The Book of Dzyan: The Current State of the Evidenceby (2013) by David Reigle

The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky’s 1888 magnum opus, is based on stanzas allegedly translated from a secret “Book of Dzyan.” In 125 years, not a single one of these stanzas has been traced in any known book. While we would not expect to trace verses from a secret book in known books, this has nonetheless been taken to confirm the widely held view that the Book of Dzyan is a product of Blavatsky’s imagination. Indeed, it is practically impossible to verify the authenticity of a book when we have only alleged translations from it, and not an original language text. On the expectation that a Sanskrit or Tibetan original would become available in my lifetime, I have devoted the past few decades to preparing for this. In the course of doing so, I have come across significant circumstantial evidence in favor of the authenticity of the Book of Dzyan. Until conclusive evidence in the form of an original language manuscript becomes available, it may be worthwhile to present the current state of the circumstantial evidence.

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David Reigle is the author of The Books of Kiu-te, or the Tibetan Buddhist Tantras: A Preliminary Analysis(1983), and co-author with Nancy Reigle of Blavatsky’s Secret Books: Twenty Years’ Research(1999). Some of his research can be found online at the Eastern Tradition Research Institute website: easterntradition.org, and at the Book of Dzyan blog: prajnaquest.fr/blog (or dzyan.net)