It is Dza Kilung Rinpoche’s long-time vision to collect the precious Longchen Nyingtik texts, preserve and organize them in one place online, and make searchable digital copies easily accessible to all.
The inspiration of this project is not just to make these texts available worldwide, but to benefit Tibetans directly through preserving the Longchen Nyingtik lineage.
In the early 1790’s, at the time when Jigme Lingpa was still alive, his heart-son Jigme Ngotsar Gyatso, the first Kilung Rinpoche, founded the Kilung Monastery. Devoted students carved the story of this important event on stone tablets.
Dza Kilung Rinpoche, the Fifth Kilung Rinpoche, rediscovered these treasured tablets after the Cultural Revolution. Some had been broken and lost. To fill in the missing parts, he interviewed many elder lamas, and was able to piece together the full history through their memories. Then the story was written down by hand, and carried by Rinpoche to India when he crossed over the Himalayas on pilgrimage. Once there, he typed the story and eventually was able to make a digital copy. It is now being translated into English so that after more than two centuries, the whole story of the first Kilung Rinpoche and Kilung Monastery will be available to all of us for the first time ever.
What occurred with these stone tablets nearly being lost is similar to what has happened with the ancient Longchen Nyingtik texts. Over the past 700 years, since the first cycle of Longchen Nyingtik teachings from Longchenpa, these precious texts have been scattered around the world in many forms, such as stone carvings, wood block prints, manuscripts, photos, PDFs, and more. There is no way for any student, practitioner or researcher to access them in one place.
It is Dza Kilung Rinpoche’s long-time vision to collect the precious Longchen Nyingtik texts, preserve and organize them in one place online, and make searchable digital copies easily accessible to all.
Now we have the opportunity to manifest this vision. With the blessing of H. H. Dodrupchen Rinpoche, Dza Kilung Rinpoche and the Kilung Foundation are launching the three-year Longchen Nyingtik Text Preservation Project. We will hire Tibetans in Tibet and Nepal to research, collect, organize, transcribe and publish the authentic Longchen Nyingtik texts. There are estimated to be over 200 volumes that need to be transcribed. As they are done, the texts will then be published at the newly created Longchen Nyingtik online library.
Currently there are several initiatives to translate the Longchen Nyingtik texts into English, or to scan them, but the texts have not yet been collected in one accessible place and transcribed into searchable Tibetan. The inspiration of this project is not just to make these texts available worldwide, but to benefit Tibetans directly through preserving the Longchen Nyingtik lineage. Tibetan lamas, monks, nuns and lay people in Tibet, Taiwan, Nepal, and the USA would be involved in transcribing and proofreading the texts, and the Kilung Shedra would become a center for research and scholarship.
