIP, and Project Job Openings ACIP finally has its own electronic mail address, and fax numbers! You can reach us at e-mail address acip@well.sf.ca.us. The fax numbers are (301) 948-5569 for the Washington DC Area Office (please call this same voice number before sending); and (908) 364-1824 for the New York Area Office (this is both the voice and fax number; faxes will go through automatically without having to call ahead). ACIP would like to remind its users that we work with a small staff of dedicated but overworked volunteers. We receive great numbers of letters, inquiries, requests for technical assistance, software programs to review, and special disk orders. We are often hard to reach and don't respond to our correspondents as quickly as we would like. Please be patient with us and, if we fail to get back to you, please contact us again with a reminder. The Project is working to find qualified, full or part-time help in the Washington DC and New York areas, and we have some funding available for this purpose. Please let us know if you have any suggestions of people who might be interested; our needs range from clerical to data entry, fund-raising, Tibetan and Sanskrit text editing, technical writing, hardware or software research & development (from beginning to advanced levels of knowledge), and management. We will consider applicants of any age and background. Finally, ACIP welcomes proposals from any individual or organization for projects that might be relevant to the goals and activities described in this brochure. We had a number of interesting responses to our previous call for projects, and we'd be happy to consider any collaborative effort that might help scholars worldwide. ACIP Overseas Data Entry and Editing Expansion ACIP is pleased to report substantial progress in efforts to increase its capacity to input and release texts of Asian classical literature. Because of a vocational training grant which was secured during the summer of 1992, a total of ten additional data entry centers are planned to be opened in Tibetan refugee communities over the next several years. These centers will include all four of the scholastic traditions of Tibet, which will then be encouraged to assist in the entry not only of the classical Kangyur and Tengyur collections, but also of the important native Tibetan commentaries from each tradition. ACIP has been called upon to organize this training effort, and Project staff have met with representatives of each refugee community on site in India, to provide background information and select applicants. The response to this effort was universally positive: the success of the Sera Mey Computer Center set up by ACIP has been observed by Tibetans throughout India, and many young candidates are eager to learn an important and marketable new skill. Successfully training and equipping these centers, and then assuring that they work in a common format towards a defined common goal, will be one of the greatest challenges facing ACIP in the coming two years. Yet there are perhaps some 20,000 texts in Tibetan, and a smaller but important number in Sanskrit, that must be input if the database is to be truly comprehensive. This can only be accomplished through the cooperation of a large group of entry centers. The recent grants awarded to ACIP from several other sources have made it possible to organize a sizable team of editors among the native scholars of south India. For the first time, ACIP has been able to pay a modest wage to qualified editors, and thus help to remove our tremendous backlog of material which still needs its final manual editing. As the Project's data entry force has become increasingly competent, our total databank has increased quickly to some 40 megabytes of text, or about 15,000 pages (see the attached entry progress chart). Although every folio of woodblock text is entered in its entirety twice, and goes through no less than three complete computerized editings (not to mention an automated spelling check), the final product must still be reviewed by a highly qualified scholar, since the blockprints are sometimes poorly inked, torn in places, or simply mis-carved to begin with. The number of scholars who can perform this task competently probably does not total more than 50 in the entire world, and by definition these are the great writers and teachers whose time is already largely booked. Nonetheless, the Project has undertaken an aggressive enlistment campaign, and we are happy to report that we have editors working in each of the major monastic universities of south India. In particular, ACIP has engaged Geshe Lobsang Choedar, a highly intelligent and competent young scholar from Ganden Tibetan University, to oversee a group of editors at the two large Tibetan universities near Mundgod, south India. We hope that as this group gains confidence, we will be able to put out more of the early Kangyur and Tengyur material; at present, most of the editors feel more comfortable with native Tibetan works and it will take some time before they can be switched over completely to the more difficult translations of Sanskrit originals. ACIP Prioritization Policy ACIP staff are often asked the question: "How do you choose what to put in first?" The very first batch of texts input by the Project in Release One were selected by sending out a questionnaire to most of the best Tibetan and Sanskrit specialists known to us. The answers to our inquiry were added up, almost like an election, and the winners became the first texts input. Broadly speaking, it is ACIP's goal to input first the Kangyur, Tengyur, and Sungbum collections of either early Sanskrit classics in Tibetan translation, or native commentaries to them. As described above, the Project did not have at its disposal until recently a copy of the Tengyur which it considered accurate enough for responsible entry; and even though much Kangyur material has been input, there are simply not enough qualified editors on the planet to keep up with the increasingly productive entry operators. Nonetheless, as outlined already in the brochure, ACIP is devoting much of its financial and staff resources to increasing the output of these two collections. There are a number of circumstances under which ACIP will slow down entry from the two earlier collections in order to devote part of its resources to other texts. One is the discovery of a rare text, such as the commentary to the Logic Primer of Rato described in the opening section of this documentation, which we believe to be one of the last, or the last, of the remaining copies in the world. Another case would be where, as described below, a native organization or individual has offered to publish a hard-copy version of an important philosophical text, particularly if the party has agreed to make it available to the native scholarly community either free or with a small charge. This is the circumstance with each of the three major texts included in the present release. Another example would be where an individual scholar or group of scholars has made a request that ACIP input an important work or collection of works which will be immediately useful for important research or translation work. This is the case with much of the Mahayana sutra, Abhidharma, Vinaya, and lam-rim material already input. Finally, the Project is especially willing to divert resources to enter a text which is unique by virtue of being a new and important scholarly composition; this was the case with the English-Tibetan dictionary of the Department of Education of the Government of Tibet, and also with the commentary by Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk to the Pramanavarttika of Master Dharmakirti. ACIP receives quite a large number of requests for texts to be input, and it is impossible to honor all of them in the same block of time, although we would certainly like to. We have to make hard decisions about what to input; how to stick to our original goals of inputting the Kangyur and Tengyur, yet still support and encourage the efforts of those native scholars who really are the life and blood of Asian philosophy; which works will be of more benefit to the most people. So we are pleased to receive your requests for specific texts, and we will certainly do our best to supply you (this is our reason for being); while at the same time we as for your patience with our limited resources if we can't do so right away. Generally speaking, ACIP capacity is normally booked several years in advance of input. Sera Mey University Text Series ACIP has been very successful during the past year with its efforts to stimulate native Tibetan publishing, in books directly from ACIP data, with the costs sponsored in each case by the Tibetan refugees themselves, which is no mean feat since the expense of publishing a work in India would normally represent about four years' gross salary for a well-paid office worker. In quick succession the Project has supplied without charge all the data and technical expertise to produce three major books during 1992. The first was Geshe Yeshe Wangchuk's commentary on logic and valid perception; this was sponsored by the Ven. Lhatsun Rinpoche of Sera Mey University on the occasion of his completing the rig-chung degree of native philosophy, which requires over ten years of college-level work. This publication ran 600 pages, and some 700 copies are being supplied to teachers and students through Sera Mey. The second publication was the Logic Primer of Rato, with its commentary; this book, which totalled over 700 pages, was sponsored by Rato Kyongla Rinpoche. Five hundred copies of the volume will be held at Rato Monastic University in Mundgod, south India, and supplied to teachers and students, especially at the traditional winter philosophical debates. Another 200 copies have been sponsored by members of Rongpo College at Sera Mey, and attempts are being made to supply these to native scholars still inside Tibet. The third volume printed, which will actually reach Sera Mey from the printer only in January 1993, is the text of the Overview of the Middle Way, described above. This book runs 550 pages and is being sponsored by the Ven. Lobsang Tashi, on the occasion of his receiving the rig-chung degree as well. Six hundred copies of this book are being presented to the Library of Sera Mey, for distribution to needy teachers and students. Plans have been finalized for continued hard-copy publishing well into 1993, with a number of books already in the final proofing stages. It is particularly satisfying to the staff of the Project that its efforts are proving useful not only to Orientalists around the world, but especially to the Tibetan refugee scholars who will preserve and transmit this traditional knowledge to succeeding generations. ACIP Transcription Chart Update Attached is the latest version of the ACIP data entry operator chart. A few less common symbols have been added, and notes have been made concerning ACIP standards for the input of the difficult Sanskrit stacks. In Release Two ACIP announced the availability of a comprehensive listings of all these stacks, based on a computerized study of early Sanskrit literature. We are happy to report that the listings have been used by a number of developers to enable their Asian printing programs to represent the stacks; the day is coming closer when programs will include them in a complete and convenient way. There are many methods of transliterating Tibetan, and ACIP is based on that of the Government of Tibet, as defined by Kungo Ngawang Thondup Narkyid and other native scholars at the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives. This system requires the minimum number of keystrokes needed to still maintain unambiguity, so is perfect for a large data entry project. Most of the Sanskrit that the Project works with is in Tibetan transliteration, which is an efficient and intelligent method of representing the language. This results in a few minor differences from other methods of transcribing Sanskrit, for example in the treatment of the 'a-chung and of the palatal series (such as dza for ja, the former actually being the more correct pronunciation). Since any particular system for transcribing a language in digital form can be converted to any other system in a matter of minutes, using global search and replace, a researcher can easily change ACIP data to any system he prefers. So this is, hopefully, the end of the transcription debates that all of us used to have. ACIP File Nomenclature Update The expansion of ACIP into new fields has required an update of our file nomenclature standards. In the past, the extension "ACI" has indicated that a file had received its final manual editing and was ready for public release. We are now changing this extension so that it will help identify the language of the data in the file. At present the new extensions are: "ACT" for Asian Classics Tibetan-only data, "ACS" for Asian Classics Sanskrit-only data, and "ACM" for Asian Classics Mixed-language data (such as file R0001, E. Gene Smith's handlist to the PL480 acquisitions, which includes Tibetan, Sanskrit, and English). Please note that, at present, ACIP's Asian-script file viewer and searching program, TibEasy, works only with "ACT" or Tibetan-language files. The extensions for graphics files must follow the name of the given graphics format, such as "PCX," in order to be recognized by most programs, so cannot be re-assigned by the Project or by users. ACIP has also introduced a number of new letters at the beginning of file names. These letters are used to specify the type of material, and presently consist of "G" for an Asian Classics Graphics Library file, "K" for Kangyur collection works, "R" for Reference materials, "S" for Sungbum (native Tibetan philosophical works), and "T" for Tengyur collection titles. Tohoku catalog numbers are used wherever available, constituting K0001-K1108 for the Kangyur, T1109-T4569 for the Tengyur, and S5001-S7083 for the Sungbum. Participating Correction Plan In the documentation to previous releases, ACIP described the Participating Correction Plan. In this plan, we request users to send us lists of any errors that they locate in the data; for every ten errors that have not been noted before, ACIP provides a previously unreleased text of the correspondent's choice. ACIP often receives requests for these unreleased texts. We hesitate to send out any copies of data that have not received their final manual review; since disks can be copied in a matter of minutes, we fear that "dirty" data might be spread this way. Nonetheless, the data in some cases is invaluable for a scholar's current research, and we feel that it should be supplied quickly, especially since our present editing backlog may mean that the manually edited version might not be available for some time. Therefore the Project is willing to entertain these special requests, through the Participating Correction Plan, and in the past year has sent hundreds of diskettes to correspondents who have sent in requests. ACIP is also considering a release within the next year of so of a CD ROM including the entire backlog of uncorrected data, since the database now totals some 40 megabytes of data and even as is provides a treasure trove (continued below after Sanskrit Stacks section) Asian Classics Input Project Entry Operator Transcription Chart as of Spring, 1993 A. Letters and numbers: (the full chart will not be visible in the ASCII file: please refer to printed Release Three Brochure) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 'A AA AE AEE Ai AI Am AOO AU BA BHA CA CHA dA DA dHA DHA DZA DZHA GA GA-YAR GHA GYA HA JA JHA K'A KA KHA KRA KVA KYA LA LKA MA nA NA NGA NYA PA PHA RA RKA SA shA SHA SKA tA TA thA THA TSA TZA WA YA ZA ZHA B. Special marks: (asterisk: *) (backslash: \) (Sanskrit virama) (caret: ^) (colon: :) (Sanskrit visarga) (comma: ,) (grave mark: `) (number sign: #) (parentheses: () ) (semicolon: ;) (slashes: / / ) (space: ) (dollar sign: $) (percent sign: %) (letter x) x (letter o) o C. Comment codes: [BP] blank page in original [DD] picture with caption on page [DR] picture on page [LS] Lanycha script [?] question or problem (not clear, doubtful, etc) [*correction] probably correct alternate reading [*correction?] possibly correct alternate reading (continued on next page) D. Sanskrit Stacks: type what you see, except for the following... BDA' B+DA DBANG D+BA DGA' D+GA DGRA D+GRA DGYES D+GYA DMAR D+MA GDA' G+DA GNAD G+NA MNA' M+NA (continued from before transcription chart) of information to researchers. Uncorrected data from ACIP is typically left in the original 5-page files received from the overseas input center, along with file names giving the operator number, etc; this allows us quickly to identify a work as still uncorrected. Uncorrected data from ACIP is about 98% accurate. It will still contain some errors due to identical entry mistakes by typists and editors, or else because of errors or imperfect impressions in the original woodblock. If you do request and receive uncorrected data from the Project, we ask that you inform us of any errors found. Please do not copy the disk and distribute it to others without ACIP's permission; it is somewhat frustrating when we receive letters complaining about errors in data which we have not approved for release and have asked correspondents not to spread. The Marriage of Ethics and Emptiness: An Interactive Hypertext Essay The documentation to Release Two contained a philosophical essay generated from ACIP data, to demonstrate how powerful and effective it can be to search thousands of pages of classical texts to assemble in a matter of hours every important reference to a single great philosophical concept, throughout the entire history of the literature. This essay presented the hypertext idea, but only in a limited way: the author of the essay reviewed each of the references located with his computer search, made decisions about which were definitive, and then ordered them in a way that would prove instructive to the reader. In the Release Two brochure this was done on paper; in actual practice, the essay would be a trip through the texts themselves, in their original languages--and a reader could stop at any point to peruse more of the context around the selection chosen by the hypertext author. Here in Release 3 we will present a very basic interactive hypertext essay. With interactive hypertext, the reader is given an opportunity to make choices about the path he will follow through the database. On paper this will look a little cumbersome; on a computer screen, it can be quite exciting, especially if multimedia is included which gives the "reader" (really now the audience, but audience which participates) the options not only of print but of sound, pictures, and even video, where this serves (as Ben Franklin said of his alamanacs) to educate by entertaining. At the end of the essay we'll say a little about the future of this medium, and about the future of books themselves, whether they paperback novels or woodblock Asian classics. The Marriage of Ethics and Emptiness The concept of "emptiness" is one of the deepest and most widely misunderstood subjects of the Asian philosophical classics. The subject of ethics is better understood, but in our times there seem to be few compelling reasons to ethics to daily life. In this essay we will show how the profound ideas of emptiness and ethics go hand in hand: how they are, in a sense, married to each other. Screen 001 (accessed from all screens) The Diamond-Cutter Sutra is the oldest complete printed book in the world. The text consists of a conversation that took place 2,500 years ago, between Shakyamuni Buddha and his student Subhuti, on the subject of wisdom. In this sutra, the Buddha declares-- Subhuti, I tell you this: the Buddhas, Those Who have Gone That Way, say that the things we call good deeds are things which are simple nothingness, and this is why we can call them good deeds. [KD0016, folio 232A] To find out more about the idea of nothingness, put the computer screen cursor under that word and hit the "enter" key, or else point your mouse at it, and double-click the mouse. [User is taken to screen 002.] To find out more about the idea of good deeds, point and click near these words. [User is taken to screen 003.] You can always re-trace your path and return to the previous screen(s) by hitting the "page up" key. Screen 002 (accessed from screens 001, 009, 010, 011) When we say an object has "nothingness"--when we say that it is "nothing" or "empty" or "blank"--we mean that the object has no self-nature: no nature of its own. Say that a fellow worker at our office seems unpleasant to us. If being unpleasant were his self-nature, then he would seem unpleasant to everyone. But he doesn't, because to his wife he seems pleasant. Therefore, he has no self-nature. This is the sense in which he is blank, or empty, or nothing. The great Asian philosopher Chandrakirti, who lived about twelve centuries ago, expressed this truth as follows: And so it is with a craving spirit Who sees a river of water as pus; In short, this is how to understand The point that says that mind is nothing Just as much as what it knows. [TD3861, folio 207B] Master Chandrakirti was talking about kinds of beings who in their past were stingy and harmful to others, which planted seeds in their minds that later made them think they see a normal river of water as a stream of pus. But the river is just blank: like our office mate, it has no self-nature of being pleasant or disgusting. How it appears to be all depends on who is looking at it, who is thinking about it, and what mental seeds he has. And the mind thinking about the river is just as empty as the river. Click on the word self-nature to find out more about it. [User is taken to screen 004.] Click on the words mental seeds to find out more about them. [User is taken to screen 005.] Screen 003 (accessed from screens 001, 010, 012) Good deeds, or what we call "morality" or "ethics," are defined by the matchless Tibetan philosopher Je Tsongkapa (1357-1419), commenting on a treatise by the master Gunaprabha, who lived about one and a half thousand years ago: Morality means trying never to harm, or even start to harm, another living being, and doing this because you yourself want to escape from suffering. [S5275(63)] In their most abbreviated form, there are ten good deeds. These are, trying not to kill, steal, do wrong sex, lie, say divisive things, say something harsh, speak meaninglessly, covet, feel good about others' problems, or have wrong views (such as ignorance) about things. Continued on Screen 003A Screen 003A (continued from Screen 003) How can avoiding these bad deeds, which is a good deed, help us to escape suffering? The actions are bad because when we see ourselves do them it creates a seed in our minds, to see ourselves be hurt later. When the hurt comes to us, when someone like an unpleasant person at our office comes to hurt us, we don't understand that he is just appearing because of our own perceptions. Then we react to stop him from hurting us, oftentimes by harming him. Then we plant another seed, to see another unpleasant person, which makes us harm again...and so on, in a great circle of life. Click on the word suffering to see its special meaning in Asian philosophy. [User is taken to screen 010.] Click on the word ignorance to find out more about this idea. [User is taken to screen 004.] Click on the word deeds to learn more about what they are. [User is taken to screen 011.] Click on the words seed in our minds to find out more about mental seeds. [User is taken to screen 005.] Click on the words circle of life to learn more about this concept. [User is taken to screen 006.] Screen 004 (accessed from screens 002, 003, 005, 010) As we saw before, nothing has a self-nature, so "self-nature" is a little hard to describe. What we have to do is imagine what a self-nature would be like if it did exist, and then we will see that it can't. This is what the illustrious 8th-century philosopher Shantideva meant when he said, Until you encounter the thing you think you see, You will never be able to grasp how it doesn't exist. [T3871 quoted in S0021, folio 51A] So what would a self-nature be like? We hear again from the master thinker, Chandrakirti: Here what we call "self" refers to any nature or state objects could have in which they relied on nothing else. The non-existence of this is what we call "no-self." [T3865 quoted in S0034, folio 33B] Continued to Screen 004A Screen 004A (continued from Screen 004) We talked before about a fellow worker in our office who seems to have an unpleasant nature all of his own. But if he did have this kind of unpleasant self-nature, his wife would find him unpleasant too. She, though, finds him pleasant, and so his seeming to be unpleasant is no kind of self-nature that he has. A fellow worker at our office who could have a self-nature of being unpleasant simply doesn't exist. Holding that he does have a self-nature is called "ignorance," and this triggers what is known as "the circle of life." The fact that his seeming unpleasant relies on something else is called "dependence." Realizing that he is empty of any self-nature, that he is just blank, and that he seems unpleasant because of something else, is called "wisdom." Click on the words circle of life to find out more about this concept. [User is taken to screen 006.] Click on the word dependence to find out more about this concept. [User is taken to screen 007.] Click on the word wisdom to find out more about this state of mind. [User is taken to screen 008.] Screen 005 (accessed from screens 002, 003, 006, 007, 009, 011) The idea of mental seeds is an important one in Asian philosophy; and if you think about it, we in the West accept it as well. This is why we send our children to school--we believe that what is taught in the first grade will be remembered in the eighth grade: that what we know in the first grade helps us to build up to what we know in the eighth grade. We therefore accept that the mind is a stream that goes from the first grade to the eighth grade, and we accept that we can plant a seed in this stream,