Digital Texts

We are pleased to make available the fruits of the BDK Tripitaka Translation Series in freely distributable PDF format. This page provides a provisional list below. More files are available at the download page of BDK America.

The files presented here are word-for-word duplicates of our printed volumes. Due to a change in font in the earlier publications and the occasional correction of typographical errors, there may be pagination and other minor differences from the original printed version. In addition, a page describing these circumstances and adding relevant information about the digital version has been added to each PDF file. Incidentally, if you notice any remaining typographical errors or other infelicities in either our printed or electronic publications, please do not hesitate to contact us!

The appropriate format for citing these files in online or print publications includes the URL and date of access following the usual bibliographic data. Thus, for example, the following model:

Inagaki Hisao, trans., in collaboration with Harold Stewart. The Three Pure Land Sutras. Revised second ed., Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2003. http://www.bdk.or.jp/bdk/digitaldl.html (accessed March 19, 2014).

These PDF files may be printed and distributed according to the terms of use established here on this website. The files themselves are distributed with certain security provisions in place that disallow modification. However, if any Buddhist group or scholar of Buddhism has legitimate reason to modify and/or adapt the contents of any such file (such as for inclusion of the contents in a publically available online database of Buddhist doctrine), please contact us for permission and unrestricted files.

We have adopted the following convention for naming dBET files. The following is the skeletal format:

dBET_[T9999_]BriefTitle_yyyy.pdf

All our filenames will contain three elements, and many will contain four. All filenames will begin with the opening designation "dBET_" indicating the general class of "digital BDK English Tripitaka" files. For files that contain the translation of a single text, this will be followed by the relevant Taisho or other number, prefixed by "T" for Taisho, "Z" for Zoku-zokyo (the extended canon), etc. However, since we are distributing dBET files as facsimiles of our printed volumes, a number of files will contain multiple texts. In order to reduce potential confusion, in these cases we have simply left out the Taisho or other numerical designation. Finally, all filenames will include a brief title based on the contents and the publication year of the printed volume. These designations will be useful in case of any future revisions or differing presentations of the texts in question.

(CC BY-NC-ND)