Dear Jonathan, and all,

Thank you for this information about these wonderful electronic resources for canonical Tibetan materials. It will be helpful for anyone searching for "Kālacakra etexts" and finding this thread, as it is helpful to me. Yes, since among the Kangyurs of the Them spangs ma group (which seem to all be manuscript Kangyurs) only the Stog Palace one was accessible through its Indian reprint (1975-1980), I pretty much ignored the other ones due to their inaccessibility. I have now checked the colophons of these at the first link you gave.

The Ulaanbaatar and Shey Kangyurs, like the Stog Kangyur, have the Shong ston revision of the Somanātha and 'Bro translation of the Kālacakra-tantra. The colophons of the London and Tokyo Kangyurs were not given, but I assume that like the others of the Them spangs ma group, they have the Shong ston revision. Likewise, the Phugbrag Kangyur has the Shong ston revision, as do all the other Kangyurs whose colophons are shown at the link you gave.

So although the Kālacakra-tantra had been translated into Tibetan several times, we only had the Shong ston revision and the Jonang revision in the known Kangyurs. Then among the hoard of manuscripts recently discovered at the Drepung monastery, the first Tibetan translation of the Kālacakra-tantra that was ever made, made by Bhadrabodhi and Gyi jo lotsawa, was found. It was published in facsimile in Dus 'khor phyogs bsgrigs chen mo, vol. 2 or kha, 2012 (released in 2014). It is a pioneering translation in the full sense of the word, which is why it was superseded by better translations that came later. It nonetheless has value in sometimes helping to determine the correct original readings in Sanskrit manuscripts.

The Vimalaprabhā commentary on the Kālacakra-tantra fared even better in the Drepung finds. Not only the first ever translation of it by Bhadrabodhi and Gyi jo was found, but also an early translation of it by Tsa mi Sangs rgyas grags, an ethnic Tibetan or Tangut who spent many years in India and is said to be the only Tibetan to have become an upādhyāya in an Indian monastery. These are found in volumes 1-4 of Dus 'khor phyogs bsgrigs chen mo.

We would expect that the translation of the Vimalaprabhā found in most of the Tengyurs would be the Shong ston revision of the Somanātha and 'Bro translation, like their translation of the Kālacakra-tantra found in most of the Kangyurs. But as reported by Cyrus Stearns in a note in his book, The Buddha from Dolpo (2010 ed., p. 326, note 92), in the famed Der-ge recension it is instead a strange mix. This is despite the colophon identifying it as the Jonang revision. The first two chapters are the Shong revision, and the remaining three chapters are the Jonang revision. This is also true for the Co-ne Tengyur, and the Vimalaprabhā as found in the Der-ge, Lithang, and Urga Kangyurs. The full Shong ston revision is found in the Peking and Narthang Tengyurs.

Great to learn of your project (openphilology.eu), with its current focus on the Mahāratnakūṭa collection and the eventual goal of full digitization of the Tibetan corpora. Wishing you well with it.

Best regards,

David Reigle
Colorado, U.S.A.