It is with great pleasure that Buddhist scholars see the opening of this new website for the Dharani Samgraha project of NIEM, in collaboration with Dr. Tony K. Lin and Professor Yao-ming Tsai at Taiwan National University. Professor Min Bahadur Sakya is to be congratulated on the contribution he is making to the field of Sanskrit studies. The previous input of Sanskrit texts created a unique digital resource to the benefit of academics around the world. Now, NIEM and the collaborators are undertaking the very difficult task of bringing Dharani studies into the mainstream. Preserved over the centuries within the Newari Buddhist community, these specialized texts represent a part of Buddhist practice and thought that has yet to be fully understood and incorporated into our descriptions of Buddhism. 

At one level, this material relates directly to the rituals that form an important basis for Tantric practice. With easy access to the content of these texts, researchers will be able to explore and analyze phonological structures, patterns of composition, relationship to deities, ritual formation, and significance of the expressions. I want to thank NIEM for making all of its material freely available without placing barriers for users. It is sites such as this one that are facilitating scholarly communications in a manner that surpasses the print environment.

Lewis Lancaster
University of California, Berkeley

Website: http://ieas.berkeley.edu/faculty/lancaster.html