Buddhica Britannica Series Continua

By David Reigle on May 31, 2014 at 6:50 pm

An important but not well enough known series of Buddhist books is published by the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Tring, U.K. The Buddhica Britannica Series Continua includes considerable material pertaining to the Buddhist tantras (rgyud sde, earlier phoneticized as kiu-te). Behind this series is Dr. Tadeusz Skorupski, who succeeded Dr. David Snellgrove in teaching Buddhist Studies and Tibetan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. As is well known, Dr. Snellgrove produced the first ever English translation of a Buddhist tantra, The Hevajra Tantra (1959), accompanying his Sanskrit and Tibetan editions of it. Dr. Skorupski has continued this work on the Buddhist tantras in an exemplary manner. He, too, produced an English translation of a Buddhist tantra, The Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra (1983), accompanying his Sanskrit and Tibetan editions of it. In the Buddhica Britannica Series Continua he has provided an abridged English translation of another tantric text, the Kriyāsaṃgraha (2002), a compendium of Buddhist rituals. The most recent publication in this series is the Vajrāvalī of Abhayākaragupta (2 vols., 2009), edited in Sanskrit and Tibetan by Masahide Mori, which began as a PhD thesis under Dr. Skorupski. This famous but hitherto unedited text is an extensive compendium of tantric maṇḍalas, including the Kālacakra maṇḍala (pp. 207 ff., 299 ff.). A brief listing of the currently available texts in this series follows:

BBI The Buddhist Heritage, ed. T. Skorupski, 1989, £20

BBBII Indo-Tibetan Studies, ed. T. Skorupski, 1990, £25

BBBIII The Rishukyō, I. Astley-Kristensen, 1991, £27

BIV The Cult of the Deity Vajrakīla, M. Boord, 1993, £21

BBV The Bodhisattvapiṭaka, U. Pagel, 1995, £40

BBVIII Tales of an Old Lama, C. R. Bawden, 1997, £14.50

BBIX The Six Perfections, T. Skorupski, 2002, £12.50

BBX Kriyāsaṃgraha, T. Skorupski, 2002, £19.50

BBXI Vajrāvalī of Abhayākaragupta, ed. Masahide Mori, 2 Vols., 2009, £50

BFVI The Buddhist Forum, Volume VI, 2001, £17.50

Institute of Buddhist Studies

36 King Street, Tring, Herts, HP23 6BJ, U.K.

Phone 01442 / 890 882

email: ts1@soas.ac.uk

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