2013 Reports

Redactions from India in Modern Tibet

Duckworth, Douglas

The library research award for my project, “Redactions from India in Modern
Tibet,” allowed me to access the Tibetan collections at C.V. Starr library in July and
August 2013 and further my research on Tibetan commentaries of Dignāga’s Ālambanaparīkṣā,
a sixth-century Buddhist text composed in Sanskrit. One of the important
commentaries I located on this text was a modern edition published in Lanzhou, P.R. of
China, less than two years ago. I found this edition in the collected works of the author,
Tendar Lharampa (1759-1831), which helped me to understand the text in a new light.
Yet to my surprise, one of the most practical aspects of my research at C.V. Starr was
when I was browsing the catalogues and the new Tibetan acquisitions that were not yet in
the catalogue. At those times, I was able to locate several modern Tibetan publications
that I had not heard about, thanks in no small part the instructive guidance of the Tibetan
librarian, Dr. Lauren Hartley.