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Tengyur Translation Initiative
His Holiness the Dalai Lama always says he is the "son of the great Pandits of Nalandā." Nalandā was the great Buddhist Monastic University of classical India, delivering enlightenment sciences and world-transforming arts to millions of seekers from all over Eurasia. Those "Great Pandits" were genius adepts like Nāgārjuna, Āryāsanga, Dharmakīrti, Chandrakīrti, et al., and their voices are recorded in around 4000 works of sciences and arts that were translated into Tibetan. The Nalandā Library, “Jewel Treasure Ocean” (Ratnodadhī), was the greatest of the "Libraries of Alexandria" of the classical world, repository of human knowledge with achievement since unrivalled, especially in the field of the "Inner Sciences."
It was destroyed a thousand years ago, along with up to 30 million texts suspected to have been available there and at its sister university, Vikramaśīla. All but 5% of even just those 4000 translated texts were thus lost in the original Sanskrit. Only around 7% were translated into ancient Chinese. Fortunately, these selected 4000 most important masterpieces have survived, preserved in the Tibetan Tengyur Collection in lucid, flawless Tibetan translation. Thanks to the kind inspiration of contemporary Tibetan master sages, such as H.H. the Dalai Lama, we are just beginning to translate, interpret, understand, and put into practice the teachings contained in these works.
In this intense time of world crisis, the Inner Sciences are vital to survival, as they must urgently provide the methods for we humans to transcend our crippling delusions of self-estrangement from nature and other beings, and our self-destructive habits of greed and hatred that threaten all life with rampant consumerism and reckless militarism. Modern "inner sciences" of psychology and neuroscience are advancing tremendously, just held back on the brink of success by materialistic reductionism. Therefore, the voices of the great scientist sages of Nalandā must be heard, as they teach us what we need to know about mind being the most effective force in nature—and its control, cultivation, and accelerated evolution now being the key method of saving the world for all future generations.