2 comments about Essentials of Modern Literary Tibetan: A Reading Course and Reference Grammar.

1. This book is indispensable for anyone attempting to master literary Tibetan. Written by a well-known scholar, it exhibits the type of attention to detail that is frequently missing from grammar books. The systematic introduction of particles and its approach to analyzing clauses and sentences makes the task of breaking down complex Tibetan passages much easier.

   Each chapter includes at least one reading passage presented in the Tibetan script along with a line by line transliteration and a free translation of the text. Each clause is then broken down step by step in a detailed section explaining the form and function of nearly every syllable or word. An extensive glossary and index to Tibetan particles is also included. An appendix includes sample readings from Communist sources. We did occasionally find an error in the Tibetan script but nothing that cannot be easily overcome by an attentive reader.

   The Tibetan typeface used through the book is easy to read and fairly well designed.

   With nearly 500 pages, this book is a must-have for any serious student of the Tibetan language.




2. This book will definitely bring you to read Tibetan through some very well graded readings, which are very enjoyable too. The grammar is very clever, very concise. The supplied vocabulary is also invaluable. Definitely, a good buy if you are trying to learn Tibetan, especially if you are doing it on your own.

5 comments about Translating Buddhism from Tibetan.

1. Very useful book for learners with a constructive introduction to Tibetan sentence structure and a useful basic vocabulary for classical Tibetan. Start with this book if you want to learn to read Tibetan and get a good basis. With the next edition please give us a lighter version an add an index!



2. The first 5 or 6 Chapters are very useful for the Beginner but afterwards it becames increasingly difficult. It hard to understand the explanations on more advance grammar. I think that unnecesarilly tries to explain many concepts instead of teaching the howto of the language as in the first part. I think I should be reworked (at least the last part) in order to make the student to be able to use the grammar at least for some basic reading. I think I should include more practical examples of reading and interpreting texts. Vocabulary alone is not enough. So I guess that considering the few book about this subject this is a good one after all despite the shortcomings.



3. This is the first book I bought at the start of my journey into Tibetan. The overall strategy of this book is to build an hybrid Tenglish (Tibetan-English) language, which should gradualise and faciltate the student's approach to Tibetan texts. I regard this idea as essentially flawed and therefore I basically agree with the less enthused reviewers.
   Still, this is a honourable work and it may be useful for a first, cautious approach to classical Tibetan. If you want to plunge into the real thing right away, I suggest you buy Stephen Hodge's "Introduction to Classical Tibetan" (if you can find it).



4. Hi guys, well i've been living in Nepal for the last 4 years and i can tell you that learning tibetan (and by this i mean really know it) its really hard, but i found that wilson's book is actually great not only coz it does work but also coz it provides you with the tools to do it... its the best next thing just after learning tibetan from tibetan grammarians
   
   so what i would suggest is...
   get wilson's book, then if you are completely new go through the whole book, coz it provides basic concept on Buddhism and lots of vocab (all really useful)... if you are a bit more experience then learn by heart apendixes 4 and 5 which deals with verbs, and clases which are a primordial part of tibetan (but for some reason some "serious" books dont even mention them... oh by the way tibetans do study tibetan talking about cases)...then move on to...
   
   Craig preston's how to read classical tibetan... which if you don't know by heart appendix 4 n 5 is rather useless... but otherwise excellent to show how to make the complex sentences (pages long at times) into short and readable clauses or sentences... besides it also completes wilsons lack of talk or not wanting to talk about transitive and intransitive verbs (which they also exist in tibetan and are of great importance when trying to get across the right meaning)
   
   last but not least... in my experience there have been tons of mistranslations all over the place even by "famous" translators... thats why i recommend Tony Duff's excellent Illuminator dictionary...
   
   until the day that someone explains tibetan grammar the way tibetan study it and understand it these are the tools for anyone who is serious about learning tibetan, and when the time is right go and get teachings on tibetan from a tibetan grammarian... then the whole world is open to you... once again i think these are the best for whats outer but once you see the real thing you wont go back...



5. Note that other reviews are from about 10 years ago.
   This book is extremely dated... the fonts themselves are Pierre Roubillard's old (very crude) font set.
   The grammar is accurate enough, but very ponderous. Here is not a translator, but an academic, pedantic scholar. If you merely enjoy the "fun" of intellectual scholarship and mental nit-picking, this is for you.
   If you really want to read or speak Tibetan, then Tournadre and others are appropriate. Actually, it is quite shameful that they are charging $50 and the book has not been updated in 15 years. Is this laziness or arrogance?

5 comments about The New Tibetan-English Dictionary of Modern Tibetan.

1. This "Dictionary" might be useful to someone who already knows written Tibetan but it is almost useless for those who do not. For example: If you wish to look up a certain Tibetan word, say, "Trungpa" to discover it's English meaning you will find that everything is ordered according to the Tibetan alphabet in the Tibetan alphabet. I still have not found Trungpa or any other word I was looking for, for that matter.

   The authors have committed a serious error in my opinion and have created what might be called an archetypal example of scholarly myopia. Most of us do not wish to become Lotsawas (Translators). Most of us wish to be able to look up an Englsh tranliteration of a Tibetan word and discover it's meaning.

   The creators of this book should look up the word Bodhisattva in a Sanskrit Dictionary. Then they should create an English-Tibetan counterpart for this work which would demonstrate compassion towards those of us who have no intent of becoming Lotsawas.

   If you already have a handle on written Tibetan then this "Dictionary" is probably just great, but for the rest of us it is just a huge waste of time.




2. This dictionary is undoubtedly the best out there for modern literary and colloquial Tibetan. It is excellent for political, literary, and colloquial terminology. Of course, the depth of these genres comes at the expense of (non-basic) religious/philosophical terminology. But anyone who is in the market to buy this book would have known this about the dictionary and Goldstein's expertise already.

   Since the majority of Tibetan-English dictionaries are "Dharma" oriented anyway, this dictionary is a welcomed and needed departure from the norm. Moreover, whereas virtually every widely available "Dharma" dictionary is put together by a pseudo-scholar, and is full of laughably incorrect glosses/definitions for a high percentage of terms, this dictionary -- compiled by a genuine scholar of Tibetan -- rarely has off the mark definitions.




3. This book is invaluable and necessary for students of modern Tibetan. For those like 'iasa' in Aspen, it is useless simply because what they need is an English-Tibetan dictionary! Anyone obtuse enough not to know the difference shouldn't be surprised to find that they can't read Tibetan unless they know the script and the basics of spelling.



4. This dicionary is a useful tool for beginners of Tibetan language study.



5. Probably one of the best Tibetan-English Dictionary on the market today. It holds over 80,000 lexical references pertaining to a wide spectrum of political, scientific, social, political and literary domains. Also contains core lexical terminology of every day life and modern Tibetan. Spoken pronunciation is also included. This sourcebook is a gem!

1 comments about Drinking the Mountain Stream: Songs of Tibet's Beloved Saint, Milarepa.

1. Lama Kunga's way of telling the tales of Milarepa makes me want to read on and on. Milarepa, himself, was a character I found to be fascinating to study. Being able to find this book after so many years helped to facillitate the joys of the Tibetan Buddhist way of life and culture.

4 comments about How to Read Classical Tibetan, Volume One: Summary of the General Path.

1. If you are smart and diligent enough to get it, this is your book. Trust me that this man knows what he is talking about. Readable format, great organization, engaging subject matter, "How to read classical tibetan" has it all. Coming from a master of classical tibetan and all-around great guy, this book is where its at.



2. Craig Preston's book _How to Read Classical Tibetan_ (Snow Lion, 2003) examines a short passage (about 30 long lines in all) of the tract "The Great Treatise (or exposition) of the Stages of the Path" (Lam-rim Chen-mo) by the 14th century teacher Tsongkhapa (Btsong-kha-pa), founder of the Gelugpa (Dge-lugs-pa) school of Tibetan Buddhism.
   
   In the course of the introduction and ten chapters the author goes through the long and short titles of the tract and then the 30-line passage, breaking the text into phrases and analyzing them grammatically from word to sentence level. He does this by means of well laid out labeled diagrams in which phrase-level structure is represented by boxes containing the parts of the phrases, which may be simple strings of text or nested boxes of the same type.
   
   He includes a full glossary of the words in the text at the end of the book, and repeats the items occurring in each phrase in the section on the phrase, obviating the need to be constantly flipping between the phrase and the glossary. As far as I could tell he does not customize or enhance the vocabulary items for the individual phrases but copies them verbatim from the glossary, including the different roots of the verbs and the variants of the mutable particles (kyi, tu and so on) each time.
   
   He intentionally focuses on the grammatical structure and literal meaning of the text and does not get into philosophical issues, though he does include, at the end of each chapter, with translations though not analyses or special notes, extracts from a commentary on the section of text in the chapter.
   
   As a total beginner myself I cannot evaluate the accuracy of the book, but it appears to be carefully edited, and the grammatical analyses and translations all seem reasonable to me. He uses the Tibetan alphabet throughout and rarely if ever includes any transliterations. I think this is appropriate. The Tibetan alphabet is easy to master and anyone studying the language should learn it at the very outset.
   
   He also, following Joe Wilson in his _Translating Buddhism from Tibetan_ (Snow Lion, 1992), uses opaque and confusing terminology for the cases (1st case, 2nd case and so on). This terminology derives ultimately from the Sanskrit grammarians and refers to the Sanskrit cases (1st case = nominative 2nd case = accusative 3rd case = instrumental 4th case = dative 5th case = ablative 6th case = genitive 7th case = locative), and does not really fit Tibetan. I would have been happier if he had used the simpler and more descriptive system of Nicolas Tournadre, _Manual of Standard Tibetan_ (Snow Lion, 2003) - a very good book BTW, with an extremely clear and thorough explanation of modern pronunciation (standard Lhasa dialect) - or even avoided the notion of case altogether and simply dealt in terms of the various particles (kyi, kyis, la/r/du etc.) as is done for Japanese (ga, wa, o, no etc.).
   
   The work is clearly aimed at beginners. I would guess that a motivated student could work through the whole book at a chapter at a sitting and be done with it in a couple weeks. I can see it being useful for someone in the early stages of studying Tibetan on their own who wants to read some real Classical Tibetan with a good amount of hand-holding. The only prerequisite I can see, apart from the ability to read the Tibetan alphabet, is a level of comfort with basic grammatical concepts and the activity of detailed word-by-word phrase-by-phrase grammatical analysis.



3. Hi guys, well i've been living in Nepal for the last 4 years and i can tell you that learning tibetan (and by this i mean really know it) its really hard, but i found that wilson's book is actually great not only coz it does work but also coz it provides you with the tools to do it... its the best next thing just after learning tibetan from tibetan grammarians
   
   so what i would suggest is...
   get wilson's book, then if you are completely new go through the whole book, coz it provides basic concept on Buddhism and lots of vocab (all really useful)... if you are a bit more experience then learn by heart apendixes 4 and 5 which deals with verbs, and clases which are a primordial part of tibetan (but for some reason some "serious" books dont even mention them... oh by the way tibetans do study tibetan talking about cases)...then move on to...
   
   Craig preston's how to read classical tibetan... which if you don't know by heart appendix 4 n 5 is rather useless... but otherwise excellent to show how to make the complex sentences (pages long at times) into short and readable clauses or sentences... besides it also completes wilsons lack of talk or not wanting to talk about transitive and intransitive verbs (which they also exist in tibetan and are of great importance when trying to get across the right meaning)
   
   last but not least... in my experience there have been tons of mistranslations all over the place even by "famous" translators... thats why i recommend Tony Duff's excellent Illuminator dictionary...
   
   until the day that someone explains tibetan grammar the way tibetan study it and understand it these are the tools for anyone who is serious about learning tibetan, and when the time is right go and get teachings on tibetan from a tibetan grammarian... then the whole world is open to you... once again i think these are the best for whats outer but once you see the real thing you wont go back...
   
   PS. by the way, the presentation on the cases its as its shown in the tibetan way specially if you memorize wilsons approach... why do people say that easier is better??? lack of diligence i guess... to become a translator is not easy specially when it comes to Dharma coz there is the danger of corrupting the teachings which it would be terrible for everyone... please study hard whether you find it hard or not... is for all sentient beings sake...



4. Preston's book is a great text for self-study.
   
   I particularly appreciate that he used Dzong-ka-pa's page and half Summary of the General Path as the basis of his translation training. This summary is at the end of the three-volume set that has been recently translated as the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. Each volume is around 350 pages. This Summary is, I think, Dzong-ka pa most concise prose writing on the Buddhist path from the beginning clear through to Buddhahood. Although this book is meant for language students I found the basic philosophic text delightfully essency.
   
   This book is best read after having studied Joe Wilson's Translating Buddhism from Tibetan. These two books were written using the same style of grammatical analysis. Wilson's book goes through letter writing and pronunciation rules and then uses paradigm sentences which illustrate the grammar in detail. Preston has taken the next step which walks you through an actual text so you can see how these various paradigms show up in action.
   
   Preston takes each of the pithy sentences of the Summary and breaks them down into clauses and phrases, boxes them, and then clearly labels the parts with both the vocabulary and their grammatical use. Each word in every sentence is labeled with its syntactic function, what type of word or particle it is and its lexical meaning. You are not left guessing about any part of the sentence. He also gives you the English translation below each of these detailed structural outlines. The text is interspersed with helpful philosophic information too. For instance, when the text mentions the ten virtues and ten non-virtues, Preston inserts a list as to what these are.
   
   There are many details that one needs to memorize to learn grammar, I was overwhelmed at times, but remember that there are a finite number of details. For anyone wanting to be able to read or translate accurately this is a critical body of information you need to know. In the early pages of the book Preston lays what he calls the eight basic building blocks of Classical Tibetan syntax. These are the basic elements of any sentence, the subjects, objects, verbs and such.... The rest of the book illustrates how these parts are glued together by particles.
   
   Although this book was written using a Geluk text, grammar knows no partisan boundaries. I am now reading a root Kagyu text and I see that the same grammatical structures apply. This book will help you read any of the Tibetan Buddhist literature.
   
   As far as I know there are no other books written for students who are just starting to read Classical Tibetan. As a language student I found this book immensely helpful.

5 comments about Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World.

1. Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World is a book of wisdom and warmth with just the right combination of simplicity and richness to engage the minds and hearts of your family for years. The gentle humor and suspense, not to mention illustrations so vivid that they practically breathe, will draw readers immediately into a world that is both exotic and familiar and, once you are there, you will not want to leave. These are the kinds of stories that can help to awaken thoughtfulness and compassion in children and reawaken them in adults. In English and Tibetan.



2. As the follow-up to Tibetan Tales for Little Buddhas, the stories in Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World each continue to focus on a single moral dilemma faced by a young character. While they take place in a beautifully painted Tibetan land, the lessons learned by each character transcend the Tibetan context to resonate with global values of compassion and peace. The artwork pays great attention to detail; you (and your children) can play "spot the critter" while reading the stories. The stories were clearly written with the intention of being read out-loud, either to children, adults, or even yourself. This is an instantly lovable book that can easily become part of your family's tradition.



3. Featuring a foreword by the Dalai Lama and preface by Richard Gere, "Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World" by author and illustrator Naomi C. Rose (and the assistance of Tenzin Palsang, Tibetan translator) is a lovely bilingual collection of children's wisdom tales from Tibetan traditions. It is the second such collection by the author, following the earlier "Tibetan Tales for Little Buddhas," a special collaboration that won both a Nautilus Book award and an International Storytelling World Honor award. Paging through "Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World" it is easy to see why this author/illustrator deserves such high honors and awards. The three wisdom tales, Prince Jampa's Surprise, Sonam and the Stolen Cow, and Tashi's Gold, are simply told in both English and Tibetan, illustrated with beautiful colorful paintings of Tibetan scenes including special miniatures of Tibetan wildlife, catalogued carefully at the end. This marvelous edition of "Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World" is sure to enchant readers young and old with its exotic details and simple messages of gratitude, honesty, and humility as virtues to be attained. As with other of the author's undertakings, a portion of the proceeds obtained for this publication benefit the Tibetan refugee children.



4. This book is vivid, alive, educational and entertaining. Although written for children, the messages are ageless and timeless. The warmth of the Tibetan people comes through on every page. This book is a work of art and makes a great gift...



5. Tibetan Tales from the Top of the World by Naomi C. Rose is a true joy for the mind, the heart, and the eye. The author, who is also the illustrator, takes us on an adventure into the ancient ways of the Tibetan people through the retelling, in English and Tibetan, of three simple yet profound children's stories. The stories and the the luscious illustrations are a gateway for children of all ages into a world that is unknown to most Westerners. Children hearing these tales and seeing the pictures for the first time will be delighted, and their parents and grandparents will enjoy reading and re-reading these stories to them. A special note at the front of the book from the Dalai Lama recommends it, and you can't get a better fan than that.

5 comments about Tibetan: Lonely Planet Phrasebook.

1. My main objective was learning to speak some Tibetan on a conversational level, and not just a traveler's level. The book teaches the writitng system and enough grammar to be able to correctly speak Tibetan as we speak everyday English. Nothing too deep and technical, but nothing too brief. The small book is absolutely jam-packed with words and phrases. It suits the need of both the traveler and one who wants a basic conversational ability in Tibetan. It's value exceeds the price greatly!



2. I just love this little book. I haven't got to travel to tibet as of yet, but I do attend teachings at a Drikung Kagyu monastery where I interact with a few native tibetans. I must admit, I usually chicken out when it comes to trying to really speak. But it is soooo fun to be able to find words and phrases that I already know from practices and be able to see them in other usage.
   
   A terrific book! Ok, one thing, the print, especially the tibetan script is tiny, but then there is so much info crammed in this pocket-sized book, who can really complain. if you have a hard time with little print, throw a little reading magnifier strip in your pocket with it :)



3. As a small language book that is only meant to give you the basics this is a great book.
   
   
   A warning though... This book attempts to educated the reader in a "standard Tibetan language". They mention the three main dialects of U-tsang, Amdo, and Kham and claim that great interaction between them is leading to this standardization. It has not be my experience nor have I seen other scholars even mention the existence of such a standardization. From what I have learned the three dialects are quite different to the point of mutual misunderstanding. I do not feel that this book prepared me to speak Amdo, nor would it prepare anyone else to speak either Amdo or Kham. If that is your goal, good luck finding any book that can do that. But, for most people this is irrelevant. Most interaction with Tibetans by Westerners is with central U-tsang Tibetans. I never thoought about it before, but most of the Tibetan exiles are central/U-tsang.
   
   Upon further consultation with some Tibetans I have come to the conclusion that some mishmash of the dialects does exist in the Tibetan diaspora in India. So this book would be more useful there. Keep in mind though that the original exodus into India consisted mostly of Central Tibetans and so this new amalgamation likely favors that dialects sensibilities.



4. I've been to Tibet five times now, and each time I have carried my now well worn copy of this phrasebook with me. Without it, I'd be at a real loss. It is has proven wonderful for communicating with locals - not only in Lhasa, but also in far more remote parts of the country. It is safe to say that using this phrasebook has enhanced my experiences in Tibet many times over.
   
   If I did have one criticism of it, it would be that while it does have a brief English to Tibetan Dictionary in back, it would greatly benefit from a Tibetan to English Dictionary as well. So many times Tibetans have picked up the phrasebook from me and searched in vain for a word that they are trying to find.
   
   But that criticism is minor. If you're traveling in Tibet on your own, this phrasebooks is a must. Depending on how long you're going to be in the country, you may want to consider the LP Mandarin Phrasebook as well.....



5. I've recently returned from a few weeks in Tibet. One of my group had this phrase book and we tried to use it to speak with our driver. A few things: First, a pronunciation guide would have helped. Second, we found some common words missing, or at least were not able to find them the way the book is laid out. We ended up drawing pictures on Post-Its to communicate with our driver and learn words from him in this way.

5 comments about Tibetan Tales for Little Buddhas.

1. My daughter and I attend a Family Dharma class that teaches from a primary text for adults, but the class is geared towards little kids as far as time and content. However I really felt we needed some literature that was on her level (she is 6) and had images. Tibetan Tales was perfect. There are several stories that can be read individually and discussed. Some we had already heard and it was nice to go over them again with illustrations this time. This is an excellent book to begin teaching your child about Buddhism and can be read over and over with new meanings as your child gets older.



2. i love the stories that is connected to tibetian culture and reading it to my baby girl its a great read



3. I bought this for my son. I find myself loving the story. Nice read.



4. My 3 year old daughter loves the stories in this book. I was so excited it taught her the Mantra Om Mani Padme Hum! It is a great book that incorporates both Buddhist messages and Tibetan Culture. The illustrations are beautiful too!



5. I wish I liked this book more. The illustrations are great and contemporary. The stories contain values and are based on the Jakata tales of the Buddha. However, the stories themselves are a bit short, reminiscent of Aesop's fables. My personal feelings are that more character development and detail are needed to expand on the stories. HOWEVER, this is a GREAT resource for Buddhist parents to read to their kids at bedtime. I really wish and encourage there to be more books along these lines. We need to teach our children how to be better human beings. This is more important than anything else. This book helps move in that direction.

5 comments about Manual of Standard Tibetan.

1. I've hesitated a long time between Hopkins' "Fluent Tibetan" with tapes and Tournadre's "Manual of Standard Tibetan." I ended up getting both, and I find they complement each other quite well.
   
   Tournadre's Manual is amazingly comprehensive, quite sufficient, it seems, to keep a student busy trough four semester courses or so. This text is useful to lay a strong foundation to build on later on. Prior to the forty-one Lessons, over forty pages present the reader with a thorough introduction to the alphabet, pronunciation and a clever system of transcription of the author's devising. The latter is helpful in precisely describing the pronunciation of the words introduced at each lesson. I counted about 2000 words in the glossaries at the end, which makes quite a rich vocabulary.
   
   The book is also replete with cultural notes, maps and descriptions of the different Tibetan dialects. Another nice touch is the amount of supplementary material, including videos of the dialogues, exercise answer keys and supplementary exercises, all available on the web at the University of Virginia's Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library website.
   
   On the down side, I found the lessons very hard going. One sometimes gets lost in detail, which is not always essential at the beginnning. This is probably the typical experience of a self-learner like me, while in a classroom situation the teacher would know when to instruct students to skip over the extra details. It is quite apparent that each lesson needs to be expanded and developed in a classroom situation, with perhaps ten times as many exercises, drills and dialogues as are provided in the book, in order to bring out all that it has to offer. I therefore decided that this book was hard to use as a primary text by a pure self-learner, but is probably the best of its kind for classroom instruction. I use it as a reference and will probably go back to it more methodically when I am done with the "Fluent Tibetan" set.



2. Love it. CDs are great. slow speed conversations then the same ones at normal speed. Lots of context and description and comparisons to other languages - as a beginning Tibetan student and long time Dharma practitioner, I highly recommend!



3. Great book. Had used it before in a Tibetan class at a university but lost it. The informative sections in each chapter also helped prepare me when I went over to Dharamsala to study. The author included great colloquial additions!



4. This is the best Tibetan language resource on the market - the CDs which are included are fantastic.



5. This is a great textbook for spoken and written Tibetan. The dialogues are useful and the cds that go along with them are very good. They start with a slow reading of the text, and then go at a more conversational speed, thus your ears can get used to Tibetan step-by-step using the cds. The pronunciation of Lhasa Tibetan is used throughout the textbook, and it is described in detail at the beginning of the book in the introduction.
   
   The vocabulary always is given in Tibetan script and phonetic transcript. And the grammar sections are clear and concise.
   
   One thing that I really like about this textbook is the way it explains the relationship between spelling and pronunciation. All of the other textbooks on Tibetan that I have seen either don't get into that, or they just explain that the spelling is not phonetic and leave it at that. Few and far between is a Tibetan textbook that actually will explain the details of the spelling system and how that impacts pronunciation, and this one does. Which for anyone trying to learn how to read and write the language, this is fundamental. Thus this book gets 5 stars!

5 comments about The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs.

1. It's a more interesting and authoritative reference for this subject matter. This is due to Rinpoche being a qualified (I emphasise the word 'qualified') Lama and Tibetan scholar. Also at no point does Rinpoche compromise Tibetan Buddhism by giving away restricted information.



2. Recieved the book promptly and in the condition promised. The book is an excellent source book. It does suffer from being without an index, for which the author apologizes. A source book without index is less than it should be. Still the images are excellent, and I assume the text is accurate. The author has spent a good portion of his working life in preparation: studying with Tibetan artists and craftspeople; and, becoming accomplished at rendering the brush drawings in an authentic manner. A good compaion book, especially as this does not have a index, is the "Handbook" by the same author



3. If you're interested in Tibetan Buddhist iconography for whatever reason you can't go wrong with this detailed book. The author's original illustrations provide a wealth of examples of images in Tibetan art, and the text provides rich historical and doctrinal background for understanding why the symbols are important. Highly recommended.



4. this book is very educational. the descriptions are very detailed and tend to be lengthy (which I find to be very informative) but I must say the pictures aren't all that good and it is sometimes difficult to find exactly what you are looking for quickly. Still this is a very good book, great source of information, and I do and will continue to recommend it!



5. The trend among western scholars and dealers in Tibetan art has been to approach the subject from the conventions of art history and criticism - where the provenance, identification, dating, style and cultural influences are discussed, along with an often unnecessary verbal description of the painting - but very little is written about its iconography, symbolism or real meaning within a purely Buddhist context. Often these thangkas are incorrectly identified, and where the deity's often highly specific attributes are listed many errors and omissions may occur. Deity identification is essentially of little value without an understanding of the qualities of the deity, and these qualities have everything to do with the Buddhist teachings, yet little to do with art history. Naming the names' is perhaps akin to trainspotting, or to knowing the names of everyone in a crowded room and something of their dress sense or style - but unless one goes beyond the superficial and gets to know these people in their full and unique individuality, they will always remain strangers.