This page is for all the currently available English-language resources (books and articles) related to Tāranātha’s works and life. Links to these translations will also be placed in the Collected Works section hemselves, as and when they are available.

Translations of books by Tāranātha

• Lama Chimpa, Alaka Chattopadhyaya and Debiprasad Chatterji. 1990. Tāranātha’s History of Buddhism in India, Delhi : Motilal Banarsidass.
• Hopkins, Jeffrey. 2007.  Tāranātha, The Essence of Other Emptiness, Snow Lion.

• 1985. Tāranātha, The Golden Rosary of Tara, Shang-Shung Edizioni.
• De Falco, Cristina. 2005. Tāranātha, The Life of Padmasambahava, Shang Shung Edizioni.
• Templeman, David. 2002. Tāranātha, The Seven Instruction Lineages. Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

• Templeman, David. 2002. Tāranātha’s Life of Kr̥ṣṇācārya/Kāṇha. LTWA/Paljor Publications.

• Templeman, David. 1995, Jo Nang Tāranātha, The Origin of the Tara Tantra, LTWA. First published 1981.
• Teasdale, David. 2019. Three Reasons for Confidence: A Work Telling the Life and Liberation Story of the Great Master Padmākara. Lotsawa House.
• Tomlin, Adele. 2017. Tāranātha’s commentary on the Heart Sutra – A study, translation and critical edition, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

Biographies about Tāranātha

• Stearns, Cyrus. “Tāranātha,” Treasury of Lives.
• Templeman, David.
  • 1981. Taranatha the Historian, in The Tibet Journal, Vol VI, No. 2, Dharamsala.
  • 2020. Nested Autobiography: Life  Writing Within Larger Works, Life Writing, 17:2, 187-203, DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2019.1621443. The paper goes on to examine Tāranātha’s 15-part small autobiography which occurs at the mid-point of his large autobiography and shows how in certain of the sections the author alludes to examples drawn from his own life. An appendix offers a full preliminary translation of the 15-part ‘nested’ autobiography.
• Zenkar, Alak Rinpoche. Brief Biography of Tāranātha (Lotsawa House website)

Articles about Tāranātha

• Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. 2000.  “Tāranātha’s Presentation of trisvabhāva in the gZhan stong snying po.” Journal of the International Asso- ciation   of   Buddhist   Studies,   23.2 (2000) 195–223.
• Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. 2004.  “Tāranātha’s ‘Twenty-One  Differences with regard to the Profound Meaning’ – Comparing the Views of the Two gZhan stong Masters Dol po pa and Shakya mchog ldan.” Journal of the International Association   of   Buddhist  Studies,  27.2, 285–328.
• Bareja-Starzyńska, Agata. “The Mongolian Incarnation of Jo Nang Pa Tāranātha Kun Dga’ Snying Po: Öndör Gegeen Zanabazar Bio Bzang Bstan Pa’i Rgyal Mtshan (1635-1723): A Case Study of the Tibeto-Mongolian Relationship.” The Tibet Journal, vol. 34/35, no. 3/2, 2009, pp. 243–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43302071.
• Burchardi, Anne. 2007.   “A Look at the Diversity of the gZhan stong Tradition.” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, 3.
• Hopkins, Jeffrey.  2007. (tr.) The Essence of Other-Emptiness. By Tāranātha. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion.
• Sheehy, Michael. 2008. Michael Sheehy, (tr.) “The Essence of Zhen-tong, By Tāranātha.” In Jonang Foundation’s Digital Library, http://www.jona- ngfoundation.org/sites/default/files/jf_ snying%20po_final.pdf http://h/
• Sheehy, Michael. 2009.“A Lineage History of Vajrayoga and Tantric Zhentong from the Jonang Kālacakra Practice Tradition.” In As Long As Space Endures: Essays on the Kālachakra in Honour of HH the Dalai Lama. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2009, pp. 219–235.
• Sheehy, Michael. 2010. The Jonangpa after Taranatha: Auto/biographical Accounts of the Transmission of Esoteric Buddhist Knowledge in Seventeenth Century Tibet. Bulletin of Tibetology.
• Templeman, David.
  • 1981. Taranatha the Historian, in The Tibet Journal, Vol VI, No. 2, Dharamsala.
  • 1988. A Study of Buddhist Tantric Hagiography, in Religions and Comparative Thought. Essays in Honour of the Late Dr. Ian Kesarcodi-Watson. Ed. P. Bilimoria and P. Fenner, Sri Satguru Publications, Delhi.
  • 1992. Taranatha’s Life of Kanha / Krsnacarya; an Unusual Siddha Hagiography, in Tibetan Studies, Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, 2 Vols, Ed. S. Ihara and Z. Yamaguchi, Naritasan Shinshoji, Narita.
  • 1994. Reflexive Criticism-The Case of Kun Dga’ Grol Mchog and Taranatha, in Tibetan Studies, Proceedings of the 6th. Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Ed. P. Kvaerne, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, Oslo, 1994.
  • 2010. ‘South of the Border’: Taranatha’s Perceptions of India. In The Earth Ox Papers: Proceedings of the International Seminar on Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, 2009. (Ed. Vitali, R.) LTWA, Dharamsala.
  • 2010. Tibetan Clerical Attitudes to Armed Conflict: the Cases of Taranatha and the 14 th Dalai Lama. in New Views of Tibetan Culture (Ed. Templeman, D.) Monash University Press.
  • 2012. Taranatha’s Self-Vision Based on His Autobiography and Secret Autobiography. in This World and the Next: Contributions on Tibetan Religion, Science and Society; Proceedings of the 11 th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, (Ed. Ramble, C. and Sudbury, J.) IITBS GmBH, Bonn.
  • 2013. Taranatha and Indian Tantrik Knowledge in the 16 th and 17 th Centuries, in Tantrik Literature and Culture: Hermeneutics and Expositions – Proceedings of the 6th International Csoma de Koros Symposium, Kolkata/Santiniketan 2009. Ed. A. Loseries. Buddhist World Press, New Delhi.
  • 2017. Colonial and Other Uses of Two Tibetan Historical Works by Tāranātha (1575–1634). In, Religion, Caste, Tribe and Gender: Essays on Society, Culture and Development in India. Ed. Manoj Sanyal and Gregory Bailey, Manak Publications, New Delhi.
  • 2021. The Route to Shambhala: Contested Visions and Political Ambitions of Tāranātha (1575-1634) and the 3rd Paṇchen Lama (1738-1780) In, Crossing Boundaries: Festschrift for Prof. Toni Huber’s 65 th birthday. Academia Publishers, Prague.
• Tomlin, Adele:

A Woman’s Voice : ‘Secret Primordial-Wisdom’, the Autobiography of Kunga Trinley Wangmo, Zhentong lineage holder and consort of Tāranātha

The meaning of ‘innate’ (lhan skyes) in generation stage Kālacakra

The ‘vajra descent’ and ‘authentic completion stage’: the 8th Karmapa and Tāranātha on the meaning of ‘vajra’ and ‘non-conceptual primordial awareness’

New Translation: Jetsun Tāranātha’s The Ornament of Madhyamaka Empty-of-Other

‘Love is the water of compassion’: Tāranātha on the ‘four immeasurables’ in A Hundred Blazing Lights

Public Lecture on Tāranātha‘s Commentary on Heart Sūtra

Jetsun Tāranātha on the meaning of ‘three confidences’

Jetsun Tāranātha, Jonang, Shangpa Kagyu, Kalu Rinpoche and the White Hat Karmapa, Tsa Tsa Rinpoche

Kālacakra as the ‘ultimate pinnacle’ of all the tantras: Jetsun Tāranātha and 8th Karmapa, Mikyo Dorje

NECESSARY QUALITIES OF A VAJRAYANA MASTER by JETSUN TARANATHA in ‘A HUNDRED BLAZING LIGHTS’

Tāranātha text used for the Five Tantric Deities of Shangpa Kagyu Empowerment at Bokar Monastery today

‘A Hundred Blazing Lights’: Tāranātha on the meaning of ‘profound’ and ‘exceptional devotion in the ‘profound path of vajra-yogas’

Tāranātha on Vajrasattva in ‘A Hundred Blazing Lights’: the nature of karma, the four ‘opponent powers’ and the necessity of purification

Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Tāranātha and Nyingma lineage texts on Kālacakra

• Wenta, Alexander. 2021. Tāranātha on the Emergence of the Tantric Cycle of Vajrabhairava-Yamāntaka: Writing a Tibetan Buddhist Historiography in Seventeenth-Century Tibet. Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines.