The Ācāryakriyāsamuccaya (or Officiant’s Ritual Compendium) is a long collection of prescriptions for the consecration of Buddhist monasteries, shrines, images, and books, and also for tantric initiation.
Its author, the maṇḍalācārya Jagaddarpaṇa, compiled information from a variety of sources and contributed little that is original, yet his work was eventually accepted as authoritative, particularly in Nepal. His motives are best understood in the context of Newār tantric Buddhism in the 13th century ce.
The aim is to produce a critical edition and annotated English translation of selected sections of the Sanskrit text, excluding the section on maṇḍala iconography, which is practically identical to corresponding sections in Abhayākaragupta’s Vajrāvalī and Niṣpannayogāvalī. The edition makes use of some twenty witnesses, as well as a variety of parallel sources, and is to be informed by translations or derivative works in Tibetan and Newār.
• This project is carried out by Iain Sinclair and is supervised by Prof. Harunaga Isaacson.