Introduction

University of The West and Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods (NIEM) have jointly launched the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Website for the benefit of the scholastic world. Our goal is to promote research into the vast corpus of Sanskrit Buddhist texts. The scriptures and treatises which make up this collection encompass tens of thousands of printed pages.

Electronic access to Sanskrit Buddhist texts, with its profound possibilities for enhancing the depth, scope and subtlety of research, has been a desideratum of the field for some time. Clearly, the conversion of canonical Buddhist texts into machine-readable format is an idea whose time has come.

In 2003, the University of the West, Los Angeles, under the generous sponsorship of Most Venerable Master Hsing Yun and guided by the initiative of Prof. Lewis Lancaster, began the Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Project (SBCP). The initial grant, covering the input of 50 Mahayana sutras, was completed in 2004.

Our second phase, covering the input of about 100 Shastra titles comprising the
works of Acarya Nagarjuna, Arya Deva, Asanga, and Vasubandhu has already
commenced, and will be completed at the end of 2009. We are currently seeking donations for the final phase of the project, which will make over 150 additional sutras, shastras, and other Buddhist titles freely available to all.