About
What gSung-rten is a collaborative research project of the Khyentse Center for Tibetan Buddhist Textual Scholarship and is devoted to the collection, documentation, investigation, and explanation of mostly traditional Tibetan technical terms dealing with Tibetan paleography, codicology, and philology or textual scholarship. The project thus focuses on various aspects of what Tibetan Buddhists refer to as the “receptacle of Speech” (gsung rten), a term that includes not only texts as intangible entities but also books as tangible realities, both of which are the main objects of research for all of us interested in gaining a nuanced and reliable understanding of the Tibetan intellectual world (Geisteswelt). Its database is planned to include (a) technical terms relevant to Tibetan paleography, codicology, and philology, (b) relevant textual passages, (c) bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and (d) images of physical objects, when applicable and feasible.
One the factors that contributed to the conception of the gSung-rten project has been “Scholars and Scribes: Leveraging Computerized Tools for Navigating an Uncharted Tibetan Buddhist Philosophical Corpus,” a collaborative research project between Tel Aviv University (TAU), The Blavatnik School of Computer Science, and Universität Hamburg (UHH), Asien-Afrika-Institut, the Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, financed by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF).
A brief history of the gSung-rten is as follows:
• “gSung-rten: Brainstorming Workshop” (June 20–21, 2014).
• The “gSung-rten: A Glossary of Technical Terms of Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist Textual and Book Cultures” was launched in mid-2014 by the Khyentse Center for Tibetan Buddhist Textual Scholarship (KC-TBTS).
• The “gSung-rten: Input Workshop 1” (December 5–6, 2014, University of Hamburg).
• In 2017, the gSung-rten database became available to the public (via: https://www.gsung-rten.uni-hamburg.de).
• The gSung-rten operated for a couple of years thereafter, with only Professor Wangchuk occasionally inputting certain entries.
• In 2023, the gSung-rten, for several factors such as the lack of personnel and technical support, could not receive much priority and the database became almost irretrievable.
• In June 2024, the need to retrieve the database and revive the project became acute especially because of the successful start of the project “In and Around Tibetan Buddhist Texts: A Historical-Philological-Empirical Study of Tibetan Buddhist Paratextology,” a subproject of the project “Paratexts Seeking Understanding” based in the University of Glasgow (since 2024) and being able to employ Ms. Yeshi Lhamu Bhutia to work on the subproject under the guidance of Professor Dorji Wangchuk, Dr. Orna Almogi, and Dr. Nicola Bajetta. Thanks to Dr. Iris Vogel and Dr. Stefan Thiemann (Universität Hamburg Leitung Zentrum für nachhaltiges Forschungsdatenmanagement Open-Access-Beauftragter der Universität Hamburg), the gSung-rten database could be retrieved and is currently up and running.