Wisdom Academics

Explore Wisdom’s Academic Series

Explore Wisdom’s Academic Series

 

Wisdom has the joy and honor of publishing several series—some for 20+ years—that feature leading academic works and foundational translations. These academic series play an important role in Wisdom’s mission to promote and preserve Buddhist ideas, teachings, and practices from a diversity of countries and traditions.

Books in our Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism and Classics of Indian Buddhism series are peer reviewed, and the series are overseen by editorial boards featuring leading scholars and translators.

Several books across our series are award-winners, including:

Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way, Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura: 2014 Khyentse Foundation Translation Prize (Classics of Indian Buddhism series)

Divine Stories: Divyāvadāna Part 2, Andy Rotman: 2018 Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Translation (Classics of Indian Buddhism series)

A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages, Gavin Kilty: First Place, 2017 Tsadra Foundation Shantarakshita Award for Excellence in Translation (The Library of Tibetan Classics series)

• Mind Seeing Mind, Roger Jackson: 2020 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism (Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series)

Explore the series:

The Wisdom Culture Series

Teachings of the Buddha 

The Library of Tibetan Classics

The Library of Wisdom and Compassion

Classics of Indian Buddhism

Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics

Sounds of Innate Freedom

The Dechen Ling Practice Series

Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences

Recent News

NOW AVAILABLE

Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs: With the Commentaries by Advayavajra and Mokṣākaragupta

(Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Péter-Dániel Szántó)

This is the first volume in over six decades to bring to light new original material on Saraha’s Treasury of Spontaneous Songs (Dohākoṣa). To find liberation and realize the true nature of reality, the Indian Buddhist master Saraha says we must leave behind any conceptual assessment of reality, since no model of it has ever been known to withstand critical analysis. Saraha’s spontaneous songs, or dohās, represent the Buddhist art of expressing the inexpressible. The most important collection of Saraha’s songs is the Dohākoṣa, the Treasury of Spontaneous Songs, better known in Tibet as the Songs for the People, and the Tibetan mahāmudrā tradition, especially within the Kagyü school, has done the most to preserve the lineage of Saraha’s instructions to the present day. Saraha’s Spontaneous Songs provides the reader with everything needed for a serious study of one of the most important works in the Indian Buddhist canon.

 

Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland: Ratnāvalī

(Sara L. McClintock and John D. Dunne)

This elegant and precise rendering of Nāgārjuna’s work is certain to become the touchstone translation of this celebrated Buddhist text. In this profound work of five hundred verses, we encounter a presentation of Buddhism that integrates both the worldly and the transcendent. The clear and sagacious advice laid out on every page serves as a road map to one’s highest goal—whether that goal is a better life, here called the Dharma of ascendance, or the ultimate one of spiritual freedom, the Dharma of the highest good. The verses, written for an unnamed ruler, touch on questions of statecraft, but their broader themes speak to us today because they tackle the difficulty of integrating one’s spiritual journey with the social and political demands of daily life.

 

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2024

Perseverance: The Determination of the Bodhisattva

(Lama Zopa Rinpoche)

Dive deep into perseverance, one of the core practices of the bodhisattvas, with beloved teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche as a guide. Perseverance, or virya, is also translated as “energy,” “fortitude,” or “vigor.” One of the six perfections, or paramitas, it is one of the trainings of the bodhisattvas and a deeply necessary quality for the Buddhist path. But it’s far from the kind of head-down, stubborn determination the name could imply; instead, it’s joyful energy that enables us to practice. Rinpoche’s commentary is structured around the fifth and seventh chapters of the beloved Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life by the eighth-century philosopher-poet Shantideva. Interweaving his teaching with Shantideva’s verses, Rinpoche elucidates this prerequisite for enlightenment, explaining what it is and how to cultivate it: guard your mind, gather virtue, work for others—and find incredible joy in these things.

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2023

The Kālachakra Mandala: The Jonang Tradition

(Edward Henning)

A detailed, beautifully illustrated presentation of the construction and symbolism of the famed Kālachakra mandala, the crown jewel of the Indo-Tibetan tantric traditions. This volume contains an extensive analysis of the construction and symbolism of the mandala of the Kālachakra tantric system, the most intricate and explicit of the Indian Buddhist unexcelled yoga tantras, the most advanced teachings within the Indo-Tibetan tradition. Indo-Tibetan tantric traditions, particularly the unexcelled category, depend on imagery and visualization for the processes of purifying cyclic existence, and Kālachakra is the most detailed. The late scholar-practitioner Edward Henning, one of the earliest Western specialists on this material, offers this labor of love as a testament to the genius of the Tibetan tradition in preserving and transmitting these teachings over a thousand years.

 


 

About the Series

The Wisdom Culture Series

The Wisdom Culture Series is published by Wisdom Publications in association with the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) and was established under the guidance of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The aim of this series is to make available to English-language readers previously unpublished translations of key works for the study and cultivation of the Mahayana Buddhist path, especially works of masters within the lineage of Lama Tsongkhapa and the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. “Wisdom culture” is an expression frequently used by Lama Yeshe  (co-founder of FPMT with Lama Zopa) and is a Dharma culture rooted in wisdom and compassion. The Wisdom Culture Series is intended to support this vision by transmitting the timeless wisdom of the Dharma through authoritative and accessible publications.

Click here to visit the Wisdom Culture Series page.

 


 

 

Teachings of the Buddha

Discover the best-selling series the Teachings of the Buddha. To ensure that the Buddha’s legacy would survive the ravages of time, his direct disciples compiled records of his teachings soon after his passing. In the Theravāda Buddhist tradition, which prevails in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, these records are regarded as the definitive “word of the Buddha.” Preserved in Pāli, an ancient Indian language closely related to the language that the Buddha spoke, this full compilation of texts is known as the Pāli Canon.

At the heart of the Buddha’s teaching were the suttas (Sanskrit sūtras), his discourses and dialogues. The suttas were compiled into collections called “Nikāyas,” of which there are four, each organized according to a different principle. The Dīgha Nikāya consists of longer discourses; the Majjhima Nikāya of middle-length discourses; the Saṃyutta Nikāya of thematically connected discourses; and the Aṅguttara Nikāya of numerically patterned discourses.

Many books in this series can be read in the Wisdom Reading Room. Click here to learn more.

Click here to visit the Teachings of the Buddha series page.

 


 

Books in the Library of Tibetan Classics series, a renowned translation series edited by Thupten Jinpa that preserves and celebrates Tibetan Buddhism and culture

The Library of Tibetan Classics

The Library of Tibetan Classics is a major, exciting effort to support Tibetan culture. Edited by Thupten Jinpa— renowned scholar, author, translator, and interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama—the Library is making key Tibetan texts part of the global literary and intellectual heritage. The thirty-two-volume series, when complete, will span nearly a millennium and a half and will cover the entire expanse of Tibet’s classical literary heritage, from religion and folklore to art and poetry, from philosophy and psychology to medicine, and much more.

Many books in this series can be read in the Wisdom Reading Room. Click here to learn more.

Click here to visit the Library of Tibetan Classics series page.

 


 

The Library of Wisdom and Compassion

The Library of Wisdom and Compassion is a special multivolume series in which His Holiness the Dalai Lama shares the Buddha’s teachings on the complete path to full awakening that he himself has practiced his entire life. The topics are arranged especially for people seeking practical spiritual advice and are peppered with the Dalai Lama’s own unique outlook. Assisted by his long-term disciple, the American nun Thubten Chodron, the Dalai Lama sets the context for practicing the Buddha’s teachings in modern times and then unveils the path of wisdom and compassion that leads to a meaningful life and sense of personal fulfillment. This series is an important bridge from introductory to profound topics for those seeking an in-depth explanation from a contemporary perspective.

Click here to visit the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series page.

 


 

Classics of Indian Buddhism

The flourishing of Buddhism in South Asia during the first millennium of the Common Era produced many texts that deserve a place among the classics of world literature. Exploring the full extent of the human condition and the limits of language and reason, these texts have the power to edify and entertain a wide variety of readers. The Classics of Indian Buddhism series aims to publish widely accessible translations of important texts from the Buddhist traditions of South Asia, with special consideration given to works foundational for the Mahāyāna.

Several books in this series can be read in the Wisdom Reading Room. Click here to learn more.

Click here to visit the Classics of Indian Buddhism series page.

 


 

Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism

This peer-reviewed series was conceived to provide a forum for publishing outstanding new contributions to scholarship on Indian and Tibetan Buddhism and also to make accessible seminal research not widely known outside a narrow specialist audience, including translations of appropriate monographs and collections of articles from other languages. The series strives to shed light on the Indic Buddhist traditions by exposing them to historical-critical inquiry, illuminating through contextualization and analysis these traditions’ unique heritage and the significance of their contribution to the world’s religious and philosophical achievements.

Many books in this series can be read in the Wisdom Reading Room. Click here to visit the Reading Room.

Click here to visit the Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism series page.

 


 

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics compiles classical Buddhist explorations of the nature of our material world, the human mind, logic, and phenomenology and puts them into context for the modern reader.

This ambitious four-volume series—a major resource for the history of ideas and especially the history of science and philosophy—has been conceived by and compiled under the visionary supervision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself. It is his view that the exploratory thinking of great Indian masters in the first millennium CE still has much that is of interest to us today, whether we are Buddhist or not. These volumes make those insights accessible.

Click here to to visit the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series page.


 

Sounds of Innate Freedom

Sounds of Innate Freedom: The Indian Texts of Mahāmudrā are historic volumes containing many of the first English translations of classic mahamudra literature. The texts and songs in these volumes constitute the large compendium called The Indian Texts of the Mahāmudrā of Definitive Meaning, compiled by the Seventh Karmapa, Chötra Gyatso (1456–1539). The collection offers a brilliant window into the richness of the vast ocean of Indian mahamudra texts cherished in all Tibetan lineages, particularly in the Kagyü tradition, giving us a clear view of the sources of one of the world’s great contemplative traditions.

Click here to visit the Sounds of Innate Freedom series page.

 


 

The Dechen Ling Practice Series

The Dechen Ling Practice Series from Wisdom Publications is committed to furthering the vision of David Gonsalez (Venerable Losang Tsering) and the Dechen Ling Press of bringing the sacred literature of Tibet to the West by making available many never-before-translated texts.

Click here to visit the Dechen Ling Practice Series page.

 


 

 

Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences

The Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences series is copublished by the American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS) and Wisdom Publications in association with the Columbia University Center for Buddhist Studies and Tibet House US. AIBS established this series to provide authoritative translations, studies, and editions of the texts of the Tibetan Tengyur (bstan ’gyur) and its associated literature.

Click here to visit the Treasury of Buddhist Sciences series page.