Gene Smith’s Rules for the History of Tibetan Literature

Gene Smith’s Rules for the History of Tibetan Literature: "


The following points derived from Gene Smith’s Among Tibetan Texts by Kurtis Schaeffer were shared today at Columbia University’s panel discussion on the future of Tibetan studies after Gene Smith.

• Know the breadth and depth of Tibetan history
• Read single works for depth
• Read collected works for breadth

• Collect all available works on a topic
• List all unavailable works on that topic
• Find those unavailable works
• Make those works available

• Collect, describe, and compare all editions of a given work
• Know which edition you are reading and why
• Know the material context of the text
• Know the social context of the work

• Know the author’s biography
• Know the author’s teachers, students, friends’ and enemies’ biographies
• Know the author’s collected works
• Know the author’s teachers, students, friends, and enemies’ collected works

• Do not trust the text to be that of the author
• Trust the text to reveal something interesting about the context
• Trust the work to reveal something interesting about the author
• Rely on the context to discern what is interesting about the author

• Study the breadth of Tibetan tradition
• Study the depth of Tibetan history
• Read single works with breadth
• Read collected works with depth

"