Writings: BuddhismThe Yongle Kangyur of 141010 of 10

Writings: Buddhism

The Yongle Kangyur of 1410

The Yongle Kangyur is the first printed edition of the Kangyur, the Tibetan collection of scriptures regarded as the Buddha's words. It was printed from carved wooden blocks for the Ming emperor Yongle, and the sources used here date the edition to 1410. One folio, a single printed sheet, is held at the University of Michigan.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    The Kangyur gathers some 900 works, so no single year applies. The statements consulted (the 17th Karmapa's in 2016 and 2025, and the Dalai Lama's in 2014) give no year for the scriptures.

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    On 84000's account, texts brought from India continued to be translated into Tibetan for several hundred years, so no single year applies. The Tshalpa line of Kangyurs that the Yongle blocks follow is dated in the text below.

  3. This copy made

    1410 CE for the edition, and the date Helman-Wazny's table lists for the folio; the edition's date is from the Yongle emperor's postface as von Stael-Holstein gave it in 1934, and her note says Bruce Cameron Hall identified the folio as a Yongle print, without saying how the table's date was reached

  4. This copy found

    one folio received by the University of Michigan in 1924 from a New York fur trader; the sources used give no find record for the complete copies

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

The Yongle Kangyur is the first printed Kangyur (bka' 'gyur, "the Word translated"), the main collection of Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan. 84000, a Buddhist translation project, describes the Kangyur as some 900 works in over 100 volumes (Dakini Translations gives 101 to 120, depending on the edition). All are translations into Tibetan of Indian texts considered to record the Buddha's words. Most, 84000 says, broadly comprise monastic rules (Vinaya), discourses (sutras), and tantras (texts that, the Dalai Lama says, speak of reaching buddhahood in one life).123

This edition is a xylograph, printed from carved wooden blocks for the Ming dynasty emperor Yongle. Helman-Wazny writes that it was printed in red ink in 1410.4 One folio, a single printed sheet, is at the University of Michigan.4

How the copy was dated

For the edition, Alexander von Stael-Holstein described in 1934 two documents he judged were printed from Ming dynasty blocks. One, a postface (a closing note) by the Yongle emperor, is dated in the 8th year of his reign, which he gives as 1410 CE. The other, an ode to the Kangyur, carries in its Chinese version a second date. It is a note that the Kangyur, or perhaps only the ode, was reprinted under the later Wanli emperor, as Silk reads the term. The sources do not say whether these documents are 1410 impressions.5

84000, Lewis Lancaster, and Benjamin Nourse also give 1410, Lancaster for the year the Kangyur was put on blocks.167

For the Michigan folio itself, Helman-Wazny's table lists 1410, Beijing. Her note, citing Bruce Cameron Hall's unpublished 1986 hand-list (a basic catalog), says Hall identified the sheet as belonging to the Yongle Kanjur, without describing his method. This site did not see the hand-list or Silk's 1996 study, which she also cites.4

Silk notes that volumes once taken for the 1410 edition, since destroyed, seem to have belonged to the later Wanli reprint. Helmut Eimer tells him at least one is printed in red, so not Wanli. The sources used give no other link between the folio and the 1410 printing.5

Sources give the place two ways. 84000, Lancaster, and Helman-Wazny say Beijing, while Google Arts and Culture, the Rubin Museum, and a passage Dakini Translations quotes without naming its source say Nanjing; none gives a reason. World History Encyclopedia dates the capital's move from Nanjing to Beijing to 1421.164891011 For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The Yongle blocks follow the Tshalpa line of Kangyurs, which began with an edition that 84000 and Nourse date to 1347 to 1351. That edition was not printed. The box below calls the Yongle the first Tibetan edition; these sources call it the first printed.17

Different Karma Kagyu teachers recognize Ogyen Trinley Dorje and Thaye Dorje as the 17th Karmapa; the Tibetan teachers' box below quotes Ogyen Trinley Dorje.1213

Tibetan teachers: Kagyu and Gelug teaching

The 17th Karmapa, a teacher of the Karma Kagyu school, spoke in 2025 on the close of a three-month reading of the Kangyur aloud at Benchen Monastery in Nepal. In English as Dakini Translations gives his words (the 2025 message in Adele Tomlin's translation), he said that Buddhist teachings need to be traced back to the main source of the Buddha's words, so the Kangyur is crucial. In 2016 he said the fifth Karmapa edited the first Tibetan edition, the Yongle Kangyur.21014

The Dalai Lama, a teacher of the Gelug school, teaches that the Buddha gave the Perfection of Wisdom sutras in a second turning of the wheel of teaching and the basis of tantric practice in a third, before select gatherings of disciples.314

The historians' view

Paul Harrison, in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, holds that Mahayana sutras and tantras were produced in India from about the first century CE onward, and that a meaningful teaching in line with the dharma that tended to lead to liberation might be accepted as the word of the Buddha. Some innovations were rejected, but some Buddhists came to accept these sutras, then the tantras, in this way.15

Benjamin Nourse writes that Kangyurs differ, often for reasons of school or politics, though most differences are minor. The greatest, he holds, is whether they include tantras particular to the Nyingma school, ostensibly a matter of authentication by a Sanskrit original but more likely of the compiler's or patron's sympathies. The sources used include no Nyingma or Sakya statement, and none on whether the Yongle includes these tantras.7

How it was found

It was not found, because it was printed and handed on. Nourse writes, citing Silk, that copies went to a temple at Wutai Shan and to religious figures in central Tibet within a decade of completion.710 In 1934 von Stael-Holstein wrote that no complete copy was definitely known to survive; Silk's later note says at least two do, without naming them there.5

A Tibetan and Himalayan Library text, as Dakini Translations quotes it, says two almost complete editions exist in Lhasa and one was known on Wutai Shan around 1940, its present status unknown.10

The Michigan folio, folio 12 of a sutra, the Samadhirajasutra, came in 1924 from Edward Barrett, a New York fur trader who traveled in China. The sources used do not say where he got it.4

What it shows, and what it does not

The edition shows that by 1410 a Ming emperor's court had a Tibetan Kangyur printed. The Michigan folio is listed under 1410 in Helman-Wazny's table; Hall's identification of it as a Yongle print is the only link her note gives.74

For Tibetans, as for other Buddhists, Harrison writes, the scriptures are a focus of worship and veneration. 84000 says Kangyurs made across the Tibetan cultural area were often a meritorious action sponsored by a local ruler.151 For this printing, words Dakini Translations quotes in the emperor's voice, with no source named, give his reason: to repay his parents' kindness.10

It does not show when any Indian scripture in it was composed, or whether the Buddha spoke it; the accounts above differ (see Buddhist Scriptures). 84000 holds that there is no single, authoritative version of the Kangyur, so this edition is one version among several.1

Sources

  1. John Canti (84000). The Kangyur. 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, Sections The Kangyur and its divisions, and History. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Adele Tomlin (writer and translator), Dakini Translations and Publications. THE KANGYUR (WORDS OF THE BUDDHA) TRANSMISSION: Completion of 100-plus volume, Kangyur reading transmission by 10th Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche and Benchen Monastery, Nepal, personal message from 17th Karmapa and other observations/wishes. Dakini Translations and Publications, 2025, the 17th Karmapa's January 2025 message as translated on the page, and the page's account of the Kangyur's size and editions (101 to 120 volumes depending on the edition). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Explaining Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism at Shuchi-in University. dalailama.com, 2014. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  4. Agnieszka Helman-Wazny. The Tibetan Kanjur: Regional Patterns and Preliminary Paper Typology of Manuscripts and Xylographs. Manuscript Cultures no. 5, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg, pp. 92 to 102; note 2 on p. 92, the passage on the Yongle blocks and the Wanli reprint on p. 93, paper findings on pp. 94 to 96, table 1 on p. 98. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Alexander von Stael-Holstein (article of 1934); edited, with added lettered notes, by Jonathan A. Silk. On a Peking Edition of the Tibetan Kanjur which Seems to be Unknown in the West (with Silk's introduction and notes). Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 22.1 (1999), 1999, pp. 215 (opening paragraph and Silk's note a), 219 (note i), and 222 (note 2, with notes o to q), and the signature line at the end of the article (Peking, January 14, 1934); the issue prints the article at pp. 211 to 250. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Lewis R. Lancaster. Buddhist Books and Texts: Canon and Canonization. Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2005. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  7. Benjamin James Nourse. Canons in Context: A History of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon in the Eighteenth Century. PhD dissertation, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, 2014, pp. 31 to 33 (the Tselpa Kangyur and the Yongle Kangyur, with notes 28 to 33) and p. 212 (printing before the eighteenth century); printed page numbers, which run nine behind the PDF page numbers. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Google Arts and Culture, museum record (creator listed as Anonymous). Tibetan Dragon Buddhist Canon (binding). Google Arts and Culture, the record's description. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  9. Rubin Museum of Art, Project Himalayan Art (catalog record). A Case of Tibetan Kangyur. Rubin Museum of Art, the record's fields (location, date, collection). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  10. Adele Tomlin (writer and compiler), Dakini Translations and Publications. The Kangyur and the Gyalwang Karmapas' role in their publication and preservation. Dakini Translations and Publications, 2020, section Yongle Kangyur (1410), and notes iv and viii. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  11. Mark Cartwright. Yongle Emperor. World History Encyclopedia, 2019, the section Beijing and the Forbidden City, and the timeline entry for 1421. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  12. Office of the Gyalwang Karmapa. Fifty Verses on the Guru: Day One. kagyuoffice.org, 2026. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  13. Gabriel Lefferts. Karmapas Meet for First Time in Show of Unity in a Divided Lineage. Tricycle, The Buddhist Review, 2018, the opening paragraphs. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  14. Buddhism: Tibetan Buddhism. Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices, via Encyclopedia.com, Overview; Central Doctrines. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  15. Paul Harrison. Canon. Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, 2004. Accessed 2026-10-28.