The Treasury of Lives

Subscription Services

Academic library subscriptions offer additional services for faculty, students, and library professionals at contributing institutions. These include:

New content is added weekly

Current number of biographies: 1,404+
Number of contributing authors: 136+
Geographic place names: 1,000+
Mapped cultural sites: 757+
Mapped county seats: 150+
Folk regions mapped: 70+
Clans and families: 200+
As-yet unpublished biography drafts: 900+
Biographies of translators: 81+
Over 20 roles and occupations classified
Seven print-ready, open-source static maps
 

Institutional Subscription Fee

Tier 1: $825 USD per year
(includes data exports, sample lesson plans, syllabi, and bibliographies)
Tier 2: 1650 USD per year
(includes all services above plus annual online tutorial and custom mapping and timeline tools)
Tier 3: $2200 USD per year
(includes all services above plus in-service training, advanced search and customized maps)

Subscription resources are accessible from the Resources page; access to content and tools is enabled based on Tier level. Trial access can be arranged. 

Subscribing institutions include Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, University of Virginia, Rice University, University of Michigan, Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Deakin University and more.

Three-Year Subscription is billed annually and receives a 5% discount

View Frequently Asked Questions for further information, or contact subscription@treasuryoflives.org 


“The Treasury of Lives has become the singularly most accessible and authoritative database of biographical information for Tibetan Studies, and it offers an increasing store of material for the wider Himalayan and Inner Asian region. In my work as reference librarian at Columbia University, where our Tibetan Civilization classes draw some eighty undergraduate students, and even for more specialized users, a peer-reviewed site such as The Treasury, with English-language entries, faceted searching, and geovisualization tools is a critical resource. The Treasury database effectively serves as a portal whereby biographical details lead to the discovery of other persons, networks, professions, geographical sites, teaching lineages, and historical periods, as well as religious and social institutions.”

-- Lauran R. Hartley, Director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Columbia University

"In recent decades, scholarship on the religious history of Tibet and the wider Himalaya has benefited enormously from a growing attention to biographical literature. Scholars of Central Asia and the Tibetan plateau have vast archives of biographical materials, in Chinese, Tibetan, and other languages. This material sheds light on the lived experience of Buddhists in the region, their traditions of religious instruction, and their networks of trade and cultural exchange across Asia. The Treasury of Lives thus offers an important avenue of humanistic inquiry and a source for historical, cultural, and religious forms of knowledge over a thousand years of history and spanning the Himalayan range. The Treasury of Lives is undoubtedly the largest and most ambitious database of biographical materials currently available. Entries are written to high scholarly standards (most are peer reviewed) but are accessible to both scholars and the general public alike. The framework is at once elegant and easy to use. It has quickly become an indispensable resource in my own work and I use it frequently in the classroom."

-- Andrew Quintman, Professor of Religion, Wesleyan University

SUBSCRIBE

(Upon submission you will be contacted by staff to finalize agreement and payment.)