Is there a Mahayana/Vajrayana Equivalent to accesstoinsight?

[Mr. G]

Does anyone know if there's a Mahayana/Vajrayana Equivalent to accesstoinsight.com? Sort of like an online abhidharmakosha?

[Josef]

Does anyone know if there's a Mahayana/Vajrayana Equivalent to accesstoinsight.com? Sort of like an online abhidharmakosha?

not yet.
I might say that i think its a good thing that there isnt.
Although access to information is a good thing it isnt difficult to find people taking things out of context on Access to Insight and posting them all over the internet in order to support their own views. I'm not a fan of access to insight personally.

[kirtu]

Does anyone know if there's a Mahayana/Vajrayana Equivalent to accesstoinsight.com? Sort of like an online abhidharmakosha?

not yet.
I might say that i think its a good thing that there isnt.
Although access to information is a good thing it isnt difficult to find people taking things out of context on Access to Insight and posting them all over the internet in order to support their own views. I'm not a fan of access to insight personally.

Really? How can they take things from Access To Insight out of context?

I began encountering sutras from about 12 or 13 on and Buddhism from about 10 on and have always thought that access to basic teaching is very important now. Of course people can twist things for their own views, etc. but it's more difficult to do in the sutta teachings.

Kirt

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

I think it is an excellent idea, and if anyone here has the means to create, instigate or participate in such a project, then I would encourage them to pursue that possibility, as it will be a great blessing to Buddhists across the globe.

In the meantime perhaps, someone (perhaps even Dharma Wheel members collectively?) could take up the slightly lesser challenge of creating a Mahayana/Vajrayana equivalent of the Google Saffron Theravada Search Engine.

http://www.google.com/cse/home?cx=00545 ... cbjbznmwso

Metta,
Retro.

[Avery]

Hey--

There are actually a number of websites with a nearly complete library of Mahayana scriptures, namely the NTU Digital Library and the SAT Daizōkyō Text Database.

http://shii.org/knows/Sutras

However, if you want to read them in English, that'll set you back several million dollars to hire a translator for 40-50 years...

There is no comparable project to the Pali Text Society for Mahayana.

[plwk]

Closest one in my estimation.... http://mahajana.lap.hu/

[Josef]

Does anyone know if there's a Mahayana/Vajrayana Equivalent to accesstoinsight.com? Sort of like an online abhidharmakosha?

not yet.
I might say that i think its a good thing that there isnt.
Although access to information is a good thing it isnt difficult to find people taking things out of context on Access to Insight and posting them all over the internet in order to support their own views. I'm not a fan of access to insight personally.

Really? How can they take things from Access To Insight out of context?

I began encountering sutras from about 12 or 13 on and Buddhism from about 10 on and have always thought that access to basic teaching is very important now. Of course people can twist things for their own views, etc. but it's more difficult to do in the sutta teachings.

Kirt

i've seen people use cut and paste jobs from accesstoinsight that are used to put forth some pretty wacky arguments.
The new buddhist forum stands out as one where this kind of thing goes on unchecked, among other things.

[Indrajala]

This might be useful:

http://www.fodian.net/world/

Kind of like Access to Insight, though not as extensive.

[Astus]

Creating anything similar to ATI in English is quite difficult. First of all there are copyright issues. Mahayana sutras have been translated by a large number of translators and groups. But you can find a lot around the Web if you know where to go. Plus Mahayana is a lot more diverse than Theravada.

On the other hand, you cannot get almost any Abhidhamma material online even though many of them are translated by PTS.

[Huifeng]

Also check out Mahayana Buddhist Sutras in English.

And also:
Tibetan
and
Zen.

[Astus]

By the way, does anyone know a good source of online (modern) Japanese translations for sutras?

[Indrajala]

By the way, does anyone know a good source of online (modern) Japanese translations for sutras?

I find when I look for them online they tend to be links to all the various book merchants who want to sell paper copies of various texts.

I often wonder myself if there are any actual archives...

[Astus]

I find when I look for them online they tend to be links to all the various book merchants who want to sell paper copies of various texts.

I often wonder myself if there are any actual archives...

Exactly my experience. Almost every little Japanese temple have their own homepage but no teachings? Really strange. Do you know any reason behind this?

[Mr. G]

I'll take the time to look over the links...thanks everyone.

[Indrajala]

I find when I look for them online they tend to be links to all the various book merchants who want to sell paper copies of various texts.

I often wonder myself if there are any actual archives...

Exactly my experience. Almost every little Japanese temple have their own homepage but no teachings? Really strange. Do you know any reason behind this?

Well, I'm sure they slap on the HTTP:// address on the business cards and it potentially draws in business if they're doing funerals or other such profitable priestcrafts.

The temples that devote themselves to practise and community service might just provide the details of events and schedules.

Take this one for example:

http://home.catv.ne.jp/rr/ryuuunji/main.html

A lot of schedule information, but no sutras.


Soto-shu's official website provides comics (kind of teachings I guess):

http://www.sotozen-net.or.jp/kids/c_dogen/co_d_001.htm


And Rinzai's official site has some dharma talks:

http://www.rinnou.net/cont_04/story.html


Unfortunately it seems that most academic work that is conducted in Japan is limited to print material. Even annotated and translated texts, which should be freely available, are kept as print versions for the most part. The popular translators of sutras like Nakamura Hajime for example all published their work for the commercial market, so copyrights all apply and the company won't make it digitally available.