THE REASON FOR THE PROJECT

  The Drukpa Kagyu Heritage project was started by the Ven. Tsoknyi Rinpoche III. The present Tsoknyi Rinpoche is the third incarnation of one of the principal tulkus of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition. One of Tsoknyi Rinpoche's main guru's, Adeu Rinpoche, requested of Tsoknyi Rinpoche some years ago to undertake this work. Adeu Rinpoche is the principal Drukpa Kagyu tulku in the Kham region of Tibet at this time and is one of the few Drukpa Kagyu masters left who holds the entire transmission of the Drukpa Kagyu teachings. Tsoknyi Rinpoche gave the task of executing the work to his translator and long-time student, Mr. Tony Duff.

  The Drukpa Kagyu tradition is one of the schools of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. It has a few sub-schools, though they are very similar and transmit the same core of teaching. The written tradition of the Drukpa Kagyu Lineage is in a very bad state. The invasion of Tibet by the Communist Chinese in 1959 was particularly effective at destroying the libraries of the Tibetan religious traditions in general but the writings of several traditions, including the Drukpa Kagyu, were almost totally destroyed.

  Upon hearing that Tibet was destroyed as a repository of these texts, the obvious thing to do would be to turn to Bhutan into order to obtain what was lost in Tibet. After all, Bhutan which has Drukpa Kagyu as its state religion and has been a stronghold of Drukpa Kagyu practice for several centuries still flourishes as a Buddhist monarchy. Unfortunately, in recent times most of the rare texts that were housed in Bhutan were removed to Sikkim and, in the war which resulted in Sikkim being annexed to India, the palace that housed the texts was burned to the great. As with Tibet, in one swoop all the fine copies and rare manuscripts of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage were eliminated in one, fell swoop. In this way, recent events have resulted in much of the precious repository of texts belonging to the Drukpa Kagyu being lost..

  Adeu Rinpoche, after being kept in prison for twenty years, was released and since then has been working to ensure that the younger tulkus and masters of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition receive the complete transmission of the tradition. He has been providing the necessary abhisheka's (empowerments), agama's (verbal transmission by reading), and upadesha's (pith instructions coming from experience) to them. In providing the transmission of practice it has been clear to him that the scriptural reference needed to go with that transmission is missing because of the loss of Drukpa Kagyu texts mentioned above. Therefore, he has compiled a complete listing of all of the texts of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition that he feels should be put together into one corpus so that the scriptural reference necessary for the continuity of the practice lineage can survive.

  The work of the DKHP is to collect all of the texts mentioned in the list compiled by Adeu Rinpoche, to preserve them somehow, to correct them as best as possible, and to publish them. The scope of the work is large: the index that Adeu Rinpoche has written encompasses over 1,800 separate texts and is arranged in a sequence that represents the tradition as a whole. The entire collection when put together will total approximately 100 to 150 Tibetan volumes of 300 folios (two sides to a Tibetan folio).

  There are no real divisions in the Drukpa Kagyu lineage. However, over the 8 centuries that it has been in existence, certain styles of practice have grown up which differ from region to region and hence some branches have developed. In Tibet these days there are what are regarded as the Central (U lugs) and the Eastern (Kham lugs) Drukpa Kagyu traditions. Additionally, the Drukpa Kagyu exists in Bhutan as the Southern Drukpa (Lho Druk). The head of the Central Tradition is the Druk Chen whose seat is in Darjeeling, north India these days; the head of the Eastern tradition is Adeu Rinpoche whose seat is Tse-bchu Gonpa in Kham at present, and Je Khanpo is the principal guru of the Southern Drukpa tradition and his seat is in Bhutan. All of these traditions contain the same, substantial core of transmission and textual reference to go with it. However, each tradition has slowly developed its own liturgical arrangements and some traditions have specialties that developed with later gurus that are not contained in the other traditions, e.g., the Khamtrul Rinpoches of the Eastern Tradition revealed many mind-termas that are special to that branch of the tradition.

  The collection being made by the DKHP does not and never has attempted to include every text belonging to all the branches of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition. The index of texts that Adeu Rinpoche has created fully represents the whole Drukpa Kagyu transmission in terms of important matters of practice, view, empowerment, and so forth, and it also includes some texts peculiar to the Eastern Style. In other words, it contains the entire core of the Drukpa Kagyu transmission which is constant to all branches of the Drukpa Kagyu and it also contains liturgical arrangements, termas, and other texts that were composed and are in use by the Drukpa Kagyu followers of the Eastern Tradition. It includes some of the liturgical arrangements and other special texts in use by the Central and Bhutanese Traditions as well.

  The index has six main groupings for the texts in the collection as follows and the count of texts in each section is included. The entire index of the collection can be downloaded by clicking here.