The Karchag Phangthangma is one of three known Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

an imperial

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...

 catalogues listing translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

s mainly of Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 Buddhist texts

Buddhist texts

Buddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized...

 to Tibetan

Tibetan language

The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...

. The title, in Tibetan dkar-chag 'phang-thang-ma, simply means the catalogue (karchag) from Phangthang (a place in Central Tibet).

The Karchag Phang-tangma (dkar-chag 'Phang-thang-ma) was sponsored by the Tibetan emperors in the 9th century. Studies of the imperial catalogue from Denkar (dkar-chag lDan-dkar-ma) have been conducted by YOSHIMURA (1950); LALOU (1953); and HERRMANN-PFANDT (2008). For studies of the catalogue from 'Phang-thang see: HALKIAS (2004), EISHIN (2005a/2005b), and DOTSON (2007). The Karchag Chimpuma composed in Samye

Samye

The Samye Monastery or Samye Gompa is the first Buddhist monastery built in Tibet, was most probably first constructed between 775 and 779 CE under the patronage of King Trisong Detsen of Tibet who sought to revitalize Buddhism, which had declined since its introduction by King Songtsen Gampo in...

 (dkar-chag bSam-yas mChims-phu-ma) has not been found. These imperial catalogues are considered historical documents and prototypes of the Tibetan Buddhist canon

Tibetan Buddhist canon

The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to sutrayana texts from Early Buddhist and Mahayana sources, the Tibetan canon includes tantric texts...

.