Sam's excellent insight and web sight ---> Total history of Ati Yoga here in about 4 installments through the last 5 years.Notes, thoughts and fragments of research on the history of Tibet
http://earlytibet.com/2011/08/03/early-dzogchen-iv/
http://earlytibet.com/2008/01/24/early-dzogchen-iii/
http://earlytibet.com/2008/01/15/early-dzogchen-ii/
http://earlytibet.com/2008/01/08/early-dzogchen-i/
http://earlytibet.com/2007/06/20/padmasambhava/
http://earlytibet.com/2007/08/27/in-sea ... ha-tantra/
Sam's blurb:
The Author
I am based at the British Library, as Research Manager for the International Dunhuang Project, where I am currently involved in a 3-year project on the Tibetan Chan tradition. Previous research projects include a 5-year project on Tibetan paleography and a 3-year project on the earliest Tibetan tantric manuscripts. I also occasionally lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
My PhD in Religious Studies was awarded in 2000 by the Department of Religions and Theology at the University of Manchester. The dissertation, on the Dzogchen works of the 18th-century writer Jigmé Lingpa, was published as Approaching the Great Perfection in 2003.
Since then I have worked closely with the Tibetan manuscript collections from Central Asia. My research has focused mainly on the impact of social and historical factors on key issues in Tibetan culture. These include the contemplative tradition of the Great Perfection, the tantric ritual system and its social contexts, and the development of mythical narratives of imperial Tibet. I’ve also written on the intersection between orality and literacy, and on the creation and development of the Tibetan writing system. Tibet: A History, my narrative history of Tibet, was published by Yale University Press in 2011.