Resources
Introduction: Tibetan Oral Commentaries
One of our more ambitious projects involves the archiving of audio and video recordings of oral commentaries on a broad variety of Tibetan literary genres, as well as lengthy commentaries on the great classics of Tibetan literature and readings by contemporary poets and novelists. The first step in such work is to digitize the files, and offer them with a simple table of contents that divides them into useful segments. The second step is to input the texts being commented on, and then connect the recordings to the text so that one can click on a given part of the text and get that segment of the commentary. The third step is to actually transcribe the oral commentary using the QuillDriver software so that the transcript and recording are dynamically linked. The fourth step is then to translate and/or annotate the transcript.
Status: We have been building up a large collection of audio and video recordings since 2000 both by original video recordings in Tibet, and by acquisition of preexistent audio recordings. We are currently working on the phase of digitization and transcription, though currently we are mostly offering only the actual recordings for public use without transcription. Some of the highlights of the materials that are being processed include segments of a variety of genres of classical Tibetan from Matthew Kapstein's draft Reader of Classical Tibetan, a lengthy commentary on the Fifth Dalai Lama's History by Nor brang o rgyan, lengthy scholastic commentaries by mKhan po rnam grol, various religious teachings, and a selection of readings by contemporary poets and novelists. We urgently need more volunteers interested on helping with translation, review and analysis of these materials as they are processed. We expect by the first quarter of 2004 to offer an initial draft of some materials with improved navigation and transcription.