The Kalacakratantra, the latest and most comprehensive Buddhist Tantra available in its original Sanskrit, has never been the topic of a full scale scholarly study. This fascinating volume fills that gap, concentrating on the inner Kalackaratantra and discussing the nature of human beings.

The Kalacakratantra is the latest and most comprehensive Buddhist Tantra that is available in its original Sanskrit. The Kalacakratantra's five chapters are classified into three categories: outer, inner, and other Kalacakratantra. This text focuses on the inner Kalacakratantra

The Kalacakratantra is the latest and most comprehensive Buddhist Tantra that is available in its original Sanskrit. The Kalacakratantra's five chapters are classified into three categories: outer, inner, and other Kalacakratantra. This text focuses on the inner Kalacakratantra.

The premiere volume of Thupten Jinpa's thirty-two-volume Library of Tibetan Classics series, inaugurated to coincide with the Dalai Lama's conferral of the initiation rite of Kalacakra in Toronto in April 2004. The Kalacakra, or "wheel of time," tantra likely entered Indian Mahayana Buddhism around the tenth century. In expounding the root tantra, the Indian master Pundarika, one of the legendary Kalki kings of the land of Shambhala, wrote his influential Stainless Light.Ornament of Stainless Light is an authoritative Tibetan exposition of this important text, composed in the fifteenth century by Khedrup Norsang Gyatso, tutor to the Second Dalai Lama. One of the central projects of Kalacakra literature is a detailed correlation between the human body and the external universe. In working out this complex correspondence, the Kalacakra texts present an amazingly detailed theory of cosmology and astronomy, especially about the movements of the various celestial bodies. The Kalacakra tantra is also a highly complex system of Buddhist theory and practice that employs vital bodily energies, deep meditative mental states, and a penetrative focus on subtle points within the body's key energy conduits known as channels. Ornament of Stainless Light addresses all these topics, elaborating on the external universe, the inner world of the individual, the Kalacakra initiation rites, and the tantric stages of generation and completion, all in a highly readable English translation.

This is the first complete English translation of the second chapter of the esoteric Buddhist Kalacakratantra text, and its eleventh-century commentary, the Stainless Light (Vimalaprabha) , often accorded pride of place as the first volume of the Tibetan Tanjur. This chapter elaborates the human "individual" in terms of the cosmic human who embodies the cosmos within, showing the homology of macrocosm and microcosm, the outer and inner aspects of the person. The translation is supplemented with copious references to Tibetan commentaries, and includes the first critical edition of the Mongolian version of the second chapter. Published by American Institute of Buddhist Studies (AIBS)

The Kalacakra initiation has now been given in the west on a number of occasions, yet authentic teachings of this ancient tradition remain rare. Here is presented a commentary given by Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, which contains explanations and advice concerning the various commitments and initial practices peculiar to the Kalacakra system within the context of Highest Yoga Tantra and Mahayana Buddhist practice in general