WELCOME!

Welcome to A Thousand Books of Wisdom, the fourth major release of data by the Asian Classics Input Project.  ACIP staff around the world have spent literally tens of thousands of hours over the past ten years to prepare for you the library of wonderful books found here.  Please take some time to look over this User Manual, which will help you get the most out of all the texts and tools provided on this release. 

The ACIP Mission

The mission of the Asian Classics Input Project is to save the disappearing books containing the great ideas of the Eastern half of humanity and then make these books and ideas accessible to the world at large.
Our mission is carried out in several steps. First we search the globe for 
the remaining collections of books and record their location and contents in catalog form.  Next we copy the books and send these copies to be input 
onto computer media at data entry centers that we have established around 
the world.
Almost all of these data entry centers are staffed by people who come from the countries where these great books were written and printed.  Many are refugees, or living in countries where economic or political problems endanger their great books, and even the right to read and study them.  The Project thus helps not only to preserve these rich cultural traditions, but provides many people with an opportunity to learn new skills for supporting themselves, while helping to save the great books of their heritage.
ACIP then makes these books and the important ideas they contain freely available to the world, especially to those people in the West who have not yet been exposed to them. Over the past ten years ACIP has released tens of thousands of pages of great books, on tens of thousands of computer disks and through the World Wide Web, completely free or for only the cost of materials and postage, to thousands of users in more than 50 countries.



A Tradition of Social Service

At the Asian Classics Input Project, we try to assure that the work we do has a positive effect on the world we live in: we seek to save and make the great books of Asia available not simply so they can sit in a library or database used only by a few specialists, but rather we hope to assure that the great ideas found in these books come to enrich the lives of ordinary people around the world. And we try to run the Project in a way that is compassionate and rewarding for all the people who work for ACIP from day to day, at various locations around the world.

The first ACIP data entry centers were set up in traditional Tibetan monastic universities in south India, where courageous survivors of the invasion of Tibet, teachers and students, worked to rebuild their great institutions of learning, far from their native land.  ACIP approached the heads of these institutions and together with them designed a program where young people who were not doing very well in the traditional course of study could be given a chance to learn to use computers, to help preserve the great books of their own culture.

Within a few years, a number of centers were up and running in several of the great monastic universities relocated in south India.  The under-achieving students who had been selected to work in these centers were touch-typing over fifty words a minute, and were inputting thousands of pages of ancient woodblock prints every year.  Their work was (and still is) limited to four hours a day, so as not to adversely affect their studies.

The work is designed in such a way that the participating students are paid for both their training and, later, their actual input work. For every dollar paid to the students, four dollars is paid into a food fund that helps feed all refugee students and teachers in their particular institution.  The more productive the students are, the more food is available for their whole village.  Everyone in the community, therefore, supports the students actively; their self-esteem has soared, and their grades as well.  Their work has drawn the attention of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who has kindly visited a number of ACIP centers, constantly encouraging the staff of each center.  We estimate that about 2,000 Tibetan refugees are fed primarily through the work done for the project by Tibetans themselves.

As the input centers in the traditional monastic colleges flourished, ACIP received requests from other refugee communities throughout south Asia, seeking to set up their own input centers.  At the Hunsur Tibetan refugee camp in south India, for example, the local representative of the Tibetan refugee government helped design a program that became a model for others throughout the area.

The local refugee settlement office took responsibility to locate and procure a suitable site on which to build a new input center, and the cost of the building was donated by His Holiness's refugee council.  ACIP agreed to supply all the computers, pay training and input salaries for a specified period, and provide specialists to teach touch-typing, software use, and elementary hardware repair.

The Hunsur center is now one of the most productive, and is staffed almost entirely by members of farming families who use their input salaries to supplement their income.  A number of graduates of ACIP training centers have used their knowledge to obtain work in related fields, to start their own businesses, or even to do entry and cataloging work for institutions like the United States Library of Congress office in India.  Young people who touched their first computer at an ACIP center in India are now directing international projects such as the St. Petersburg cataloging effort at the Library of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The Project has sought to assure that it provides an equal opportunity for men and women as it set up its input centers; in an open aptitude competition at the Hunsur center, for example, women secured about 90% of the available positions.  Two major Tibetan refugee nunneries in north India are also participating in the Project.  Over twenty ACIP input centers are now operating around the world.

As it seeks to preserve the endangered great books of Asian cultures, the Project has tried to lend a hand in preserving these cultures themselves.  ACIP advisors have spent the last ten years helping native Tibetan refugee institutions throughout southern Asia not only to input these books on computer, but also to print them for the use of the refugee community. Much of  the printing of traditional Tibetan literature in the refugee population of south Asia is now accomplished from ACIP data, supplied free of charge, for open distribution without copyright restrictions.  Thousands of Tibetan refugee students are now using books printed and published by their own input centers that were started and supported by the Project.

Over the last two decades staff working for the Project have independently raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional funding to build elementary schools, design and construct water projects, provide student housing, raise public buildings, organize nutritional and medical projects, feed new refugees arriving from Tibet, introduce new agricultural techniques and programs, and institute and equip a wide variety of vocational training efforts.

Staff in the US over the last ten years have contributed thousands of hours of their time without pay; on more than one occasion it was the donation of their own salaries working at other jobs during the day that kept the Project going. All this was done in the spirit of providing information that is free in every respect: ACIP materials and software programs are all supplied to any party who wishes them, without charge.

Texts can be downloaded freely from our website, or requested from ACIP on CD-ROMs and other media.  (And even our request for donations to help cover our cost of the materials is waived for users for whom a donation would be a hardship, such as those living in countries at war, or Tibetan refugees themselves.)  Thousands of pages of ACIP data have appeared, both in the original Tibetan and in new translations, in readings used in classrooms throughout the United States and the world in general.  For an idea of who uses our data, see the two pie charts in the appendices, which give a snapshot of our user population, both in America and throughout the world.

Our operating principle is to obtain funds from foundations and other institutions and individuals who feel our work is important, and then to supply the results of our work free to the individuals who need to use it, many of whom would not be able to pay if we charged what it costs to produce these materials.

The ACIP South Asia Field Office near Mysore, India, supplies great books to the refugee community not only on computer diskette, but also in copies printed from ACIP data, upon demand.  The Project has reached a point where we have input a major portion of sacred Tibetan literature that got out of Tibet with the refugees, and we are now scouring the world for other important books that we can copy and send to the refugee community for input.  After they have been typed in, these copies go to a central library that ACIP has set up for the use of the Tibetan population in India, since in many cases they no longer have even a single copy of their own great books.

Whenever ACIP works with a library or similar institution, whether it be in Nepal, India, or even Russia, we try to make a contribution to the work of the library so that its efforts to preserve the great ideas of Asia can continue.  In St. Petersburg, for example, the Project makes an annual contribution for the upkeep of the Tibetan collection; in India, we often help small native publishers of the classics to find foreign sponsors of their printings.  A small but steady flow of ACIP-sponsored books even makes its way back to Tibet itself, for free distribution among the few Tibetans who  are allowed the freedom of studying the sacred books openly.

In the United States, the Project has attempted to institute a  "kinder" style of office and working policies, based on knowledge gained from the great books of Asia themselves.  The daily schedule at our home offices includes time for silent morning reflection on the goals of the day and lifetime; a period set aside each day for personal enrichment and study of the Asian classics; and two sustained leaves per year for personal retreats, special study, and introspection. We attempt to keep our activities strictly ethical, especially in tracking all the Project finances, and in dealing with our suppliers and staff.

ACIP has, finally, placed a great emphasis on the concept of personal service, providing opportunities for volunteers with a wide variety of skills the opportunity to make their own contribution to preserving these precious books and ideas.  A steady stream of dedicated, talented, and increasingly well-trained individuals, many of them young people, have already made meaningful contributions.

The contributions to the Project by the Tibetan refugees themselves have been extraordinary, continuing on without any regard to the amount of funds available at any given time, or the incredible difficulties of working in a refugee camp in a foreign land, or any of the personal hardships so common in these camps, such as bouts of  uberculosis, lack of communication with family and friends in Tibet, and poor housing or food.

The work of the Project is expected to require at least another hundred years, and we look forward to the continued growth not only of our activities, but of all the dedicated individuals involved with the Project.


What's on the New Release?

This new release is a huge gold mine of exciting new materials.  The contents can be divided into six broad categories: the Kangyur Collection, the Tengyur Collection, the Sungbum Collection, Reference Materials, Sanskrit Study Tools, and the ACIP Graphics Collections. Please note that every new ACIP release includes all the material from past releases, so you have our entire database of hundreds of millions of bytes on just this one new CD-ROM.

THE KANGYUR COLLECTION
The Kangyur Collection is a group of Sanskrit classics that trace their origin primarily to Gautama Buddha around 2,500 years ago.  It contains over a thousand different books in some 100 volumes of carved woodblock prints.  These books reached Tibet more than a thousand years ago; they were translated into the Tibetan language, and protected over the centuries by the natural barrier of the Himalayan mountains.

The Kangyur Collection covers a wide variety of subjects such as learning how to lead an ethical life; exploring great ideas such as compassion for others and social responsibility; studying spiritual arts such as contemplation, prayer, and meditation; and in general mastering the difficult task of finding lasting happiness.

ACIP has completed input of 8,000 pages of text from the Kangyur Collection.  (We still have about 50,000 pages to go, though.)  Below are some of the highlights of what you will find on this release from the Kangyur Collection:

  	Most of the section from the Kangyur Collection on the subject of ethical living, known as Vinaya.

The entire text of the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Verses, and the first two books of the Perfection of Wisdom in 20,000 Verses.

Other well-known books of the Mahayana sutra tradition including 	

		The Diamond-Cutter Sutra
The Heart Sutra
The Meeting of the Father and Son
The Sutra of Cosmic Play (Lalitavistara)
The Intent of the Sutras (Samdhinirmochana)
The White Lotus Sutra
The Thusness of All Who Have Gone That Way 
		(Sarvatatagata Tattvasamgraha)
The Journey to Langka
The Sutra of Vimalakirti

THE TENGYUR COLLECTION
The Tengyur Collection is a large group of over 3,500 books written mostly in Sanskrit during the period from about 200 AD to 1000 AD, and later translated into Tibetan. These texts are often meant to explain the books of the Kangyur Collection, but also cover a very wide range of other subjects such as poetry, grammar, science, architecture, painting, and medicine.  We have focused much effort on this section over the past five years, and have finished exactly one quarter, including material from the following important sections:

 	The entire section on Middle-Way philosophy (Madhyamika), over 150 separate treatises in 10,000 pages that explain the nature of the world around us, and especially the important Buddhist idea of emptiness, which gives us the potential of changing the world for better.

	Some 2,700 pages from the "Mind-Only" school (Chitta Matra) of ancient Indian philosophy, which helps to explain how much of our world comes from the way we think.

  Over 4,000 pages from the section on the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajna Paramita), emphasizing how a deeper understanding of where things really come from can help us to better lead our lives.

  Over 9,000 pages on the subject of Pramana, or how it is that we see the world; how to use reasoning to help us think clearly, and all about the common mistakes that we make in the logic of our day-to-day lives.

 Over 3,500 pages on the subject of how to lead an ethical life (Vinaya).

 The text of the Treasure House of Higher Knowledge (the Abhidharmakosha), along with a comprehensive explanation of it by its author, Master Vasubandhu (350 AD); the ideas contained in these books have molded the religious and cultural life of many of the countries of Southeast Asia for centuries.

ACIP has also completed input of 65 titles from the rGyud section of the Tengyur Collection, books about spiritual life that are normally passed down only through personal oral tradition.  The Project has made a commitment to respect this tradition, and so these particular texts are made available only to users who have completed the traditional requirements for studying them.

THE SUNGBUM COLLECTION
Over the last thousand years, the Tibetan people have studied and practiced the wisdom found in the Kangyur and Tengyur Collections. During this time they have also written more than 200,000 different sacred books exploring these same great ideas. One of ACIP's principal goals is to find and preserve an entire stream of literature stretching from the time that the great books of India first arrived over the Himalayas, down through the tradition of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet, and to the great Asian writers of the present day.

To date we have input some 60,000 pages of native Tibetan classics, in about a thousand different treatises. Here are a few highlights of the books found on the new release:

We have input a huge amount of data relating to the great books that talk about the philosophy of how the world around us works: entire libraries on the great ideas of the Middle Way, the Perfection of Wisdom, the Mind-Only School, Logic and Theories of Perception, Higher Knowledge, and the Art of Ethical Living. (In Sanskrit these are known, respectively, as Madhyamika, Prajna Paramita, Chitta Matra, Pramana, Abhidharma, and Vinaya.)  Here you will find about 25,000 pages of woodblock prints with the contributions of ten centuries of great Tibetan writers.

Included also are the great summaries of Tibetan thinkers on all the schools of philosophy ever known to them: these collections are known in Tibetan as Grub-mtha' and Drang-nges, and account for more than 4,000 pages on the new release.

Perhaps the greatest contribution made by the great lamas of Tibet to the sacred literature of the world has been an entire body of literature devoted to the spiritual arts of meditation, contemplation, and applying ancient wisdom to the everyday problems of life.  These books are divided into a number of groups in the database, including works on the complete steps to follow for a lifetime of spiritual practice (called Lam-rim); texts on meditation and other practical exercises (called Nyams-len and Cho-ga); and finally instructions for developing a good heart during the course of a normal day at home or at work (known as bLo-sbyong).  There are over 400 titles in over 9,000 pages devoted to these subjects on the new release.

The art of words has been a natural point of emphasis for the thousands of great Lama writers of Tibet, and there are about 75 separate works on the new release which treat the various topics of classical Sanskrit and Tibetan grammar, poetics, epistles, eulogies, and lexicography.  (Standard dictionaries and other such tools are included in a separate section below called "Reference Materials.")

A large amount of traditional biographical material is found on this release. This is divided into separate sections that present the full biographies (or rNam-thar) of eminent figures in the history of the Asian classics; accounts (known as bLa-brgyud) of the lineages of teachers and students who have passed the books down from century to century; and spiritual biographies of ancient figures found in the Kangyur and Tengyur Collections (these are called rTogs-brjod).  There are over 50 such books here, with more than 3,500 pages of material.

Other sections of the Sungbum Collection are devoted to what are, compared to philosophy, considered "minor arts" in the Tibetan tradition of knowledge. Included here are treatises on astronomy; fine arts such as painting, sculpture, and architecture; and the art of government.

There is a final section of the native Tibetan works devoted to those teachings mentioned above, the rGyud, which is passed on only by oral tradition privately from teacher to student.  The Project is proud to report that we have input more than 1,000 separate titles devoted to this subject alone, covering each of the standard spiritual practices for a great many of the special beings from whom these teachings are said to have come down to us.  Because of the commitment that ACIP has made to respect this tradition, these works are not included on the public release. They are made available, upon application, to individuals who have completed the traditional requirements to study them.

REFERENCE MATERIALS
ACIP has made a concerted effort to input or license a large amount of reference material-dictionaries, book catalogs, history texts, and other types of documentation that will help us locate the important classical Asian books still left in the world, and also enable our users to study these books to the fullest.  Following is a summary of some of the tools we have created:

  Two completely new arrivals on this release are the St. Petersburg Catalogs.  Over the past five years, a team of refugee Tibetan monks has labored to create these electronic catalogs, with the help of experts from two of the world's greatest libraries of Tibetan woodblock prints: the Library of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Library of the University of St. Petersburg.  Between them, these two libraries house roughly 200,000 Tibetan titles. On the CD-ROM you will find over 50,000 of these books cataloged in extensive detail, including the complete traditional information from the back of each book about where it was printed, who passed it down over the centuries, and so on.  Copies of these books can also be requested from the libraries, which makes them a tremendous resource since„due to political and economic problems„books from many parts of Tibet are still difficult to obtain.  You will find more information about these catalogs below.  

  The reference section includes the complete documentation of all ACIP releases, and Project policies and standards. Here you will find valuable tools for successfully searching  the database, utilizing the software used by the Project, more about its history, and so on.  Perhaps the most important reference document here is the ACIP Master Catalog, which gives detailed information about each book we have input to date. A very concise printed catalog, with only the author and title of each book (in Tibetan, English, and also Sanskrit where applicable) is found at the back of this User Manual.

  This section also contains major listings of the Tibetan and Sanskrit books held by the United States Library of Congress. Since many of these books were obtained under the PL480 and SFCP programs of the U.S. Congress, copies can be found in more than 15 public and university libraries around the country.
 
		Please be aware that due largely to the lack of sufficient funding for the Library's distribution services there are some  gaps in the very new and much older data.  Perhaps a group of ACIP users in America could approach their representatives in Congress to urge them to provide more support for this valuable resource.  In the meantime, we have included here a very useful file called Handlist of PL480 Acquisitions, a brief personal list of almost all of the PL480 and SFCP works ever obtained, and supplied to the Project by the director of these efforts, Dr. E. Gene Smith.

  ACIP has input a number of good dictionaries for studying Tibetan, although not all of them are included on the public release, since they are still under copyright.   These are available only for the in-house use of scholars doing research directly related to the Project.  Perhaps the most important of these works is the Great Dictionary of the Tibetan Language, a three-volume Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary which is destined to become a classic. ACIP has also assisted the Tibetan 
refugee government in inputting a major new English-Tibetan dictionary, which is still in the editing stage and not yet publicly available.  The on-line dictionary of Mr. James Valby of the USA, finally, has been supplied to ACIP without charge for the current release; although written with the general user in mind, it will nevertheless be useful to scholars, supplying a helpful list of Tibetan words and their basic English equivalents.  A number of dictionaries which include Tibetan and Sanskrit are described further on.

©	The reference section has some very good native catalogs of the Kangyur and Tengyur Collections themselves, including those for the Lhasa and Derge editions of the Kangyur, and the Derge and Sertri editions of the Tengyur.  These catalogs are quite helpful for locating the older books, since their titles appear in a variety of different spellings and are most easily located with the help of a computer.

©	ACIP has devoted a lot of effort to inputting various printed catalogs of important native Tibetan books, since these are the most endangered; the catalog information helps us identify surviving copies of these books in various locations around the world.  There are more than ten major catalogs of this kind completed, although again some are copyrighted and available only for in-house use.  These catalogs include The Tohoku University Catalog of Native Tibetan Literature; The Treasure House of Knowable Things (Shes-bya'i gter-mdzod); Titles for Commentaries written by Tibetan Authors (Bod-kyi bstan-bcos khag gi mtsan-byang); The Catalog to the Collected Works of the Masters of the Sakyas (Sa-skya bka'-'bum); catalogs to important monastery collections such as the Library of Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche; and a great number of other native catalogs to specific authors, including the majority of the lists found in massive Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature, edited by Dr. Lokesh Chandra.  A handlist to the Tibetan holdings in the Bernard Collection of Yale University has also been input, as have traditional lists (gsan-yig) of the great books passed down through major Lamas throughout the history of Tibet.
©	The Project has input a number of important historical works, including various indices to the early Tibetan chronicles known as the Blue Annals.  We have also received, from the American researcher Mr. Robert Lacey, a very rough, experimental version of the Blue Annals itself that was generated by digitally scanning the entire text of Roerich's English translation.  (It is still very useful, and we would be thrilled to have some users volunteer to help correct it.)  The English translation of the excellent survey of Tibetan literature by the Russian scholar A.I. Vostrikov is also completed. Again some copyright restrictions apply in the case of these works.

©	Finally, the complete updated ACIP International Asian Scholars Database is included in this new release, listing the names and contact information for some 600 colleagues who have agreed to published in this directory.

SANSKRIT STUDY TOOLS
An appreciation of the Sanskrit language is important for the study of the classic Tibetan books mentioned above, many of which were originally translated from the Sanskrit.  For this reason, the Project has input a number of important reference tools for studying and using Sanskrit when working with the Asian classics.  Here are some of the highlights:

©	As mentioned above, a listing of the Sanskrit-language books held at the Library of Congress.

©	The entire text of several editions of the Mahavyutpatti, an extraordinary traditional Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary, along with some attempted English translations by early Orientalists.  This work has again been compiled and provided free to the Project by Mr. Robert Lacey; it is rough and preliminary, but still very useful.

©	The complete study of Sanskrit verbs and the words derived from them written by the famed Sanskritist William Dwight Whitney, along with the entire text of his Sanskrit grammar, perhaps the greatest textbook ever written on the subject.
©	The Sanskrit and Tibetan portions of a recent trilingual dictionary by Namgyal Tsering; please note that copyright restrictions also apply to this work.

THE ACIP GRAPHICS COLLECTIONS
The ACIP Graphics Collections, consisting of selected carved illustrations and traditional monastic seals found on the woodblock editions of the books and other resources which ACIP has cataloged or input, now includes the following:

©	More than 65 illustrations carvings of eminent Lamas and various sacred objects ready to import into any document using your favorite word processor.

©	A new collection of over 250 exotic monastic seals found on the woodblock prints in the collections of St. Petersburg.

©	Included in the 50,000 entries of the catalogs to the St. Petersburg collections is information about every one of an estimated 20,000 carved illustrations found in the books already cataloged; it's exciting to realize that you can find them there and request directly from the Russian libraries a photocopy of a line drawing for just about any important classical Indian or Tibetan thinker, even when an ACIP digital version is not yet available.

Given that there are all these exciting, newly available materials on the latest ACIP release, how are you going to go about using it?  How do you view, search, or print the wonderful resources that are on the CD-ROM?   For these purposes, ACIP is proud to provide a powerful new user interface, AsiaView version 2.0, included free with this release.  Detailed information on how to use AsiaView begins on page 41 of this User Manual.




A Brief Summary of the CD-ROM Contents for Tibetan Users


Capturing an Entire Tradition
ACIP  Release IV represents a big step forward in our goal of capturing one entire tradition_an authoritative lineage of great ideas passed from teacher to student over the centuries_beginning with the Kangyur Collection around 500 BC and stretching all the way up to our own time.
We have concentrated on the entire tradition of ideas that took their birth in ancient India and culminated in the best-known figures in Tibetan history: the Dalai Lamas and their teachers. 
The following very general chart then gives you a good picture of the CD-ROM in terms of one unbroken, exquisite continuation of thought from antiquity up to the present day.

500 BC
ORIGINAL SANSKRIT SUTRAS
on subjects like ethics, human perception, the perfection of wisdom, and 
the subjective nature of reality; these are 
source texts for the great philosophical traditions of  Tibet, especially that of  the Dalai Lamas

AUTHOR REPRESENTED IN THE DATABASE: 
GAUTAMA BUDDHA


200 AD
FIRST WAVE OF SANSKRIT TREATISES
on ideas like the perfection of generosity, an ethical life, overcoming anger, 
developing contemplation and meditation; important 
early Indian sources for 
the traditions of Tibet

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
MASTERS NAGARJUNA, ARYADEVA

350 AD
SECOND WAVE OF SANSKRIT TREATISES
expanding on ideas such as human psychology, the beginnings of the world, the measurement 
of time and space, and the question of life after death; important sources for textbooks of 
the Tibetan monasteries in the tradition of the Dalai Lamas

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
MASTERS ASANGA, VASUBANDHU

500 AD
THIRD WAVE OF SANSKRIT TREATISES
refinement of the principles of ethical living, and the birth of the great logic traditions; further important sources 
for textbooks of the Tibetan monasteries in the tradition of the Dalai Lamas

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
MASTERS GUNAPRABHA, DIGNAGA

700 AD
FOURTH WAVE OF SANSKRIT TREATISES
further clarifications of the role of the mind in perception and reality 
itself; great spread of the bodhisattva ideal of putting the concerns of others above our own; 
final early sources for the textbooks of the monasteries in the tradition of the Dalai Lamas

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
MASTERS CHANDRAKIRTI, DHARMAKIRTI, 
and SHANTIDEVA

1000 AD
FINAL WAVE OF SANSKRIT TREATISES
birth of the native Tibetan philosophical traditions,
flowering of the great Tibetan lineages of intense spiritual practice,
in brief manuals of instruction; "grandfathers"  of the tradition of the Dalai Lamas

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
MASTER ATISHA, GESHE DROLUNGPA,
and KADAMPAS such as CHEKAWA and DORJE SENGGE

1250 AD
EARLY TIBETAN CLASSICS OF ADVANCEDPHILOSOPHY
on subjects such as vowed morality, episte-mology, psychology, 
and cosmology; philosophical refinement of those to become the teachers of 
the teachers of the first Dalai Lamas

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
KUNKYEN TSONAWA, CHIM JAMPEYANG

1400 AD
GREAT RENAISSANCE OF ADVANCED INTELLECTUAL INQUIRY 
and monastic commentaryon the entire range of Sanskrit classics; 
the era of the teachers of the first Dalai Lamas, and of these Lamas themselves

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
nearly the entire collected works (over 300 separate titles in about 15,000 pages) 
of  JE TSONGKAPA, teacher of His Holiness the First Dalai Lama

a major portion (3,700 pages) of the collected works of GYALTSAB JE, first holder of the throne of  Je Tsongkapa

a major portion (3,300 pages) of the collected works of KEDRUP JE, another principal disciple of Je Tsongkapa

over 800 pages of important material by  THE FIRST DALAI LAMA

1550 AD
FIRST FLOWERING OF THE GREAT MONASTIC TEXTBOOKS
in the tradition of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet, covering subjects such as the 
perfection of wisdom, the philosophy of the Middle Way, perceptual theory, the art of logical reasoning, 
vowed morality, psychology, and the categories of existing things

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
nearly all the works (28 titles in over 2,500 pages) 
of KEDRUP TENPA DARGYE, principal textbook writer for the Mey college of Sera Monastery,
 founded by a student of the teacher of the First Dalai Lama, and  one of the largest monastic institutions in history
most of the works (30 titles in over 3,500 pages) of SERA JETSUN CHUKYI GYELTSEN, 
principal textbook writer for the Jey college of Sera Monastery
the Rato logic compendium of CHOK-HLA U-SER, the grandfather of the Buddhist logic lineages in the tradition of the Dalai Lamas

1650 AD
WAVE OF SECONDARY MONASTIC TEXTBOOKS
refined manuals  for advanced spiritual practice
REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
essentially the entire collected works (265 titles in 5,200 pages) of the FIRST PANCHEN LAMA, 
LOBSANG CHUKYI GYELTSEN (the Panchen Lamas became the resident heads of the monastery founded by the First Dalai Lama)

important works from CHONEY LAMA DRAKPA SHEDRUP, another major author of text-books for Sera Mey Monastery

the entire collected works (over 100 titles in 2,200 pages) of the Lama to the Emperor of China, the FIRST CHANGKYA 
RINPOCHE, NGAWANG LOBSANG CHUNDEN (said  to be a former life of Pabongka Rinpoche, 
the principal teacher of one of the two principal teachers of the present Dalai Lama, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso)

1775 AD
BEGINNING OF THE MODERN ERA 
OF PHILOSOPHICAL COMMENTARIES 
derivative works from the monastic textbooks, and practical manuals  for a wide variety of spiritual practices

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 

the entire opus (600 pages) covering the schools of Asian philosophy by the SECOND CHANGKYA RINPOCHE, ROLPAY DORJE

the entire collected works (over 600 items in 4,800 pages) of NGULCHU DHARMA BHADRA, a major figure in 
the transmission of important teachings down to the principal teachers of the present Dalai Lama

selections from PANGLUNG LOBSANG TUKJE, another author of textbooks for Sera Mey Monastery


1900 AD
FINAL WAVE OF CLASSICS BEFORE LOSS OF TIBET
highly refined derivative works on logic and philosophy,
modern evolution of manuals for the steps of a lifetime of spiritual practice (lam-rim),
great biographies and other documentation of the Tibetan tradition

REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 

GYALWANG TRINLEY NAMGYAL, famed biographer of the teacher of the First Dalai Lama
a major portion (40 titles in 600 pages) of the collected works of
CHESHU RINPOCHE LOBSANG JANGCHUB TENPAY DRUNME,
the head of Kumbum, a major monastery located at the birthplace of the teacher of the First Dalai Lama
YONGDZIN PURBUCHOK JAMPA TSULTRIM GYATSO, personal tutor to His Holiness the XIIIth Dalai Lama
a major portion (65 titles in 2,100 pages) of the collected works of
PABONGKA RINPOCHE DECHEN NYINGPO, principal teacher of one of two principal teachers of His Holiness, the present Dalai Lama

1970 AD
HEROIC INTELLECTUAL EFFORTS BY SURVIVORS OF 
THE TIBETAN DIASPORA
REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS IN THE DATABASE: 
a major portion (55 titles in 1,600 pages) of the collected works of KYABJE TRIJANG RINPOCHE, a principal teacher of the present Dalai Lama 

pieces by SERMEY KHENSUR RINPOCHE GESHE LOBSANG THARCHIN, 
one of the principal students of Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, and chief editor of the Asian Classics Input Project

modern philosophical classics of GESHE YESHE WANGCHUK 
of Sera Mey, and KHENSUR RINPOCHE GESHE LOBSANG WANGCHUK of Sera Jey




The Subject Structure  of the ACIP Text Database

One of the most challenging aspects of attempting to preserve an entire tradition of  thought as it has been passed down over more than 2,000 years is to organize it into categories that will make it easy for you, the user, to locate immediately the text you want to work with.  The sheer amount of sacred literature which exists in the Tibetan language (estimated at hundreds of thousands of titles) makes this a somewhat daunting task: we estimate that, by the time the Project or its successors have completed capturing the entire tradition of Tibet, several centuries will have passed.  We encourage you to now turn to the Subject Structure appendix immediately following page 224 in order to get a taste of the many different kinds of books input by the Project.



ACIP South Asia Operations

The core of the entire Asian Classics Input Project consists of a dedicated group of Tibetan refugees in south Asia who are accomplishing the great majority of the Project's work: the input of tens 
of thousands of pages of Tibetan woodblock prints.  These inspiring people continue year after year, through extremely difficult conditions in the Tibetan refugee settlements that dot the Indian subcontinent, to preserve their culture and share it with interested persons in other countries of the world.  On behalf of the Project and all those who ever use our materials, we would like to acknowledge their efforts by listing some of their names here in this user manual.

ACIP's efforts began in south Asia through the faith and support provided by Sera Mey Tibetan Monastic University.  Important assistance in the very beginning came from the Venerable Khensur Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, former Abbot of Sera Mey and Chief Editor of ACIP, and by the Venerable Pomra Khensur Lobsang Ngudup, also a former Abbot of the Monastery. Abbot emeritus Venerable Kongpo Khensur Jampa Donyo also gave unflagging support to the Project, as did the founding Abbot of Sera Mey in south India, the Venerable Gyalrong Khensur Ngawang Tekchok.

The ACIP South Asia Field Office is now under the extraordinarily capable management of the Venerable Geshe Ngawang Rigdol, who has been with the Project since its inception.  Former directors 
have been Geshe Thupten Phelgye, who also helped establish the St. Petersburg Catalog effort, as well as Lhundup Sherab.

The following is a list of the major locations for ACIP entry centers in south Asia over the years, with just a few of the names of the key personnel at these centers.

© 	SERA MEY MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER
		Ven. Geshe Jampa Dhadak, Assistant Manager
		Ven. Ngawang Gyatso, Input Operator
		Ven. Ngawang Jungney, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Kalsang, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Monlam, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Dhondup, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Jorden, Input Operator
		Ven. Ngawang Lhundup, Input Operator
		Ven. Ngawang Tharchen, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Namgyal, Input Operator
		Ven. Jamyang Gyatso, Input Operator
		Ven. Tenzing Sungrab, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Paljor, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Nyudup, Input Operator
		Ven. Lobsang Phuntsok, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Phakchok, Input Operator
		Ven. Ngawang Choelang, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Damey, Input Operator
		Ven. Lobsang Tenphal, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Dayoe, Input Operator

© 	SERA JEY MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER
		Ven. Ngawang Namgyal, Manager
		Ven. Tenzing Dakden, Input Operator
		Ven. Lobsang Tender, Input Operator
		Ven. Lobsang, Input Operator
		Ven. Gyaltsen, Input Operator

© 	GANDEN JANGTSE MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER
		Ven. Gedun Choepal, Manager
		Ven. Jegme Jenpa, Input Operator
		Ven. Tenzing Sopa, Input Operator
		Ven. Phuntsok, Input Operator
		Ven. Pema, Input Operator
		Ven. Lobsang Dawa, Input Operator

© 	DREPUNG LOSELING MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER
		Ven. Ngawang Tsultim, Manager
		Ven. Thupten Shakya, Input Operator
		Ven. Dakpa Tsegyal, Input Operator
		Ven. Ngawang Choeying, Input Operator
		Ven. Tenzing Leglam, Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Sonam, Input Operator
		Ven. Ngawang Sonam, Input Operator
© 	RABLING TIBETAN REFUGEE SETTLEMENT COMPUTER CENTER
		Ms. Kalsang, Manager
		Migmar Thakchoe, Input Operator
		Dolma, Input Operator 
		Migmat Tsamchoe, Input Operator 
		Tsering Samgmo, Input Operator
		Norzin Bhuti, Input Operator
		Tseten Bhuti, Input Operator
		Phurbu Dolma, Input Operator
		Yeshe Dolma, Input Operator 
		Yeshi Dolma, Input Operator 
		Passang Lhamo, Input Operator 
		Tsering Tsomo, Input Operator
		Kalsang Tsomo, Input Operator 
		Passang, Input Operator 
		Passang Bhuti, Input Operator 
		Lakpa Bhuti, Input Operator 
		Sonam Chedon, Input Operator
		Tsering Choedon, Input Operator

© 	DEKEY LARSOE TIBETAN REFUGEE SETTLEMENT COMPUTER CENTER
		Ms. Dawa Dolma, Manager
		Tsering Doma, Input Operator
		Dhondup Lhamo, Input Operator
		Dechen Sangmo, Input Operator
		Migmer Phuntsok, Input Operator
		Khando Youdon, Input Operator
		Tseten Bhuti, Input Operator
		Kunsang Lhamo, Input Operator
		Tsering Choeden, Input Operator
		Tenzing Chokyi, Input Operator
		Tsewang Chokyi, Input Operator
		Penpa Lhamo, Input Operator
		Tenzing Kalsang, Input Operator
		Phurbu Dolma (A), Input Operator
		Kalsang Yangchen, Input Operator
		Tseten Namgyal, Input Operator
		Phurbu Dolma (B), Input Operator
		Dolma Choezom, 	Input Operator
		Chodon Lhuckyi, Input Operator
		Kunga Thinley, Input Operator
		
© 	DAKPA TIBETAN REFUGEE SETTLEMENT COMPUTER CENTER
	Lobsang Choepal Butia, Manager

© 	SAKYA MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER, RAJPUR
	Ven. Ngawang Nyiney, Manager

© 	DREPUNG GOMANG MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER
© 	RATO MONASTIC UNIVERSITY COMPUTER CENTER
© 	GANDEN SHARTSE MONASTIC COMPUTER CENTER
© 	GYUME TANTRIC COLLEGE
©	TASHI HLUNPO MONASTIC UNIVERSITY
©	DROLMA LING BUDDHIST REFUGEE NUNNERY
©	GANDEN CHOLING BUDDHIST REFUGEE NUNNERY
©	EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF THE TIBETAN GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE
©	SERA MEY MONASTIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
©	BYLAKUPPE SAKYA MONASTERY COMPUTER CENTER

The St. Petersburg Catalog Project


Two of the greatest collections of Tibetan woodblock prints exist far from Tibet, in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The first collection, at the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, contains approximately 25,000 volumes, representing up to 200,000 titles„although we do expect a good number of repeat titles by the time we are finished.  The second collection is found at the Oriental Library, a part of the Library of the University of St. Petersburg.  It is a carefully selected treasure of 3,300 separate titles.

The books in each of these collections have been faithfully collected by generations of Russian explorers and scholars ever since the 
time of the tsars, and maintained with devotion by library staff 
even in the most difficult of times, such as the three-year siege of St. Petersburg during World War II.

ACIP staff first visited the collections of St. Petersburg in the early 1990s.  Many hours of work, in collaboration with the library directors and staff, went into the design of the project.  Russian and Mongolian scholars from a number of different institutions„the Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg University, and the Kuntsechnoienei Datsang Buddhist Society„helped us with every aspect of accomplishing this kind of project: visa and immigration work for the Tibetan refugee scholars who would come and do the input of the catalog; housing and travel arrangements; preparing and equipping a working office; and hundreds of other details.

The cataloging project has been working now for some seven years, with devoted labors by a team of native scholars from Sera Mey Tibetan Monastery in south India, under the direction of the Russian library staff.  It has truly been an international collaboration of Russian, Tibetan, and American citizens working together with respect and affection, producing a work that we hope will be a lasting contribution to all those who study these great books and ideas in the centuries to come.  The catalog as it stands now contains more than 50,000 entries; the Tibetan input operators 
are typing in the entire colophon of each work, with valuable information on the Tibetan teaching lineages and other historical detail; the resulting catalog already contains over fifty times more material than the most famous Tibetan catalog to date, the Tohoku.

The massive size of the catalog has demanded that we divide it into one-megabyte "chunks" in the database, since ACIP has a policy that no single file in the database should be too big for users to share with each other on the current floppy-disk capacity of about 1.4 megabytes. Since this is also about the size of a thousand entries, we've made each file exactly this many titles.  As a service to users around the world, each of the organizations involved has kindly agreed that the Catalog will be supplied without charge on the ACIP CD-ROM; this is a precedent that we hope will continue among scholars of Tibetan literature throughout the world.

It is anticipated that the cataloging work alone (not to mention input or scanning, which could require a century) will continue for a decade or more.  ACIP has made a commitment during this time to assist the Tibetan Collection of the Institute of Oriental Studies in setting up reproduction facilities that will allow the Institute to fulfill orders from interested persons for copies of texts they need to work with.  It is hoped that the existence of this reproduction facility, and the fees paid to the Institute by scholars for copies, will help defray the considerable cost of maintaining this precious treasure for future generations.  Please contact ACIP if you are interested in ordering materials from either collection, and we will forward your request directly to the appropriate office.

As a final note, the Catalog Project in St. Petersburg has generated an intriguing side-effort, which is a growing graphics collection of all the exquisite monastic and other seals found stamped on the wood-block manuscripts of the collections.  The presence of a seal is recorded in the St. Petersburg Catalog, and the seals each have their own unique identification number under the "GSP" file series in the ACIP Graphics Collections.

The seals, as well as carved illustrations of eminent teachers throughout history located in both the St. Petersburg collections and in other texts input by ACIP, are indexed and cataloged in a format that allows them to be integrated into the ACIP Master Catalog.  To see if there is an illustration of a particular person or image available, check the graphics entries of the ACIP Master Catalog by clicking on the catalog number column in AsiaView and searching those that start with "G".

We have not, by the way, made any extensive efforts to identify the various symbols in the seals of the St. Petersburg collections, nor have we made any attempt to relate particular seals to the original monastic library that used them. We would very much appreciate any help that specialists could offer us in identifying the symbols or relating seals to their original institution.

The following is a list of some of the dedicated individuals who have made the St. Petersburg Catalog possible:

© 	THE ST. PETERSBURG BRANCH OF THE INSTITUTE OF ORIENTAL STUDIES 			OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES:
		Prof. Yu. A. Petrosyan, Institute Director Emeritus
		Prof. Evgeni I. Kychanov, Institute Director
		Dr. Lev S. Savitsky, Catalog Director
		Geshe Michael Roach, Asst. Catalog Director
		Dr. V.L. Uspensky, Asst. Catalog Director
		Dr. E.A. Rezvan, Computer & Commercial Support
		Dr. I.G. Tikhonova, Computer & Software Support
		Ven. Ngawang Kheatsun, Senior Input Operator
		Ven. Jampa Namdol, Senior Input Operator
		Geshe Thupten Phelgye, Senior Input Operator

© THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. PETERSBURG:
		Dr. Natalja Sheshina, University Library Chief Director
		Dr. A. Shukovskaya, Oriental Library Director
		Prof. Badma M. Narmaev, Tibetan Specialist
		Ms. Tamara Petrova, Special Assistant

© THE KUNTSECHNOIENEI DATSANG BUDDHIST SOCIETY:
		Ven. Buddha Balzhivich, Abbot
		Dr. Losetsering Wangyal
		Ven. Aleksander Morozov
		Asst. Munkuev Zorictovalzhivich
		and with special thanks to the invaluable Dr. Elena Kharkova
Standard Format of the St. Petersburg Catalog
The following is the standard format for the catalog of the Tibetan Collection of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Branch, and for the Tibetan Collection of the Oriental Library of the University of St. Petersburg, as of July 1998.

Please note that the catalog is, in its present form, a simple flat-file database: straight text in the universal ASCII code that can be read and searched on any computer.

Each title is treated as a separate work in its own right, and complete cataloging information is given for each one.  Since the catalog is computerized, it is possible to include a level of detail 
not achieved in any previous printed catalogs.  Therefore, a total 
of twenty-two different details of each title are recorded, including the entire colophon of composition and printing information.  
This colophon makes it possible for users of the catalog to conduct advanced research and come to their own conclusions about difficult items.

Where the colophon of a given title does not list particular items of information, these may be supplied from other sources, but are then enclosed in braces.  This applies even to an individual title in a single volume with multiple titles; i.e., information derived from the colophon of the final title is not assumed to apply to all other titles in the volume.

The raw data of the catalog is expressed mainly in single-letter codes.  This system allows the input operators to catalog more items per day; at present, two operators are completing approximately seventy-five titles each day.  The system also has the advantage of allowing the entire catalog to be loaded into a relational database, to enable multiple sorting on different fields.

Please note that the information in the "author" field especially represents a "best guess" by native Tibetan operators on site who are not highly trained students of philosophy.  Researchers should rely upon the colophon (which is always included), and upon the Institute's own catalog number to place a particular title within the collected works of a particular author.
Here is a sample entry for a single imaginary title:

1) S:00001
(Serial number of item, which is simply the order in which the titles 
are entered into the catalog, with no other logic.)
2) N:B6388/1
(Number of the title currently, in the system of the library of the Institute or Library.  The number after the slash is new and represents the position of the work in a single volume of multiple works.  This number is being added in ink on the title page as volumes are cataloged.  In the case of a loose, random page located within a volume, a lowercase alphabetical letter will be placed after the slash in order not 
to disturb the total number of titles in the volume.  No attempt will be made to collate these random pages into their proper volume until the catalog is completed, since this will allow the collation to be performed accurately and quickly.)
3) T:RDO RJE GCOD PA
(Title in Tibetan as it appears on the title page, written in ACIP input code.)
4) K:BADZRA TZTSEDIKA
(Title in SansKrit as it appears on the title page in Tibetanized Sanskrit.  These titles are primarily ornamental and often appear with incorrect spelling, or divided into syllables illogically.  The native Tibetan operators entering the data onto diskette also have trouble reading these difficult stacks correctly, and we can anticipate additional errors on their part.  Nonetheless this data will be of some benefit to scholars seeking Sanskrit equivalents.)
5) E:LT
(Extra languages appearing either on the title page alone, or throughout the whole work [such as in bilingual dictionary in interlineal format].  Current code options are: LT [Lanycha script, title page only]; LW [Lanycha script, throughout whole work]; MT and MW [same for Mongolian]; DT and DW [same for Devanagari].  No attempt is made to input the entire extra language, but simply to indicate its presence.)
6) X:3
(X represents a seal or stamp that has been pressed onto the title page, 
a common monastic practice to identify the library or press from which the work has come.  Each time a new seal is encountered, it is photocopied and added to a master chart and given a number.  These seals have been scanned into computer files, and are included here 
on the CD-ROM; we have not yet attempted to relate the seals to particular institutions from which the texts were obtained. Some title pages have multiple stamps; these will be represented by numbers separated by commas.)
7) B:RDO GCOD
(Brief title of the work as it appears by tradition in a small box on 
the end of the woodblock.)
8) A:SH'AKYA THUB PA
(Author of the work, only as reported in the colophon to the parti-
cular title.  If the name of the author has been identified by other means it will be included in braces, for future verification.)
9) Y:SHING PHAG
(Year of publication or composition, only as reported in the colophon to the particular title.  If either year has been identified by other means it will be included in braces, for future verification.  This applies as well to attempted correspondence to the Western year.)
10) F:XYL
(Format of the book.  Current options are XYL [xylograph], MS 
[handwritten manuscript], or TYP [metal typography].)
11) M:T
(Material used, meaning apparent source of paper.  Current options 
are T (Tibet), R (Russia), I (India), or C (China).  The decision of the apparent source of paper will be somewhat inexact by nature, and will be made by the Tibetan input operators and Russian experts on site.)
12) H:W,Y
(Hue of paper.  The first letter refers to the color of the paper, which 
in almost every case will be white or off-white, both indicated by W.  Works on black paper do exist at the Library and will be indicated by B.  The letter following the comma gives the color of the traditional dye smeared on the side of the volume, which can aid in the identification of the source of a text.  Current options are original White, or else colored Red or Yellow.)
13) G:G
(Grade of paper.  A subjective decision by the operator about the strength and thickness of the paper.  Current options are Good, 
Medium, or Bad.)
14) R:G
(Readability of printing.  Subjective decision by operator about whether the printing is clear and easy to read, or whether for example parts are badly smudged and illegible.  Current options 
are Good, Medium, or Bad.)
15) V:KA PA
(Volume number, according to traditional Tibetan system of assigning letters in alphabetical order.)
16) P:1A-15B
(Page numbers of text, as they appear in text.)
17) Q:6
(Quantity of lines per page, taken from the front side of the fifth folio, if there is one.  Otherwise from any page typical for the majority of the text.)
18) O:5.2 x 20.6
(Outside dimensions of folio; the dimensions of the paper page.  Again taken from the fifth folio if available, otherwise from any typical page.  Expressed in centimeters to nearest tenth.)
19) I:4.3 x 19.4
(Inside dimensions, meaning dimensions of the printed area, normally the dimensions of the traditional line box carved around the text.  Again taken from the fifth folio, front side, or from any other, typical folio if it is not available.)
20) L:LHA SA
(Location mentioned in the colophon to the particular text. Normally the place of printing, but sometimes place of composition of the text.)
21) D:1AL-RJE RIN PO CHE, 1AR-RJE BTZUN BYAMS PA
(Drawings carved or painted on the folio, with location and identification of figure copied from accompanying caption.  In the above example, 1 indicates folio number; A front side of folio; and L the left side of the folio, with the caption for the figure following a hyphen.  When a certain ornament covers the entire folio this is indicated in the form of 1A-RGYAN.)
22) C:PAR BYANG SMON TSIG CHA TSANG,
(Normally the entire Colophon.)
ACIP in Mongolia


ACIP is pleased to announce that its preparations to catalog the great Tibetan-text collections of Mongolia are proceeding.  Project staff have made several visits to the two major collections of the country in the capital city of Ulan Bator, and completed agreements for cataloging their contents.  We estimate that there are approximately 1.4 million titles in the two collections, although a good number of these titles are, no doubt, duplicates.  The Mongolian collections are especially important for the Project, since we have discovered many texts here that we have not found anywhere else in the world.
		
The library of the main Buddhist monastery of the country, Gangdan Tekchen Ling, holds a vast collection of books that, during the religious persecution of the communist era „from 1937 until only recently„were not properly cared for.  We estimate that it will take many decades simply to put all the loose woodblock pages of the works back into order and catalog them properly.  The efforts by local Mongolian monk scholars to restore the Library are admirable, although they have a serious lack of material and financial support needed to complete their task.

ACIP has organized a team of about five input operators and managers to assist in this work, and they are expected to arrive in Mongolia late this year, with computers donated by various parties in the US.  We would like to thank the abbot of Gangdan, Khamba Lama D. Choi-Jamts, for his gracious help during our visits, and his serious interest in the cataloging project.  ACIP has also received a great deal of assistance from the Foreign Officer of Gangdan, Mr. Baatar Bazar.

The collection at the Mongolian National Library is in much better condition; it generally contains woodblock prints and manuscripts that the former communist authorities determined had monetary value, and was better cared for.  Here ACIP staff also received gracious welcomes and assistance from the Library Director, Mr. Jampaldorj Serjee, as well as from the head of the Tibetan section, and Mr. Ganjavin Gansukh.
We would finally like to express our thanks to several parties in Mongolia who greatly facilitated our trips there.  One was the Ven. Lama Guru Deva, whose efforts to save Tibetan literature over many decades have been equaled by few.  The Ven. Bakula Rinpoche, Ambassador of the Government of India to Mongolia, is a truly great scholar and thinker who has taken sincere interest in the cataloging work and pledged his assistance.  His assistant, Mr. Sonam Wangchuk, was especially helpful to Project staff during our visits.


Using the AsiaView Program 
to Get the Most from ACIP Release IV


With past ACIP releases, users of the Project's materials could view, search, and print texts in native Tibetan letters only by using commercial software programs that had to be purchased separately.  We are pleased to announce that, with the new version of the AsiaView program found on Release IV, all of these functions are provided without cost, along with the data itself.  We would like to thank the author of the AsiaView program, Mr. Eric Colombel, for providing his efforts to ACIP users free of charge.  We would also like to express our gratitude to Mr. Gerry Wiener of Colorado,  USA, for licensing his Tibetan fonts to be packaged with AsiaView, as well as for his work in creating a convenient utility to convert roman input code to Tibetan letters.

This section of the user manual will first give a brief summary 
of the new capabilities of the AsiaView program, and then give detailed instructions for actually using it to research the tens of thousands of pages of material on the new release.

An Overview of  AsiaView
AsiaView is a free Windows 95/98 program on ACIP Release IV that you can install on your computer automatically from the CD-ROM.  First of all, it allows you to read on the screen any one of the more than a thousand important classical books on the CD-ROM, in either the roman letters of the ACIP text input system, or in the original Tibetan script.  A multiple windows capability allows you to have many different texts up on the screen at the same time„say an important root text and three or four commentaries from different centuries„and to view each one of them easily.

A convenient, basic word processor in the program allows you to copy out any sections of a text or texts that you like, and create an instant study of whatever subject or concept you are working on.  You can print from this tool, and make use of all the standard features such as cut-and-paste, a wide variety of fonts and sizes, 
and standard text formatting and file operations.
A special "Preferences" menu option allows you to store the ACIP digital texts wherever you choose, and still gain complete access to them.  If you want portability, you can copy all or some of the texts to the hard disk of your laptop; if you are short on space, you can leave them on the CD-ROM.

The menu bar at the top of the screen in AsiaView allows you to immediately access important sections of the database„the Kangyur Collection, the Tengyur Collection, the Sungbum Collection, the Reference Materials, Sanskrit Study Tools, or the ACIP Graphics Collections„all at the click of a single button.

With another click you can access automatic options such as seeing a list of all Tengyur texts by Sanskrit title, by Tibetan title, or by English title.  With a different click you can see another list of all Tengyur texts organized under their author's names, either in Sanskrit or in Tibetan.  With yet another click you can access the texts by subject category, again in Sanskrit, Tibetan, or English.

After you select one of these options, you are taken to an operations window.  From here you can select any text you want by using a name search tool, and then view a preview of its opening sections in either Tibetan script or roman letters.  At this point you can also click on a "text info" tab that gives you various bibliographic details about the text.

If you, at this point, decide you want to work with still another text, you click on a button that lets you open the book either in Tibetan script or in roman letters, whichever you prefer.  After the text is open, you can even switch between roman letters and Tibetan letters, or open the same text in both at once.

From here too you can start to search the text for whatever you need to find.  When you press the "search" button, a special screen comes up giving you a wide range of options for searching: you can search for single or multiple items; ask the program to find two words near each other; find one word but not another word that is very similar; search only parts of the text; or run advanced routines such as "fuzzy" or "wildcard" searches.  

Most important, you can also run a "global" search of all the books on a certain subject, or all the books by a certain author.  Each 
of these tools is vital for finding valuable information within the 
Asian classics, and you will soon find yourself able to accomplish 
in minutes what used to require days, or even months, of manual research.

The results of searching come up in a variety of ways.  When you are in a single text, you can choose a "highlight" option and skip progressively through occurrences of what you are looking for.  With single texts or groups of texts you can choose a "hit-list" option, which builds for you a comprehensive list of all the lines that contain the string you are seeking.  When you highlight any line in the hit list, a special window displays a full three lines of context, as well as information about the total hits and the line your current hit comes from.

Once you have found the text or part of a text that interests you, a full "printing" option allows you to print out any part you like, in roman or Tibetan letters.  And although you cannot input Tibetan letters directly from the keyboard, you can create any Tibetan document you want by typing the roman input code from the word processor, and then converting it to Tibetan with a special free utility.

Aside from the texts, AsiaView also takes you to reference tools such as catalogs, dictionaries, and documentation in Tibetan, Sanskrit, or English.  All of the documentation from past ACIP releases, as well as several samplers of how ACIP data can be used to create sophisticated hypertext essays, are available here with complete links to jump between the subjects of your choice.

A graphics viewer tool included within AsiaView allows you to retrieve and view any one of the special carved illustrations or stylized monastic seals in the ACIP Graphics Collections.  You can also use this tool to print out a graphics image, or else use your own favorite word processor to import the picture straight into any document you are working on.

A special "Tools" option in the main menu bar takes you directly 
to a number of very useful tools.  The first is the ACIP Master Catalog, which gives you all the details about a book: the title in various languages, author, dates, source, pages, file name, and so on.  This window also allows you to preview the text either in roman or Tibetan letters.  Here too are the routines for adding more texts to the Master Catalog, even those you have typed in yourself, so that they can be accessed by the AsiaView program.

Another tool is the ACIP Input Code Chart, which gives you the corresponding roman equivalents for the various Tibetan letters.  This is important since, when you search for words or phrases even in the Tibetan-letter screens, you are still doing so from a roman keyboard.

Perhaps the most exciting tool included under the "Tools" option is called "tree management."  This option allows you to create your own customized groups of texts for performing specialized searches.  For example, you could group your favorite works by century, or by specific geographic areas such as U-Tsang or Amdo, in order to do a study of the unique words of a certain period in history or section of the country.  AsiaView already includes a good number of pre-defined trees, and more will be provided with future updates.

Finally, a detailed "Help" option gives you information about every part of the AsiaView program and the Project in general.  
Also included is the latest information for contacting ACIP.
System and Disk Space Requirements
In order to install the AsiaView program on your computer, you may need as much as eighty megabytes of free space available on your hard disk, depending on how your computer is set up. The main reason for the amount of space required is the complex database system used by AsiaView to provide instant access to any ACIP text or graphics file.  This program works in both Windows 95 and Windows 98. Any computer that can run these versions of Windows, whether it be an IBM-compatible or a Macintosh, will run the AsiaView program.  AsiaView does not run under older versions of Windows.

However, the entire database on the CD-ROM can be fully accessed by users with older computers, who do not have access to the Windows program, or who are using an ordinary Macintosh without Windows emulation.  See the section of this user manual entitled "Shareware Programs: Using the ACIP Database with an Older Computer, or with Computers that Do Not Run Windows" on page 124.

Please note that the AsiaView program is optimized for super-VGA or higher resolution screens, and for "small fonts," although it will also work on displays with less resolution.  (Super-VGA gives a resolution of 800 x 600, whereas the older VGA is 640 x 480.)

With the books themselves, you have an option either to use the data directly from the CD-ROM, or to load all or just parts of the data that you use frequently onto your hard disk.  In either case you will need to start with a CD-ROM drive, either connected externally to your computer, or included within it.  If you choose to leave parts of the data on the CD-ROM (for example, the Tibetan-letter files), you will have to study the documentation for file preferences carefully, for proper set-up. 

If you choose to put the entire database onto your hard disk, you will need up to 500 megabytes of free disk space.  This breaks down into the following space requirements for the various major sections (in addition to the space required by the AsiaView program itself):

As you can see, a lot of disk space can be saved by keeping only the roman-letter files on your computer, if you are comfortable with reading Tibetan this way.  In any case, you can always just leave most or all of the files on the CD-ROM and read them from there. 
Program Version
The instructions in this document pertain to Version 2 of the AsiaView program, which is the version included on ACIP 
Release IV, A Thousand Books of Wisdom.
Late Additions: the ReadMe File
As soon as you begin to work with the new ACIP data release, be sure to log onto the CD-ROM drive and study the "ReadMe" file located under the "ReadMe" directory.  This file includes information about last-minute changes and additions to the program that could not be included in this user manual, and which may be necessary for using the program effectively.  After the CD-ROM and this manual have been released, we will begin to post further late-breaking information on the ACIP website.  (See the section called "Contacting ACIP" on page 185 for the contact info.)
Installing AsiaView
In order to install the AsiaView program onto your own computer, log onto the drive where the CD-ROM is located by going to the "Run" option of the Windows "Start" menu item, filling in the letter for your CD-ROM drive, and then double-clicking on the icon marked "setup.exe".  Continue to click on the "Next" button until installation is completed.

This will automatically put the AsiaView program on your computer and install the program with a convenient icon in the "Programs" section of the "Start" menu of Windows for starting up the program easily.  This new version of AsiaView is also designed to install the Sambhota Tibetan-script fonts automatically in Windows, so that you will be able to view and print all the Tibetan texts in the native script.

To test your installation, start the AsiaView program from the AsiaView icon in the "Programs" group under the "Start" button 
of the Windows opening screen.  A quick way to leave AsiaView, when you have finished your work with the program, is to hold down the ALT key and hit F4.
Installing the Sambhota Tibetan-Script Fonts
As mentioned above, ACIP has licensed a Tibetan script font 
so that you can view and print the text material in the original Tibetan script.  Like any other font, this must be installed in your Windows system before it will work.  The routine that installs AsiaView on your computer is designed to install the font automatically, and so the following instructions are only necessary in the event that you have to install the font manually at some point.

An easy way to do this in Windows 95 is to click on "Start" in 
the opening Windows menu.  Then click on the "Help" menu option.  Type out the word "fonts" in the index screen, and under this subject double-click on "adding to your computer."  This selection guides you through the process of opening the Fonts folder, clicking on "Install New Font," clicking on the drive 
and folder that contains the Sambhota Tibetan fonts, and finally double-clicking on the icon of the font you want to add.

On the ACIP CD-ROM, the primary Sambhota fonts are located in the "Fonts" subdirectory under the "Sambhota" directory; a partial, alternate Sambhota font with a slightly different look is located in this directory under the subdirectory "Altfont."  During automated installation, incidentally, the path where the font is placed is \Windows\Fonts.
Technical Details of Fonts
The following is some rather technical detail on the various Tibetan-letter fonts supplied with AsiaView.  There are slight variations of the basic Sambhota fonts that allow you to utilize the fonts in different applications and in different typesetting environments.

The ACIP CD-ROM is supplied with two different font families: "Esam" and "Sam".  The first of these, Esam, is designed to align with roman letter fonts along a baseline; whereas the Sam family of fonts is designed to align the different sizes of Tibetan letters along a head-line.  Each of the families is contained in three groups of ligatures, divided into three font files due to a mapping limitation.  These three groups are indicated in the three font file names ending with the letters "a," "b," and "c".

There is a TrueType version of each font and a PostScript version, due to the different applications that use these different versions to their best advantage.  PostScript, for example, is used in Adobe applications, whereas TrueType is the normal font type used by Windows programs.

Finally, ACIP has received an additional variation of one of the TrueType font groups, the "a" group (which contains almost all 
the basic letters and letter combinations needed) within the "Esam" family; this was supplied as a contribution to the Project by its creator.  In this version of the font, kerning is wider on the screen and page, making the Tibetan easier to read for some users.  
Other users find the original "Esam" easier to read since, although more compressed, it features a more pronounced tapering of the letters.  Try both and see which suits you better.  The alternate 
font is located in a subdirectory called "Altfont" under the main 
CD-ROM directory "Sambhota".

PostScript and Macintosh versions of the fonts used by AsiaView are also available for general use under the "Psfonts" and "Mac" subdirectories of the "Sambhota\Fonts" directory on the ACIP 
CD-ROM.
Uninstalling AsiaView
AsiaView falls into that very useful category of Windows programs that can be easily uninstalled or removed from your computer, if you find that you need the disk space, or want to add a new version of the program.  Go to the "Start" button of your Windows program and select "Settings."  Click on the "Control Panel," 
and then double-click on "Add/Remove Programs."  Click on 
the "AsiaView" program in the window, and click on the "Remove" button.  AsiaView will be entirely cleaned from your hard disk within a minute or so.
Copying the Texts to Your Own Computer
With AsiaView installed on your computer, you next decide where you would like to store the texts.  As noted above, they require a lot of disk space, and you may wish to just leave them on the CD-ROM where you can easily access them from AsiaView.  In some cases though it may be desirable to move the text files to the hard disk of your own computer„if your laptop computer, for example, has no CD-ROM drive, or if your CD-ROM drive is noticeably slower than your hard disk for searching the data.  If you change or edit ACIP data, or if you obtain newer versions of ACIP files, these updated files will also need to be stored on your hard disk.

Note that the files with the texts in Tibetan script contain the letters "RTF" in the extension of their file name.  These take up the most space, and you may want to leave these or other files that you do not use frequently on the CD-ROM, moving the others to your hard disk.  Then you can give the AsiaView two alternate locations for the various texts, using the "preferences" option under the "file" menu.  This option is a little tricky and must be studied carefully.

Regardless of where you decide to store your texts, you must tell the AsiaView program where they are.  This step is described in the
section called "Specifying Your File Location Preferences" on page 50.
Adding New Texts at a Later Date
The AsiaView program has been designed with future expansion 
in mind.  The program is "data-driven" rather than "hard-coded," which means that more texts can be added at a future date, and 
will still be recognized by the program.  ACIP anticipates making interim releases of additional text data at regular intervals, primarily through its website, and individual users may wish to add texts of their own.  In either case, a few steps are necessary.

You must first of all put the new text into the directory where it belongs, with other texts of the same type, according to your own preferences.  
If the text is a roman-letter version, it must, of course, comply with the standard ACIP input code system to be consistent with the other data for searching purposes.  (The ACIP input code system is described fully in the section entitled "ACIP Tibetan Input Code" on page 153.)
If you wish to view the text in the native Tibetan script, you must obtain or create a Tibetan script version, or "RTF" file, and this file too must be placed in the proper directory.  (Instructions for creating "RTF" Tibetan files are contained in the section called "Converting Roman-letter Files to Tibetan-Letter Files" on page 78.)  The directory for RTF files is normally a subdirectory named "RTF" under the directory in which the roman-letter version of a text is stored.
Specifying Your File Location Preferences
PLEASE NOTE: You must do this step properly, or the AsiaView program will not work.
When you call up a particular text to view, search, or print it, AsiaView has to know where to go to find it for you.  Therefore, 
an essential first step is to fill in your file location preferences.

Once the texts have been placed in the directories where you want them, or simply left on the CD-ROM, then start the AsiaView program, and click on the "File" option located on the far left of the menu bar at the top of the screen.  This and many other menu items throughout the program can, of course, be accessed through an ALT key combination; 
in this case, by holding down the ALT key and striking "F".

Next click on the "Preferences" menu item.  Here you have two choices: a "primary location" screen and an "additional location" screen for each of the major sections of the ACIP database.  The paths to where the texts for each section are located must be filled in precisely for the AsiaView program to work.

The AsiaView program comes with pre-installed settings for these preferences, which are set for users who intend to keep their data on the CD-ROM, and whose CD-ROM drive is the "D:" drive.  
If your CD-ROM drive is a different drive, you will have to adjust this setting so that the drive specification is correct.  Here is a list of the pre-installed settings, so that in the event you accidentally change them, you can re-set them:
Catalog	C:\Program Files\ACIP\AsiaView 20\Catalog
Kangyur	D:\TEXTS\KANGYUR
Tengyur	D:\TEXTS\TENGYUR
Sungbum	D:\TEXTS\SUNGBUM
Sanskrit	D:\TEXTS\REF
Reference	D:\TEXTS\REF
Graphics	D:\GRAPHICS

All the files in the last six groups above must be placed in their own directory, and not in additional sub-directories under their own directory.  For example, in the file location preferences for the Kangyur Collection you cannot have additional subdirectories 
for "Perfection of Wisdom" or "Middle-Way Philosophy."  These kinds of groupings are accomplished with the subdirectory tree management tool described below, and most of them are pre-set for you already.  Again, the Tibetan-script file (the "RTF" file) for each text should be loaded into a directory called "RTF", which must itself be a subdirectory of the directory in which the corresponding roman-letter file is located.

The "Preferences" screen comes with a useful feature that helps you tell the program where your text files are located.  On this screen you will notice a button off to the right of the line where you enter your preferences.  If you click on it, AsiaView will take you to the directory structure of your own computer.  To specify the correct path that goes to your data, you simply click and/or double-click on the appropriate drive and directory, until you reach the directory you want.  Then click the "OK" button, and AsiaView will automatically record the entire path to your data.

Suppose you choose to keep some of the texts on your hard disk, and others on the CD-ROM, either because you have limited hard-disk space or because you have placed an updated version of a text on your hard disk.  In this case, you will need to use the "additional location" window for specifying the location of the files on the CD-ROM. Then, you need to use the "primary location" window for specifying the locations of the files that you have stored on your hard disk. This change is necessary since AsiaView will check first for a particular text in the primary location and then automatically go and look for the text in the additional location if it cannot find it.

This procedure is thus important when adding future interim releases of ACIP data, whether from a floppy disk, or through download from the ACIP website.  Please note that whenever you face a case where the primary and secondary locations both contain a file of the same name (one older and one newer), you will want to make sure that the newer version is in the primary location.

If you have problems viewing or searching text, be sure to check whether these file location preferences have been set correctly.
Viewing the Texts in Roman or Tibetan Letters 
from the Main Menu
When you want to view a text, either in roman letters or in the original Tibetan script, you can use several different methods to do so.  If you know which of the major collections the text is found in, click on that collection on the menu bar at the top of the screen; for example, click on "Tengyur" if the text you wish to view is an early Indian commentary.  This menu item will give you a variety of choices for how to locate the text; in the case of the Tengyur, you can call up a list of the texts either by title, author, or subject„all three with an option for viewing the list in the Sanskrit, Tibetan, or English versions„or you can call up a specific text by its catalog number, if you know it.

If you decide simply to choose the "by catalog number" option, you may want to confirm this number first.  The current catalog numbers for almost all texts are found in the abbreviated hard-copy catalog of available texts at the end of this user manual.  Alternately, you can search the ACIP Master Catalog to find the text you want, and note down its correct catalog number.  (The number must be typed in correctly or you cannot view the text this way.)

An explanation of how ACIP catalog numbers work is found in the section "ACIP File Nomenclature Conventions" on page 168; they are based primarily on the standard Tohoku University catalog.  If you choose to call up a text by its catalog number, it is very convenient to first call up the ACIP Master Catalog window from the "Tools" menu.  Then click on the "by catalog number" option under the type of text you want.  You will be able to search the Catalog and fill in the catalog number with precision, since both windows stay up on the screen at the same time.

Suppose you choose one of the viewing options other than the 
"by catalog number" option.  When you click on it and open the viewing screen, you then move automatically through the list of items simply by typing the first few letters of the text, person, or subject you are looking for.  The cursor will jump immediately to the right place.

The titles of these ancient texts though, as Asian scholars all know, often appear in a wide variety of spellings; or you may not remember the full name or how it starts.  We have, therefore, included a special tool for searching the list effectively for even a part of the name, whether it occurs at the beginning of the title or not.  This 
is also extremely useful with the names of authors, since these are often not standardized, and may or may not include an honorific title before the name; for example, the word rje ("the great") or dpal-ldan ("the glorious") may precede the personal name.

To get into this tool, either type ALT-S (hold down the "ALT" key and strike "s"), or else click in the box next to "Search for" in the upper left hand of the viewing screen.  Type in the part of the book or author name that you want to view, and then click on the button with the binoculars.  To repeat the search and jump to the next hit, click on the magnifying glass with the plus sign (+) in the middle.  

Within the item search utility you can also search for a title by its catalog number.  These numbers are either the famed Tohoku Catalog number or„where the text was never cataloged by the authors of this work„the ACIP Master Catalog number.
 
Remember that when the title has a small box to the left of it with 
a plus sign (+), it means that there are multiple entries below the general title; for example, a large work might come in four different volumes, which are retained as separate files in order to keep single files from getting too large and unwieldy to work with.  Double- click on the small box to see the full detail of these multiple entries, or to view them.  The search tool, by the way, will locate a title or item in a multiple entry below a general title whether or not you have opened up the full detail by double-clicking on it; this is done automatically whenever you reach a hit in your search for a title or other item.

When you use the cursor to highlight a title in the left half of this window, you will automatically see a roman-letter preview of the text in the right half.  Since the ACIP input system retains the page and line numbers of the original text, you will see blocks of text
corresponding to the original lines, separated by blank lines.

Scrolling up or down in the preview with the arrow bar on the right side of the screen, you will also see the original page numbers, marked with an "at" symbol (@), and an "A" or "B" for the front and back sides of a Tibetan folio, following the page number.  This roman-letter preview gives you around ten lines of text, so you can confirm that this is the title you are looking for.

To get to the Tibetan-letter preview, click on that heading on the right half of the screen.  If the text comes up with nonsense letters or other problems, you have not loaded your RTF or Tibetan-letter files correctly, or not told the program where to find them properly with the "Preferences" option.

From this preview screen you can also view major fields from the ACIP Master Catalog entry for the text you have selected.  Simply click on the "Text info" option in the upper right hand corner, making sure your cursor on the left is placed on the text you wish.  It's a lot of fun to just arrow down on the left side through different texts as this detailed information pops up on the right.  Please note that further details on each text can be found in the Master Catalog itself, which is a database accessed from the "Tools" menu item at the top of the opening screen for AsiaView.

When you are ready to view the entire text, either in roman or Tibetan letters, click on the "Open in roman script" or "Open in Tibetan script" options at the bottom of the screen.  Again, if there is a problem in viewing the Tibetan, this may be because you have not loaded the "RTF" or Tibetan-letter files properly, and you should check your "Preferences" under the "File" menu item from the ribbon at the top of the opening AsiaView screen.
At the bottom of the full viewing screen is a status bar with useful information about the text.  Here you will find the full name of the source file in the database; the total number of bytes or characters in the text; the current line and horizontal position in the line where your cursor is placed; and the "selection," or number in the text of the character of your present cursor location.  The file name is especially useful, since you can then go into the database with any file manager and copy the particular book you are studying to floppy disk, to share with others.

Remember that AsiaView allows you to have a large number of viewing screens up at the same time.  You could, for example, have two windows up with the very same text in Tibetan script, comparing different sections of the text with each other.  Or you could have up a text from the Kangyur Collection, along with a commentary from the Tengyur Collection, and two or three Tibetan commentaries in separate windows at the same time, focusing on several different explanations of the same passage in the root text.

A powerful tool while you have several texts up at once is the "Tile" function under the "Window" selection in the bar at the top of the main screen.  This function puts all your texts side by side, allowing you to compare readings easily.  If you have a lot of texts up at once, you can choose the "Cascade" function, where one text is displayed in front of the others, and you shuffle through texts by clicking on the top of the box that shows just behind the text up front.

Another useful function of AsiaView is that you can always increase or decrease the size of either the roman or Tibetan letters in a window immediately and automatically, simply by clicking on one of the buttons with the two "A" letters on the tool bar at the top of the screen.  Yet another feature to note is that you can quickly close down most AsiaView viewing screens simply by typing ALT-C, rather than trying to click on the small "x" in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

A final feature of all the AsiaView text viewing screens is that you can immediately call up Master Catalog details on the text that you have up at any time.  Make sure that the window of the text for which you want to see the Catalog details is the active window.  Then click on the open-book icon button in the main menu bar at the top of the AsiaView window.  A "Text information" screen will come up, with options for two pages of "Details" from the catalog entry; the "Notes" field for the entry; and the "Description" field as well. 
Moving through a Text
Once you have brought a text up in the AsiaView program, it acts like any other Windows document.  Move up and down in the text by putting your mouse arrow on the bar at the right, holding down the left mouse button, and pushing up or down.  Or else go to the very beginning or end of a text by holding down the CTRL and HOME keys, or go to the end of the document by pressing the CTRL and END keys, simultaneously.  If you wish to block out the entire contents of a screen, hit CTRL-A.  The copy, pasting, and other common Windows functions work the same as with any other Windows program; see the "File" and "Edit" selections from the main menu bar to familiarize yourself with all the pre-defined shortcuts available.
Note on Mixed-Language Files
Please note that a number of texts, especially reference materials such as Tibetan-English dictionaries, contain two or more different languages, and can only be viewed in the roman-letter option.  "Marking up" these files so that, for example, the Tibetan parts show up on the screen in Tibetan letters and the English parts 
show in roman letters, is extremely labor-intensive and beyond the current resources of the project.  We hope to address this in future versions of the AsiaView program, and would be happy for suggestions on funding or for volunteers who would like to help accomplish this.
Note on Sanskrit-Letter Stacks
In addition to the normal letters of the Tibetan alphabet, there are hundreds of special combinations of Tibetan letters„stacks of shortened and otherwise modified Tibetan symbols„that are used 
to represent the Sanskrit language with Tibetan letters. When the Tibetans, over a thousand years ago, began to obtain great books from India and translate them into their language, they almost always added the original Sanskrit title, in Tibetan letters, at the beginning of the translation.
The Tibetan script incorporated into the AsiaView program was designed to handle many of the most common of these special letter stacks, but not all of them.  Users should be aware that when they try to view one of these combinations in the Tibetan-letter screen, some of the more unusual combinations may not show in Tibetan letters, but rather in roman. We would be grateful to receive lists of such combinations from users of ACIP data, and we will endeavor to continue to add new stacks of letters to the program in the future.
Viewing the Texts in Roman or Tibetan Letters 
through the ACIP Master Catalog
AsiaView is designed to allow you to get a preview of a text in an alternate way as well.  This is through the ACIP Master Catalog, and is meant to give you the option of immediately seeing what the first part of a text looks like, as you utilize the advanced database options of the ACIP Master Catalog to find the works you need.

To access this option, click on the "Tools" option in the main menu bar.  Select the first entry, "ACIP Master Catalog."  The full use of this catalog is described below under "Using the ACIP Master Catalog" on page 83.  To see a preview of a particular text, use the database functions to find the one you are interested in, and click the cursor on the appropriate line.  Then click on the "Roman preview" or "Tibetan preview" option.  Again, be sure to note that„if you see nonsense characters on the screen or have other problems with the "Tibetan preview" option„it is probably because you have not specified the location of the Tibetan-letter or "RTF" files properly in the "Preferences" option of the "File" menu.
Viewing the ACIP Graphics Collections
ACIP graphics materials come in two parts: the ACIP Graphics Library„a set of exquisite woodblock drawings found on a number of the texts that ACIP has input; and, a collection of the very interesting monastic seals found on the tens of thousands of texts cataloged by 
the Project in the great collections of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Items in both of these graphics collections can be viewed in the same way as the texts.  Click on the collection you wish to view, and then search through the list window that comes up for the item of your choice.  As you move the cursor down through the list, a preview of each graphic will appear in the right-hand window.  After selecting the desired item, click on the "view" button to open the graphic. Now you can resize the window in the usual way, or zoom in on the image using the magnifier buttons. You can also use the mouse to select a portion of the image to view in detail. Remember that all of these graphics files come in a standard format, which means that you can use your favorite word processor to bring these pictures into any document you want, and thus produce printed materials that incorporate high-quality graphic images. 
For details, see the next section entitled "Using ACIP Graphics in Your Own Documents".
Using ACIP Graphics in Your Own Documents 
The woodblock carvings of eminent Tibetan authors and other personages and objects found in the ACIP Graphics Library can 
help a lot in making your own publications of related material more interesting and authoritative.  These images can be imported automatically into any major word-processing program, such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect.  First check the ACIP Graphics collections to find a suitable image; this is accessed from the "Graphics" menu item in the main menu bar at the top of the AsiaView window.

Once you have found the catalog number for the file containing 
the image you want, then go to the "Graphics" directory on the CD-ROM and from within your word-processor call it up. Almost every word-processor can additionally create an attractive box with a place for a caption below it, as in the examples you see here in the user manual.
Viewing Sanskrit Materials
At present, Sanskrit materials found on ACIP releases come only 
in roman letters.  Again we do not currently have the resources necessary to convert and display all these sections in the native Devanagari script, and we also recognize that the majority of Western students of Sanskrit are used to reading and using it in roman letters anyway.  Notes about the Sanskrit transliteration method used can be found below in the "Searching Sanskrit-Language Materials" section on page 71, as well as in the "ACIP Sanskrit Input Code Standards" section on page 161.
Viewing Partial, Incomplete, Copyrighted, 
or Restricted Texts
There are a great number of texts in the ACIP database that are either partial, incomplete, copyrighted, or restricted.  These are treated in special ways by the AsiaView program.  A "partial" text might first of all be a portion of a larger text that has intentionally not been input in its entirety at this stage in the Project.  An example would be the volume included with the Kangyur Collection that contains both a lengthy description of the history of its carving and a detailed catalog of its contents: we have input the catalog, but not yet the history.  Texts of this type include a "P" file-status letter in the database file name, and users should be aware that a search of the file will represent only a partial picture of the entire volume.  (The full details of the ACIP file nomenclature standards are described in a separate section of this name on page 168.)

"Incomplete" texts are frequently very large works, often in multiple volumes, which have not yet been typed in completely.  Sometimes the text verification software used by the Project has allowed us to isolate a few lines of a large work that have been corrupted, and texts marked "incomplete" often have only a paragraph or so missing.  (This is normally due either to nasty computer viruses that sometimes sweep through our Asian input centers, or to undetectable electrical power brown-outs during disk copying steps, when the copying goes on but the data of a few lines has, for a split-second, been corrupted.)

All texts with incomplete data include the letter "I" in the file name, and have a notice at the top of the text indicating that it is incomplete.  Users should watch the ACIP website for the full version of these texts as we receive the incomplete sections from 
our overseas data centers.  Incomplete texts are included in the database because, as any regular user knows, even a few available pages of a text can be extremely useful when looking for an explanation of a particular word or idea.

Copyrighted texts, in cases where ACIP has not yet negotiated with the owner of the copyright for permission to release the work to the general public, come up with a message that the item is copyrighted and available only for the in-house use of scholars immediately connected to the Project.  These files are included on the CD-ROM but are zipped with the popular "PK-Zip" program and encrypted with a special password; they can only be "unzipped" with this password, for in-house use.

There are about a thousand books in the ACIP database (above and beyond the "Thousand Books of Wisdom" on Release IV) that are, by tradition, considered restricted or secret: the "tantric" or esoteric works.  These are not contained in the CD-ROM at all, and when you attempt to access them a message comes up describing how to apply for them from the Project.  (This requires demonstrating that you have the traditional qualifications for reading these texts, and that you intend to honor our request to use the text only for your own personal study.)
Viewing the ACIP Input Code Chart
In order to perform searches successfully, you must be familiar 
with the ACIP input code standards.  The input code charts for both Tibetan and Sanskrit are found here in the user manual, and are also included in the AsiaView program so that they can be quickly accessed until you are completely acquainted with the roman-letter codes and can type them from memory when performing a search.

To access the input code chart, click on the "Tools" selection in 
the main menu.  Then click on "ACIP input code chart."  Both Tibetan and Sanskrit standards are included in this one document.
Viewing ACIP Documentation
During the more than ten years that ACIP has been in existence, we have tried to be careful to document our work, so that users get the most out of the data.  You can view the entire documentation produced over the history of the Project, including this user manual, from within the AsiaView program by clicking on the "Reference" selection in the main menu, and then clicking on "ACIP documentation."  Included in this selection as well are two hypertext essays authored early on in the Project; these give an excellent idea of how material can be searched, excerpted, and woven into a new theme for presenting the great ideas of Asia.  Please note that you can also access this same documentation from the "Tools" selection in the main menu by clicking on the "ACIP documentation" line there.
Printing the Texts in Roman or Tibetan Letters
You can print out selections either in roman or Tibetan letters.  Printing a text in AsiaView works the same as with any other Windows word-processing program.  Select the text you want to print from the preview screen.  Then block out the part you want to print, by holding down your left mouse button and moving the mouse down through the text to the end of your selection.  Then access the "File" menu option by typing ALT-F or clicking on it with your mouse.  Next print the selection by clicking on the "Print" option or by typing CTRL-P.  You can print the entire text if you wish.

As described below, you have the option of moving selections from one or more texts to AsiaView's own word processor; editing them; and then printing them from this window. (Due to a ug in the Windows operating system, cut and paste from Tibetan-letter files is not fully supported in this version of AsiaView.)

Please be aware that, as noted above, the more unusual stacks of Tibetan used to represent Sanskrit are not available in the free font supplied with AsiaView, and may not print properly.  If you are planning to print a lot of text, or hope to produce publishing- quality documents, you may want to look into one of the commercial, full-fledged Tibetan word-processing programs described in the section called "Update on Commercial Tibetan Word-Processing Programs" on page 133.
"	Text Search": Searching Single English 
	or Tibetan-Language Text Files in Roman Letters
As we designed the AsiaView program, we took great care to assure that texts could be searched in a comprehensive and powerful way, since this is the most important single reason for the existence of the ACIP project and database.  You have a wide variety of options for seeking out the items you need, and these range from basic to highly sophisticated search tools.

The instructions here give you all the ways to use the AsiaView program to perform searches; a full tutorial on making searches that are powerful and highly effective, especially for the Tibetan language, is found below in the section entitled, "Tricks for Expert Searches of Tibetan Texts" on page 101. 

The most basic way of searching for a word or phrase is with the "Text search" function, which is performed on a single file in a single screen.  It is important to realize that the "text search" function is built to work with single text files.  In a case where you wish to search a very large text that is contained in two or more text files, you must either search each of them separately, or use the "global search" function, described in the section entitled "Global Search: Searching Groups of Tibetan or English-Language Text Files" on page 68.

Please note that you cannot search through a text with the "Text search" function until you have actually called it up with "Open in roman script" or "Open in Tibetan script" from the preview screen; or else brought it into the word processor.  Once the text is up, type CTRL-S (which is the same thing as clicking on the "Edit" menu item and then clicking on the "Search" selection), or click on the "Search" button in the main menu bar. This brings you to the "Text search" screen.  Remember that the text search utility will search only the text displayed in the "active" window; you have to click on the desired text window to make it active before you can begin.

Take time to study the "Text search" screen, because you will not be able to execute a successful search unless it is filled in correctly.  To do the most basic kind of search, for any particular single syllable or group of syllables, type your string into any one of the boxes.

In Tibetan texts especially, it is often helpful to search for two variant spellings of the word or phrase you are looking for.  To do this successfully, you will need to specify one of the search operators in the "Relation" box.  Here there are four choices, that perform the following functions:


SEARCH 
OPERATOR	FUNCTION

"OR"	Finds any one or a number of the contents of any of the eight  boxes in the text search window, whether or not contents of 		the other windows are also found in the text.

"NEARBY"	Finds the contents of any one of the boxes on the left if they  occur within a specified number of lines on the screen away 		from the contents of any of the boxes on the right, but only if the contents on the left precede the contents on the right.	
"AND"	Finds the contents of any one of the boxes on the left if they occur within a specified number of lines on the screen away 		from the contents of any of the boxes on the right, regardless of  whether the contents on the left precede the contents on 		the  right or not.

"NOT"	Finds the contents of any one of the boxes on the left unless they  occur as part of a string in any one of the boxes on the right.


It is very important to note that, if you are searching only for a single item (that is, if only one box is filled in with something), this option must be set on "AND".  If instead it is set on "OR", for example, the search program will begin finding any line with a blank space in it.

A line at the bottom of the search tool keeps you updated as to what percentage of text has already been searched.  AsiaView contains a powerful search engine and can look through a very large text in the Kangyur, 700 pages for example, in about five seconds, depending on the speed of your computer.

If in the "Results" section of the text search window you have specified "Highlight text," then when you reach a hit the entire surrounding context is highlighted.  The number of lines of context highlighted is equal the number of lines to which the search tool has been set in the "Scope" option of the Text Search screen.  To repeat the search and go on to the next hit, simply press the F3 function key.  (But please note that if you use the F3 key to instruct the search tool to repeat a search when the "Direction" of the search is set for "Top down," you will simply continue to get the first hit down from the top of the file!)

There is also an option built into the "Results" section of this window that allows you to quickly compile a list of all the hits in the entire text, by clicking on the "Build hit list" option.  When the search is executed this way, another screen comes up: the "Search results hit list" window.  This is a very exciting tool where every single hit is listed, with a small amount of the context in which it occurs displayed in the window, along with the screen line number in the text where the hit was found.

At the top of the window you will find highlighted the entire line 
of context in which the hit was made, along with a box summarizing the total number of hits, and the number of the hit being viewed currently in its greater context.  Please note that when a line has two hits in a single line, the counter only counts them as one hit, and only displays the line once in the hit list.  Therefore, you can not assume that the number of hits listed is the actual number of occurrences of a particular string, but only that these are the number of lines in which the string occurs.

When you find a particular hit in the hit list that seems especially interesting, you can automatically view the text where the hit occurred, either in roman or Tibetan letters.  To see it in roman letters, use your cursor to highlight the line you wish to see and click on the "OK" button at the bottom.  The roman-letter version of the text will come up opened to the correct line, which is highlighted.  To view the text at approximately the same line in Tibetan letters, then simply click on the icon with the Tibetan letter ka in the AsiaView main menu bar.
It is very important that, before you attempt a search, you specify the "Direction" in the text search window.  A complete search of the entire file, regardless of where the cursor is presently located, requires that the direction be set to the "Top down" option.  Sometimes though it is very useful to begin a search for a new word or phrase after finding another one first; for example, when you want to reach a specific section in a text and only then see if a concept is discussed within that section.  In this case the "Direction" would have to be set to the "Cursor down" option, meaning that the search begins from the current position of the cursor on down.

It frequently happens that you are moving quickly through 
your hits in a text (by striking the F3 key repeatedly) and skip an interesting hit because you couldn't stop your finger in time.  Or you may notice that you have already moved beyond the chapter you wanted to study and wish to go back.  In either case it would be desirable to do a "reverse" or "backwards" search from the position of the cursor, by clicking on the "Cursor up" option in 
the "Direction" section of the text search window.  As of the writing of this user manual, we have begun the process of adding this function, and you will see a non-activated button for this in the text search window.  We will enable this function by the time of the next ACIP release.

Under the "Method" section of the text search screen, you have three options: "Normal," "Wildcards," and "Fuzzy."  Most often, this section should be set on "Normal."  A "Wildcard" setting allows you to look for two variants of the same word; for example, to search for the Tibetan phrases {SPONG} and {SPANG} at the same time, click on the "Wildcard" option and type {SP?NG} in the box.  The question mark stands for any single character, whether an alphabet symbol or a number, and so this search will hit on both variants.

This same "Wildcard" option comes with several other choices.  The wildcard operator "asterisk" (*) is used to represent zero or more characters, (including no characters) within the limits of the number of lines specified in your "Scope" option.  The characters represented can even include "white space" items like spaces and blank lines.  Thus you could execute a search for the single string {RDO*ZLAS} and hit all the following variations of the same Tibetan phrase: {RDO RJE BZLAS PA}, {RDO RJE'I BZLAS PA}, or {RDOR BZLAS}. 
The wildcard operator "number sign" (#) matches any one numeric character.  If you were curious to see how many of the Tibetan texts in the database mentioned the number of a Western-style year in this century, for example, you could search for 19## and find all of them.  On the other hand, the wildcard operator "at" or "each" (@) represents any single alpha character (letter of the alphabet or related symbols, as opposed to a number).

Please be aware that, since the symbols mentioned above (?,*,#, and @) represent search operators rather than normal symbols when the "wildcard search" is turned on, you cannot search for them as symbols when this option has been selected.  If you do have to search for any of these as characters in their own right, then re-set your "Method" selection to "Normal."

The "fuzzy" search option allows you to look for a word when you are not sure of its spelling.  This can be very useful in Tibetan, for example, when you hear a word spoken, since it could be spelled in a wide variety of ways.  The option functions by working around a defined number of mismatches or other problems that prevent a match.  The current version of AsiaView does not allow the user to define the number of problems, but is set on a number (two) that is most effective for the number of characters in the average Tibetan syllable.

Suppose, for example, that you hear a Lama quote a phrase like gyagar ke du.  A search for {GYA GAR KE DU} finds the correct spelling, {RGYA GAR SKAD DU}.  But please be warned that the very nature of this kind of search very typically also brings up a large number of false hits, due to the wide ambiguity that must be allowed for any hit at all.

Note finally the "Search type" section of the text search screen in the lower right hand corner.  There are a number of options here: "text only," "formatted text," and "case sensitive."  It is very important for most searches that this option be set on "text only."  The "text only" option tells the program to ignore all the special formatting information in the text, such as line separators, page numbers, and editing comments.  If you do not set this option correctly, and search for a number of syllables that are separated by one of the formatting codes, you will not get a hit.
In a case where you wish to hit the formatting codes as well (for example, if you want to check a citation on a specific known page number by searching for this page number indicator), then set this option to "formatted text."

The "case sensitive" option is vital for more sophisticated searches where a difference between an uppercase letter and a lowercase letter is important.  In the ACIP input code, for example, the retroflex dental row of Sanskrit-Tibetan letters is indicated by using the lowercase: the difference between a regular na and a retroflex na, to use one illustration, is that the first appears as {NA} and the second as {nA}.  A successful search for the latter then would require that the "case sensitive" option be turned on, in which case a checkmark appears in the box next to the option.  This option is especially important, therefore, for searching Sanskrit in Tibetan letters, where there are so many retroflex letters.
"	Text Search": Searching Single Text Files 
	in Tibetan Letters
Developing methods to allow searching of text files as they appear on the screen in Tibetan script required some programming gymnastics, but the result is a very effective tool that will be especially useful for native Tibetan speakers, thus opening up the vast ACIP database even to those with almost no knowledge of English or computers.

First bring up a Tibetan-script window by clicking "Open in Tibetan script" at the bottom of the preview screen you use to select and preview your text.  Next hit CTRL-S, or click on the search button, to open the text search window.  You will see a roman-letter version of the text open up briefly, followed by the normal text search window.

In order to tell the AsiaView program to search even a Tibetan-script document, you must still enter Tibetan from the regular QWERTY keyboard, using the ACIP input code.  Due to numerous considerations such as the technical problems and need for proprietary software that will soon be outdated, we have decided not to attempt to incorporate a separate Tibetan keyboard at this time.  Rather, AsiaView has been designed so that you can use any IBM-compatible computer keyboard in the world, without special software, to  access the Tibetan-letter search function.

Following the instructions in the section called "Text Search: Searching Single English or Tibetan-Language Text Files in Roman Letters" on page 61, define the search you wish to execute.  When you get a hit, you will see it come up in the roman-letter window.  Now go up to the bar of icons at the top of the full program screen, and click on the icon with the Tibetan letter ka.  The cursor will jump to the section of the Tibetan-letter text where your hit is located.  The section is not highlighted, and you may have to look for a line or two in either direction to find your hit.

To repeat a search, you must click back on the roman-letter version of the text, hit F3 to repeat the search, and then click again on the icon with the Tibetan letter ka.  Remember that the F3 key does not work to find the next hit when the "Direction" of the search is set at "Top down", since you will simply continue to hit the first match from the top of the file.				
"	Global Search": Searching Groups of Tibetan 
	or English-Language Text Files
The most powerful kind of search that can be done with the ACIP database involves searching entire sections of the database for a particular concept to access the wisdom of authors who lived thousands of miles or thousands of years apart, to gain a deeper understanding of the idea.  The AsiaView program has been designed to give you maximum power to search a wide variety of standard groups of texts such as the Kangyur or Tengyur Collections, and to actually design your own customized group searches, for example with your two favorite authors alone.  For this you must learn to use the special "global search" function.

The global search function is accessed either from the "Edit" selection in the main menu bar at the top of the screen, or else by simply hitting CTRL-G from the main AsiaView window itself.  Alternatively, you can click on the "global search" button on the main menu bar. You will see two tabs in the global search window: "Text selection" and "Search criteria".  The search criteria work exactly the same as the "Text search" function for looking through single text files, as described in the "Text Search: Searching Single English or Tibetan-Language Text Files in Roman Letters" section on page 61.

It is important that you define the text selection carefully; this will decide which group of texts is searched by the global search function.  Click first on the small arrow next to "Text type".  Here 
you will find a number of pre-defined groups of texts that you 
can search: the Kangyur Collection; the Tengyur Collection; the Sungbum Collection; Reference Materials (in groups of Catalogs, Dictionaries, and Documents); and Sanskrit Materials.  Last in the list are the "User-defined Trees," where you can define your own groups of texts for searching.  The instructions for creating these trees or customized groups of texts, by the way, are found in the section entitled "Creating Your Own Pre-Defined Groups of Texts, for Specialized Searches" on page 73.

Suppose you decide that you wish to search the entire Kangyur 
for a certain item.  In this case, you would click on the "Kangyur" option in the "Text type" box.  Remember first to click on the small arrow next to the "Listed by" box, in order to specify whether you want to see all the titles in Tibetan, Sanskrit, or English.

Selecting the "Kangyur" option from the "Text type" brings up, in the left half of the window, a list of every text in the database found in the Kangyur.  To start your global search, you must first move all the texts to be searched to the right half of window.  To do this, place your mouse arrow on the box with all the Kangyur texts listed, on the left hand of the screen.  Click on the righthand mouse button, which will bring up a little box that says gives you the option of "Select" or "Select all".  Clicking on the "Select all" option highlights the entire list of Kangyur titles.

Next click on the highlighted section with the left-hand mouse button, continue to hold it down, and use your mouse to move the entire list over to the right half of the window.  Now release the mouse button, which drops all the texts into the "Text selection" part of the window.  These then become the texts that will be covered by the global search.

Alternately you can first click the "Select all" in the list of Kangyur titles and then click "Select," both from the right-hand mouse button on the list, and all titles will be moved to the group to be searched, on the right side of the screen.  You can also very easily define two entire collections of texts to be covered in the global search; for example, both the entire Kangyur Collection and the entire Tengyur Collection.  Simply follow the instructions above for selecting the entire Kangyur, and then repeat these instructions for the Tengyur.  In the right-hand screen (the list of texts to be searched), you will find all the works of both collections.

There is a clever way to exclude a few texts from a larger list before moving it over to the "Text selection" part on the right half of the window.  First hold your mouse arrow over the left-hand section of the window and hit the right mouse button, and "Select all" the texts.  Then move the mouse arrow to the title you wish to exclude from 
the search.  Hold down the CTRL key, and hit the left-hand mouse button.  You will see the highlight over this particular text disappear.

Now place the mouse arrow again over any of the remaining high-lighted sections, hold down the CTRL key and, simultaneously holding down the left mouse button, move the entire remaining list over to the right hand part of the window: the "Text selection" area.  Then hit "OK" to begin your search.

If you wish to perform a global search only on a few selected texts from within a group, you can either make a temporary group or a permanent customized group; if you choose the latter method, you can keep the grouping you have defined for future searches.  This involves creating a new user-defined tree or group, and again you should refer to the section called "Creating Your Own Pre-Defined Groups of Texts, for Specialized Searches" on page 73 to learn how to do this.

If you simply wish to make a quick grouping of texts for a single search, then you must first locate the texts you want within a specific group.  For example, if you plan to search a group of two 
or three Mahayana sutras from the Kangyur Collection, then first select "Kangyur" in the "Text type" box.  Place the cursor one by one on the texts you wish to include in your search, click on the right-hand mouse button, and choose the "Select" option (not the "Select all" option).  You will see the title appear in the "Text selection" box on the left hand of the global search window.  Then choose the other titles you wish to include, in the same way.  Or you can hold down the SHIFT key to highlight a group of texts, then click the right-hand mouse button and click "select".

If you make a mistake in your text selection, you can always remove one or more texts from the "Text selection" area, or even start over again altogether.  To do this, put your mouse arrow on the right-hand side of the screen, and click on the individual text that you wish to remove from the global search.  Then hit the right-hand mouse button and choose the "Delete" option; the title will disappear from the text selection.  If you want to empty the entire "Text selection" area, hit the right-hand mouse button and choose the "Clear all" option.

Remember, for example, that if you want to search a Kangyur text along with a related Tengyur commentary and a Sungbum commentary on that, you should select the "All" option in the "Text type" box, and then move the texts you want into the "Text selection" area.  Please note that at present the global search function builds a hit list of finds; there is no option, as with the 
text search tool for individual files, to skip through the text and view highlighted hits, since no single text file is up on the screen.  However, you can select one of the hits from the hit list, as described in the "Hit-list" option of the "Text search" function, view it in roman letters, and then switch over to the Tibetan-letter version of the same hit if you feel more comfortable reading Tibetan script. 
Searching Sanskrit-Language Materials
There are many different standards for representing Sanskrit letters, and ACIP policy to date has been to retain, as far as possible, the standard used by any particular text for the input of that text.  We hope later to go back and convert every Sanskrit word to a common standard that can be searched from a normal QWERTY keyboard without any special diacritics below or atop any letters.

In practice, these diacritics in the digital material available from even major libraries and other institutions in the West are simply stripped off, leaving the frustrated user faced for example with the sounds nya, na in its non-retroflex form, na in its retroflex form, and nga all represented by the same letter "n".

Here are a few of the systems a user will encounter searching the Sanskrit-language materials, with typical examples of the texts input with each.  Please note that many of the Sanskrit-language materials are copyrighted and cannot be released to the general public; they are on the CD-ROM only in an encrypted form, for in-house use.

1) The following materials are formatted in ACIP Tibetan-language input code, in the same way that the Tibetans transcribed Sanskrit (this protocol is explained in the sections named "ACIP Tibetan Input Code Standards" on page 153 and "ACIP Sanskrit Input Code Standards" on page 161):
 	´	Sanskrit titles, mantras, and other similar items within 				Tibetan-language texts
	´	The Library of Congress Sanskrit listings
	´	The Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary of Namgyal Tsering

2) The following are formatted in an ACIP Sanskrit input code that requires no diacritics above or below any other letters (this protocol is explained in the section "ACIP Sanskrit Input Code Standards" on page 161):
	´	Whitney's classic Sanskrit grammar
	´	His famous Verbal Roots of the Sanskrit Language
	´	Robert Lacey's comparative edition of the famous 
		Tibetan-Sanskrit glossary, the Mahavyutpatti
	´	The opening sections of Monier-Williams' massive 
		Sanskrit-English dictionary

3) The following are formatted in a very simple coding with the normal diacritic mark simply placed just after the letter to which it refers; this was designed for the menus and catalog of the AsiaView program, to facilitate its use by persons who are perhaps not fluent in Sanskrit; futhermore, since the words are restricted to a very specific list of Sanskrit only, the diacritics cannot be confused with other formatting:
 	¥	All menus and other parts of the AsiaView program
 	´	Specific fields of the ACIP Master Catalog where 
		no ambiguity is possible

4) Certain Sanskrit names and words are simply put into a simplified pronunciation, in ACIP documents that will be read or used by the general public.  These include the following:
Specific fields of the ACIP Master Catalog, such as the text titles, which will be read by the general public and where other formatting may be ambiguous
Similar parts of the ACIP release brochures and other printed materials

Creating Your Own Pre-Defined Groups of Texts, 
for Specialized Searches
One of the most important features of this new version of the AsiaView program is the ability to create your own customized groups of texts for repeated searching.  Here are some examples of the kinds of groups of texts that you might want to create:
´	An original text from the Kangyur Collection, several early Indian commentaries from the Tengyur Collection, and a range of later Tibetan treatises, all relating to the same subject that you are researching
´	All of the texts by three Lamas of the same immediate lineage, to compare their treatment of a certain subject
´	 A group of texts from a particular geographic area, to isolate regional expressions or the like, in order to identify the source area for other materials
´	A group of texts from a particular era, to identify peculiar usages of a certain historical period, in order to establish the source era for other materials
In order to create such a group, click first on the "Tools" selection in the main menu bar.  Then click on "Tree management," since you will be creating a "tree" or group of related texts.  When the "Tree management" window comes up, click on the "Options" selection at the top of the window.  A screen will come up giving you nine different options for how to display the texts from which you wish to select your group.  For example, if you want to create a group of texts by a particular Tibetan writer, then you might want to set this screen on "Author (Tibetan)".

Now go back to the top of this window and click on the "Display" selection.  Go to the right side of the screen that comes up, and click the arrow next to the "Text type" box.  This will give you a choice for the collection from which to select your texts: Kangyur, Tengyur, Sungbum, or Reference.  Click on the source for your texts, which will be listed according to the selection you have made in the "Options" window.

Now move the texts you want in your new tree over to the left side of the screen: to the area under the "Tree name" box.  One way to do this is to move texts over one by one, by moving your mouse to the appropriate text and clicking on it, and then holding down your left mouse button while moving the mouse arrow over to the left side of the screen.  Releasing the mouse button drops the text in the group you want to create.  Alternately, simply put the cursor on the