Smith wrote prefaces to these reprinted books to help clarify and contextualize the particular Tibetan texts: the prefaces served as rough orientations to a poorly understood body of foreign literature. Originally produced in print quantities of 20, these prefaces quickly became legendary, and soon photocopied collections were handed from scholar to scholar, achieving an almost cult status.

These essays are collected here for the first time. The impact of Smith's research on the academic study of Tibetan literature has been tremendous, both for his remarkable ability to synthesize diverse materials into coherent accounts of Tibetan literature, history, and religious thought, and for the exemplary critical scholarship he brought to this field.

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Praise & Reviews "To anyone trying to find their way among Tibetan texts, these introductions are essential reading."—Shambhala Sun "Gene Smith opened more doors to Tibetan Buddhism than any scholar of the 20th century. These essays are the keys."—Prof. Donald Lopez, University of Michigan, author of Prisoners of Shangri-La : Tibetan Buddhism and the West "No one knows the full range of Tibetan literature better than Gene Smith. His numerous introductions to Tibetan works are so valuable as to be priceless."—Prof. Jeffrey Hopkins, University of Virginia, author of Cultivating Compassion: A Buddhist Perspective "These essays are all characterized by Gene's astonishingly encyclopedic knowledge of Tibetan literature, philosophy, and history, delivered with a kind of easy elegance that makes his erudition look effortless. They are a pleasure to read. There are perhaps only one or two other scholars in thecountry who even come close to Gene's knowledge of Tibetan culture."—Stephan V. Beyer, author of The Cult of Tara "A fascinating glimpse of the politics and personalities of Tibetan history."—Buddhadharma "Smith is a legendary figure in the history of Tibetan Buddhist studies. He was a field office for the Library of Congress from 1968-1985 and used that position to salvage and subsequently publish (with the assistance of US Public Law 480) more Tibetan literature than, well, anyone. This volume contains seventeen independent essays and introductions he wrote for some of the published volume. Virtually all of them are seminal in the fields of Tibetan and Buddhist studies, which deserve the new audience this volume will attract. Most of the volume on which Smith comments are not those you will find in your local bookstore, which makes this work especially important. Anyone with an interest in Tibetan Buddhist textuality, literary history, and reading between the lines of Tibetan religion should have this book."—Religious Studies Review

E. Gene Smith, Author After a thirty-year overseas career in the Library of Congress, E. GENE SMITH became Executive Director of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC)—the world's most comprehensive collection of Tibetan literature, which is being scanned and distributed online at tbrc.org. He lives in New York City. Jeffrey Hopkins, Foreword Jeffrey Hopkins is Professor of Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia where he has taught Tibetan Studies and Tibetan language since 1973. He received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1963, trained for five years at the Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America (now the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center) in New Jersey, and received a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin in 1973. From 1979 to 1989 he served as His Holiness the Dalai Lama's chief interpreter into English on lecture tours in the U.S., Canada, Southeast Asia, Great Britain, and Switzerland. He has published seventeen articles and more than twenty-five books, including Meditation on Emptiness. At the University of Virginia he founded programs in Buddhist Studies and Tibetan Studies and served as Director of the Center for South Asian Studies for twelve years.