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| Tibetan Dictionaries, Electronic Editions for Purchase and Free |
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General Information
| Our products are unique; they are made specifically to be precise enough for the most rigorous scholar’s needs yet to be suitable for beginning students, too. The items on this page can be purchased directly from us or from our distributors. You can purchase from us with delivery by immediate download or on CD. If you choose CD, you have a choice of delivery by registered airmail, which is relatively safe and takes one to three weeks (usually about ten days). Or, you can choose delivery of the CD by UPS global express, which is very safe and takes three to five days. If you want items on a CD, you also have the option of purchasing from one of our authorized distributors; in some cases shipping will be cheaper. | |
Current prices and authorized distributors for CD purchases can be found using this link: | |
| Each item below has purchase buttons for the various purchase options. When you press a button, it will open a shopping basket. If you need more than one item, just come back to this page or any other page on our site and click another item. The shopping basket will re-appear with all items showing. When you are ready, make the purchase. Our shop is very secure. | |
Each package comes with an exceptionally easy installation program and a complete set of Tibetan
fonts. Each package also comes with our TibetD Reader software for viewing and using
the texts in the package. Once you have TibetD Reader, you can use the texts
in the package and any of our other texts, reference works, dictionaries,
and so on as part of a 
powerful electronic reference centre. We
have a growing number of Tibetan texts and reference works for use with TibetD Reader
software, all of which are described on this site. For example, we also have many texts available by
free download. |
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| If you need further assistance, please use the e-mail link at the bottom of the page to contact us. |
TibetD Reader, the Software that Drives the Dictionaries
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The software that drives the dictionaries is professionally programmed and has a level of quality
that has not been seen in the field so far. Called TibetD Reader, it has a range
of features that allow fast lookups and very powerful searching in any of the dictionaries
and reference works. You can read more about our suite of software, including
TibetD Reader, at our
Tibetan Computer Company web-site. |
Two versions of TibetD Reader:
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TibetD Reader comes in a Windows-specific version and in a cross-platform version that runs on Windows, Macintosh, and
Linux. We have spent much more time developing the Windows-specific version simply because most people doing serious
Tibetan studies use Windows for their work. The Windows version has many special features in it, such as
the ability to create and use an electronic library, that the cross-platform version does not have. It has the ability
to show, search, and print texts in full pecha format. It also has the ability to read Tibetan text in many encodings,
including Unicode. All of our texts and reference works, free and for purchase, are available in this Reader's format. Screenshot of the the Windows-specific Reader with the Illuminator Tibetan-English Dictionary loaded:  Thus, we sell dictionaries in two different packages. One comes with the Windows-specific version of the Reader and is meant for Windows users. The other comes with the cross-platform Reader for both Macintosh and Linux and is meant for users of either of those operating systems. Each of the dictionaries listed below lets you select the appropriate package when you purchase. Alternatively, you can see everything that is available and the platforms supported by looking at the distributors and pricing
page. Note that all the Readers are unicoded.Screenshot of the Cross-Platform TibetD Reader open at the same record in the Illuminator Tibetan-English Dictionary:  |
True Cross-Platform for Windows, Mac, and Linux all in One Package:
| We also supply the dictionaries here with the cross-platform reader for all three major operating systems. These packages contain the cross-platform Reader with support not only for the Macintosh and Linux but with Windows included as well. This suits users wanting one product that will work on any of these OS's and with the same, straightforward interface. E-mail us for pricing and purchase. |
Make Your Own Reference Library with the Windows-specific Reader:
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One of the special and very powerful features of the Windows-specific Reader is that you can use it to manage an
electronic reference library. Details of setting up an electronic library can be
found here. The Windows-specific Reader also has the ability to read any of the free texts and reference works on this site, which is another thing that the cross-platform version of the Reader cannot do. However, the Windows-specific version of the Reader does run perfectly under Windows emulation software such as Parallels or VM on the Mac. Therefore we often recommend to Mac users that they purchase any software package with the Windows-specific Reader to get at all of the free texts and make use of the electronic library feature, and we recommend that they purchase a dictionary with cross-platform capabilities for the Mac so that they can run the dictionaries natively on their Mac. Quite a few people do this. |
Titles Available
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Click on a title to go to the full description or scroll down to the page
to see all items, one by one You can download a complete evaluation package for Windows
from our tools page. |
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Notes
| The dictionaries come in two editions. One edition uses actual Tibetan text and shows English transliteration for assistance. The other edition uses English transliteration and shows Tibetan text for assistance. This allows users who prefer to work directly in Tibetan to do so and those who prefer to work directly in Wylie to do so. Note that there is a Wylie keyboard built into the software. This keyboard lets you type in Wylie which is automatically converted to Tibetan text as you type. Thus, it is possible to use the Tibetan text version of a dictionary if that is your preference, yet do your typing for lookups and searches using a Wylie keyboard if that is easiest for you. | |
| Our products are thought of highly by both academics and buddhist practitioners and we go out of our way to provide for both worlds. The person behind all of the products and the author of the Illuminator dictionary is Lotsawa Tony Duff. Tony has a full post-graduate academic training and has also been a buddhist monk, translator, scholar, and practitioner for thirty years. Tony specifically tries to work with both worlds without favouring either. For this reason we keep the needs of academics in mind and do have special programs for them. If you are an academic with students, please know that we are here to assist you. For example, Prof. Jose Cabezon at the University of California recently arranged a licence with us where the university library gained full access to the products listed below and where EACH student in his Tibetan studies program for the unlimited future will receive their own, personal copy of the dictionaries to keep. If you would like to have your students using our products like this or in some other way as an adjunct for your teaching, we would be happy to discuss the matter further with you. Tony travels and gives lectures and demonstrations on the software and on Tibetan grammar, which is one of his specialties. He recently gave demonstrations at Bonn, University of Virginia, and other universities. |
Full Descriptions of Titles Available
The Illuminator Tibetan-English DictionaryWindows version Macintosh / Linux cross-platform version | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The first modern and high quality Tibetan-English dictionary in electronic format. This is not like the two other electronic dictionaries available which are a conglomeration of materials garnered from pre-existing translations and other sources. Rather, it has been created entry by entry by a scholar of many years experience who lives and works in daily contact with Tibetan scholars and translates for the great teachers of the Tibetan Buddhist world. Each entry is produced by individually translating and explaining the terms involved.
The above is fully supported in third-party reviews by academics. These reviews
have been scathing in their reports of the problems and mistakes found in dictionaries such as
The Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary, a dictionary that seems to maintain its popularity simply
on the basis of the author’s charisma and the (highly exaggerated) claims of large size. On
the other hand, the reviews have been very complimentary towards the Illuminator Dictionary, citing
absence of mistakes, excellence of presentation, and the exceptional and forward-looking quality
of the work contained in the Illuminator Dictionary. One such review is by Prof. Jan Sobisch. Academics are
not the only ones to point out the difference. Serious translators know the difference and do
make the same point. You can read a variety of unsolicited reviews here but the
following quote by a translator/practitioner in North America says it all, Both versions of the dictionary can be searched either by Tibetan text or the transliterated form, whichever is easiest for the user. Once an entry is found, there will be a clear definition in good English. Long commentaries are often given. These commentaries come from the author’s wealth of knowledge, given his extensive study and practice with Gelug, Kagyu, and Nyingma traditions over more than thirty years. Moreover, chunks of relevant Tibetan text are often included, together with their translations. For example, there is a translation of the history of the Chod lineage translated from a Drigung empowerment text, and a complete translation of the section on interdependent origination from Tsongkhapa’s Great Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, many excerpts from grammar texts and their translations, and so on. The dictionary is more than just an encyclopaedic reference. Its arrangement is deliberately made to aid people who are trying to learn the language. For example, many words in the definitions are given in Tibetan immediately followed by the translation of the Tibetan. On the one hand, the reader does not need to look up the Tibetan because the translation is there. On the other, the exact Tibetan term is definitively known. And to make it even more effective as a research and/or learning tool, most of these Tibetan terms are hyper-linked to their definition so that, if more information is needed, it can be immediately looked up. There are, of course, extensive go to and return capabilities in the software so that a definition of a word can be viewed on the fly then an immediate return to where the reader left off can be made. The definitions have a well-defined layout that is consistently applied. Terms are divided into parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and so on. The level to which this has been done is unique and gives a guide to the language not available elsewhere. Furthermore, the various levels of meaning for any given part of speech are clearly separated. The meanings are usually given in order of most common usage to least common usage. The dictionary is the first serious attempt to settle translation terminology. It does this not by proclaiming that every English translation is correct, though in many cases it does show that previously used translation equivalents are incorrect or at least suspect. It does this by giving the full range of meaning contained in the Tibetan term and then assessing which English words match that. In doing so, it often shows various translation equivalents that have been used in the past and shows why some are correct, some incorrect, and some partially correct. These commentaries are given not to try to support the author’s contention that his translation is correct per se but to highlight the meaning of the term under consideration and to show, using careful dissection, which English words match with that meaning, partially match it and how, or do not match with it. In this way, the dictionary is the first serious attempt to produce a set of translation equivalents that can be reliably used for the future. In many cases this cannot be done because there is no English term that covers the entire range of meaning of the Tibetan term. In that case, the dictionary says so and, with some key terms, even suggests new words that could be created using the roots of the language. Here are some specific features of the dictionary:
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Sarat Chandra Das’s Tibetan-English Dictionary; A New, Corrected EditionWindows version Macintosh / Linux cross-platform version | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Our electronic edition of Sarat Chandra Das’s Tibetan-English dictionary is a completely
new edition of the dictionary. It is the original but with the English carefully edited
to clean it up and make it suitable for use in electronic form. The editorial work was
done according to academic standards. All changes have been noted and comments made as
needed. For example, there are terms whose spellings are clearly mistaken; the definition
given belongs to a different spelling. These have all been left but a full notation given
as to what we think the definition should refer to. The electronic version gives access to a large body of information that has always been in the dictionary but which frequently could not be accessed because the information was provided in places where the reader might not think to look. Many people think that the dictionary is out of date or of no value but that is quite incorrect. There is a wealth of information in the original not usually found merely by looking at the paper edition but which becomes readily available in the electronic edition. The dictionary is outdated when it comes to buddhist terminology and there are many mistakes in terms of verb spellings and so on. The Illuminator Dictionary has supplanted Sarat Chandra Das’s dictionary in many ways and should be used as a base dictionary. However, Sarat Chandra Das’s dictionary does provide large amounts of information concerning botanics, medicine, ancient Indian history, and so on that do not appear in any other resource. We find it essential as a second dictionary resource. |
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Geshe Chodrak’s Tibetan-Tibetan DictionaryWindows version Macintosh / Linux cross-platform version | There have not been many native Tibetan dictionaries. The few that were made in earlier times
were almost unusable because they were written in a style that did not allow
for easy look-up of terms. In the 20th century, three dictionaries
were made that were, for the first time, usable as dictionaries. The
first was made in Lhasa in the 1940’s prior to the Communist takeover.
It was the dictionary presented here, made by Geshe Chodrak with the assistance
of the remarkably erudite and modern scholar, Gendun Chophel. The two
other major dictionaries were made in the 1970’s and 1980’s after the Communist
takeover; they are the dag yig gsar sgrigs New Style of Compilation
Pure Letters and the bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo The Great Chinese-Tibetan
Dictionary. All three dictionaries are useful. However, the
two later dictionaries have both been considerably influenced by Chinese
thought and needs, often in a way detrimental to the contents of the dictionary.
Geshe Chodrak’s dictionary on the other hand has was written in a purely
Tibetan situation without another culture overseeing the work and insisting
on changes that suited its own needs. Geshe Chodrak’s dictionary is not as useful as the other two dictionaries when it comes to verbs. The other two dictionaries just mentioned lay out all of the tense forms for each verb and do a much better job of it. The best reference for Tibetan verbs these days is not a Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary but the iIlluminator Tibetan-English Dictionary which makes a special point of presenting all Tibetan verbs in the most complete and correct way possible. On the other hand, Geshe Chodrak’s dictionary does feature short but precise definitions and does include obscure terms not found elsewhere, making it extremely useful to students of the language at all levels. It will be particularly useful for students who are advanced enough to want to start using a Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary but who cannot penetrate the difficult and terse language of the The Great Chinese-Tibetan Dictionary. |
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The Mahavyutpatti Sanskrit-Tibetan-English GlossaryWindows version only | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Mahavyutpatti is a Tibetan
text that was prepared in the 9th century A.D. at the command of Tibetan
king Tri Ralpachen. The translations of Buddhist texts that had been
made up to that time were inconsistent because Tibetan terminology for the
terms in the original Sanskrit texts was not settled. Thus the king
decreed that his principal translators should make a glossary of Sanskrit
terms and Tibetan equivalents first then should use it to revise all of the
Tibetan translations of buddhist texts done up till that time. The translators did so, and
the new glossary contained an extensive listing of Sanskrit terms followed
by Tibetan terms which were set down by royal decree as the official
Tibetan equivalents (skad dod) of the Sanskrit ones. The glossary
became a basis for making not only the revised translations of the time but all of the the translations that
happened over the next several centuries. Thus it effectively settled
much of Tibetan buddhist terminology for the future. The name Mahavyutpatti is the short translation back into Sanskrit by its authors, of the Tibetan name given to it: lo paN mang pos mdzad pa’i bye brag rtogs byed chen mo. The name translates into The Great Work Made by Many Lotsawas and Pandits that Brings Comprehension of Particulars. The Mahavyutpatti was first translated into English by the European man Alexander Csoma de Körös and the first part published in Calcutta 1834 by the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. The Society published a second portion in 1910 and the third and final portion in 1944. We have used these as a basis for a fully searchable, electronic edition of the entire work that contains English, Tibetan, and Sanskrit equivalents. The electronic edition should be of immense value to those studying and translating the Tibetan language. This edition is made even more useful by the fact that the TibetD Reader software allows it to be used in conjunction with the other dictionaries listed above. Körös’s English translations are often remarkably good, though they are mistaken in some cases. If you have one of our other dictionaries, and the Illuminator is recommended for the purpose, you can click on a term in the Mahavyutpatti and immediately see an up to date translation of the term with a full commmentary and links to related subjects included. For this reason, we recommend the Mahavyutpatti not for use alone but for use with our other dictionaries. |
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Dictionary of Learned and or Accomplished People who Appeared in Tibet Windows version Macintosh / Linux version on request | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| An extensive dictionary of important people of Tibet. The dictionary contains entries for a little over 2250 people who appeared in Tibet over the last 200 years. It includes kings, their ministers, and, of course, a very large number of spiritual practitioners. The dictionary list the names in alphabetical order, with each name having a short to medium length biography attached. The biographies include birth, death, and usually many other important dates for the person, and give quite a lot of information about each person's life. In the case of spiritual practitioners, information about the teachings received and their teachers and then the disciples who studied with them is given. In Tibetan culture, there are often multiple names for any given person and this dictionary often contains several names for any one person, making it a particularly valuable resource. Furthermore, a wealth of names not listed as entries in the dictionary are included in the various biographies and these names can easily be found using the various special lookup features of the TibetD Reader software provided with the dictionary. Where possible names have been hyperlinked for ease of use. The dictionary is a Tibetan-Tibetan dictionary with an informative introduction in English by Lotsawa Tony Duff. The dictionary works in conjunction with all of our electronic dictionaries and texts and can be made part of an electronic reference centre as described elsewhere on this site. We strongly recommend this dictionary as a standard reference for all serious students of Tibetan culture, and especially people doing translation work. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chronological Dictionary of Tibetan Luminaries Windows version only Macintosh / Linux version on request | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A research list from Ven. Matthieu Ricard which has been edited and compiled as a dictionary by Lotsawa Tony Duff. The dictionary is available for free download. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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House of Cloves, A Nice Explanation that Shows the Difference Between New and Old Terms of the Tibetan Language | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| This is a Tibetan text known to Tibetan scholars. It consists of a long list of old terms and their new equivalents so will be
of interest to those involved with language studies and translation. Unfortunately, the listing is very terse
and not always well arranged, with the result that it is particularly hard to decipher. Therefore the entire listing of terms
and associated information has been incorporated by us into the The Illuminator Tibetan-English Dictionary so
that is the best way to see and understand the contents of the text. Nonetheless, the text is particular rare and is being offered here to scholars who might find it useful. In fact, the original which is in the possession of Lama Tony Duff is quite possibly the only copy extant. There is another edition without Sanskrit equivalents included but this seems to be an abbreviated version of the very old edition in Lama Tony's possession. This makes it even more interesting, of course. We provide a TibetD file to make the contents as useful as possible but we also provide a PDF so that anyone could access it. For a little more information on the text, see the entry on the free texts page. |
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