Tibetan shorthand contractions

Compiled by A. Sizova

Number of entries


When transliterating contractions, the consonants are written down in the order of appearance: prescripts, superscripts, root letters, subscripts, post- and post-postscripts. Vowels, the anusvāra sign, and the tsa 'phru sign are not included.
This principle is adopted from the RKTS (Resources for Kanjur and Tanjur Studies) website.
Special sign:
# — reversed t (ṭ) = "gs"
Example: bd# ← bde gshegs

“Contracted phrases” (bsdus tshig) (mostly taken from Bacot 1912) are transliterated in the standard manner, for example:
'khor 'das
Full form: 'khor ba dang myang 'das

Abbreviations
Bacot 1912: Bacot, Jaques. L'écriture cursive tibétaine. Journal asiatique XIX (1912): 5–78.
SYBB: ngo mtshar ba'i gangs can 'phrul ldan skung yig be'u bum (1995).