Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center
The Tibetan literary heritage stretches back more than 1,300 years. Its influence is seen throughout the Himalayan region from Nepal, Bhutan, India, China, and Mongolia to as far west as modern-day Iran. General knowledge about Tibetan cultural and religious life is common today, but few have plumbed the depths of the literature, leaving much to be discovered.
The heart of TBRC’s mission is to seek out texts and gather them in a single place. The Tibetan literary heritage is immense and includes traditional medicine, astrology, astronomy, alchemy, art, history, geography, biography, grammar, folk culture, poetics, and extensive philosophical and religious treatises.
In 1999, Gene Smith founded the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC) to preserve and make available Tibetan literature. TBRC specializes in digital preservation that is based on the Internet, so that Tibetan masters, scholars, translators, and all interested readers, wherever they are located, have access to the full range of Tibetan literature. In order to realize this vision, TBRC:
- Digitally preserves literature so that it can never be lost,
- Catalogs and organizes texts into a modern digital library so that they are easy to find,
- Actively seeks out rare and undiscovered literature,
- Disseminates the library online and to remote locations so that anyone can read, print, or share texts.
TBRC has been supported by Tsadra Foundation grants from 2008 to 2011.
