Wisdom Academics
Explore Wisdom’s Academic Series
Explore Wisdom’s Academics 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 Library of Tibetan Classics
• The Library of Wisdom and Compassion
• Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism
• Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics
Recent News
PUBLISHED APRIL 2023
Sounds of Innate Freedom, Volume 3: The Indian Texts of Mahāmudrā (Karl Brunnhölzl)
The expressive songs of the inexpressible found in Sounds of Innate Freedom, Volume 3 offer readers a feast of profound and powerful pith instructions uttered by numerous male and female mahāsiddhas, yogīs, and ḍākinīs, often in the context of ritual gaṇacakras and initially kept in their secret treasury.
PUBLISHED MARCH 2023
The Swift Path: A Meditation Manual on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Szegee Toh)
The Swift Path by the Second Panchen Lama has long been heralded in the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism as one of the “eight great lamrims,” or works presenting the stages of the path to enlightenment, but it is the last to become widely available in English translation. These guided meditations make use of a visualization of one’s teacher in the guise of Śākyamuni Buddha to unlock our own innate potential for complete enlightenment to best benefit humanity and all living beings.
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2022
Stages of the Path and the Oral Transmission: Selected Teachings of the Geluk School (Thupten Jinpa)
Stages of the Path and the Oral Transmission, volume six in the Library of Tibetan Classics, features works from well-known authors like Tsongkhapa, the First Panchen Lama, and the Fifth Dalai Lama, but also important works from lesser-known figures like Gomchen Ngawang Drakpa’s stages of the path in verse and Gyalrong Tsultrim Nyima’s extensive commentary on the Lama Chöpa that interweaves precious explanations from the Ensa Oral Tradition he received from his own teacher.
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.
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—t 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.
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 learn more.
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 learn more.
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.
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.