The Hundred Thousand Songs

This collection of Tibetan poetry and lyrics is accompanied by extensive commentary and offers a great insight into a rich literary culture.

Tibet, remote and inaccessible, is less known to the western world for its literary than its artistic contributions to world culture. Nevertheless, it has produced a literature of enduring beauty and significance, the supreme achievement of which is the poetry of Milarepa, its greatest poet and saint.

This Tibetan poetry book indicates in its poetic exaggeration that, to the Tibetans, his poetry contains all earthly and celestial wisdom. It is from this masterpiece that the selections for the present volume have been made—songs in which Milarepa describes his life in the solitude of mountain glaciers, his yogic attainments in self-discipline, his encounters with demons who try to obstruct his meditations, and his arrival at enlightenment and spiritual freedom.

Presented here in skillful translation—in a volume decorated with original Tibetan woodcuts and motifs from Tibetan art—these poems shiningly reflect the genius of Tibet's "Old Man, Storehouse of Songs."