Websites on Religion: Sacred Texts

A large collection of primary and secondary source materials and resource tools.

A substantial number of texts & commentaries. Maintained by Juan R. I. Cole

This site is a substantial guide to online Buddhist scriptures and bibliographies. It contains more than 4,000 full text articles on various topics. Maintained at National Taiwan University.

"The Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library was founded on March 1, 2000 in conjunction with the University of Virginia Library and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. It provides an integrated environment for digital publication of many diverse projects whose separate administrations remain decentralized and autonomous. As such, the Library overall is run by an international team of scholars, and reflects a consortium of many different universities and private organizations across the world."

"The Asian Classics Input Project is dedicated to locating, cataloging, digitally preserving, and disseminating rapidly disappearing Tibetan and Sanskrit manuscripts that hold the philosophical, cultural, and religious heritage of endangered cultures dating back more than 2000 years. The Asian Classics Input Project works to preserve these texts containing the great ideas of the Eastern half of humanity and to make these books and ideas accessible to the world at large."

"The story of a cruel and ruthless king who converted to Buddhism and thereafter established a reign of virtue."

The Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project is a public domain electronic version of the Pali Canon. It is presented here in in its raw, unformatted form.

224 online Bibles in 73 languages, in text and audio format.

Multiple versions of the Bible presented with an array of commentaries, concordances, Hebrex and Greek lexical tools, and options for interlinear display, rubrication, and other visualizations.

Multiple versions of the Bible available online, with verses keyed to an array of commentaries, sermons, text analyses, topical studies, etc.

Translator unknown

"Electronic versions of Chinese philosophical texts created by the Confucian Etext Project; versions of Chinese philosophical texts from other sources, to some of which we have made minor improvements; and Information on and links to more information on the preparation and use of these texts."

"Welcome. This site contains Chinese classics with each character hyperlinked to its definition and etymology. No Chinese software is necessary - characters are displayed as images. Links to English translations are included for most works."

Various resources and lectures, including translations of the Analects in multiple languages.

"Welcome. This site contains Chinese classics with each character hyperlinked to its definition and etymology. No Chinese software is necessary - characters are displayed as images. Links to English translations are included for most works."

"Electronic versions of Chinese philosophical texts created by the Confucian Etext Project; versions of Chinese philosophical texts from other sources, to some of which we have made minor improvements; and Information on and links to more information on the preparation and use of these texts."

This site offers: Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Other Primary Texts, Epics, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita, Vedanta, Later texts, Modern books.

One of the biggest collections of Islamic online books. Available in numerous international languages to suit Muslim readers worldwide.

"...a completely free, non-profit website providing access to the largest and greatest online collection of Qur’anic Commentary (tafsir or tafseer), translation, recitation and essential resources in the world." Arabic and English commentaries covering all seven schools of Islamic law.

"Our mission in the Tanzil project is to produce a standard Unicode Quran text and serve as a reliable source for this standard text on the web." Searchable Arabic text with multiple modern translations.

"...an annotated linguistic resource which shows the Arabic grammar, syntax and morphology for each word in the Holy Quran. The corpus provides three levels of analysis: morphological annotation, a syntactic treebank and a semantic ontology."

"The Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم) at your fingertips" Includes English and Urdu translations along with Arabic text.

Arabic text and audio recordings of the Qur'an. Includes a large number of modern language translations.

This site offers texts on the Jain religion in Indian languages and in English translation.

A well organized set of links to Internet resources relating to Jainism. Main headings: Jainism: Introduction; Directories & Lists; Vegetarianism & Ahimsa; Jain Texts; Jain Pilgrimage; Jain Images; Jainism in the Eyes of Others; Jain History: An Outline.

Contains links to sacred texts and lectures. "Since 1996, Jainworld has been the most comprehensive and popular website on Jainism. This has been the result of tireless efforts and dedication by 500+ people from all walks of life and diverse belief systems representing different nationalities across the globe."

Requires registration. "The Jain eLibrary website is an online collection of Jain scriptures, Jain manuscripts, Jain dictionary, Jain encyclopedia, Jain articles, Jain magazines, and ancient and contemporary Jain books in English, Hindi, Gujarati, and other languages. It contains Shvetämbar Ägams, Digambar Shästras, Four Anuyogas, Commentary literature, Präkrit and Sanskrut literature, and ancient and modern literature representing all aspects of Jainism. It also includes the literature of various Jain sects. Catalogues of Jain manuscripts of various Jain libraries add to the diversity of this collection."

High-quality images of halakhic, liturgical, poetic, and philosophical manuscripts.

"The most complete collection of Jewish documents from antiquity with translations, introductions, and links."

Full site in Hebrew. Includes Unicode text of the Tanakh, Mishnah, Tosefta, Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and Maimonides' Mishneh Torah

Categories include: Tanakh, Talmud, Haggada, Kabbalah, Midrash, Haggadah, Prayer Books (Siddur), Ancient/Medieval texts, and Modern texts.

"Here you will find the Hebrew Bible (Tana"kh) and the RaMBaM's Complete Restatement of the Oral Law (Mishneh Torah)." Contains parallel Hebrew/English/French Tanakh and the Hebrew text of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds. Also provides a search tool with a Hebrew keyboard.

"...a free living library of Jewish texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and in translation." Contains Hebrew text and many English translations of the Tanakh, Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, etc.

Includes texts representing the following categories: Twentieth Century; Victorian; The Burning Times; Druids; Antiquity; Miscellaneous

This section has scriptures of the Shinto religion, as well as other texts that relate to the spirituality of Japan, which combines Shinto, Buddhism, Confucianism, Animism and other themes. There is also a collection of Ainu Texts.

Includes a comparative English translation of Sikh scripture as well as a selection of philosophical writings.

"The Sri Guru Granth Sahib contains 1430 pages of philosophy from the Sikh Gurus and saints of various faiths. The scriptures, considered the spiritual authority for the Sikhs, promote values such as truth, justice, equality, charity, and love for God." Includes texts as well as a Punjabi/English dictionary & encyclopedia.

"The Khalsa Consensus Translation presented here is regarded by some Sikh scholars as being among the finest and most accurate english translation currently available."

"We provide the complete text of the extant Avesta, the most ancient scriptures of Zoroastrianism, as well as many Pahlavi scriptures. It also includes information about the Avestan language, and other useful information for students of Zoroastrian religion. Most of the texts in these archives are extremely rare."