Since the publication of the Tibetan-Chinese edition of TIBETAN MEDICAL THANGKA, great interests have been aroused among readers both abroad and at home. Many foreign friends asked about the publishing work of this voluminous atlas, probing the possibility of the publication of another edition of TMT, a Tibetan-English edition. It was on this basis that I was encouraged to make such a contribution.
　　In regards to the academic and historic significance of these medical thangkas, it has been dealed with in the preface written by the compiler of the Tibetan-Chinese edition. Reports revealed that a few of such medical thangka replicas, mainly that of vessels and points, can be found outside China, including the U.S., Sweden, etc. Professor R.E.Emmerick of the Hamburg University made a presentation about medical thangkas at an International workshop on Tibetan Medicine held last year in London, sponsored by the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine. However, what he had been dealing with was based on quite a limited number of thangkas that he saw during a visit to Lhasa in 1984. Unfortunately, all of these didnt give a complete picture of the whole medical thangkas series. Naturally, foreign Tibetologists long for such acomplete introduction and the present publication of this TibetanEnglish edition is doubtlessly a great event in the study of Tibetology, especially to our foreign colleagues. Now we Present this Tibetan-English edition to our foreign friends to share and enjoy these rare treasures with us.
　　It should be pointed out that the current edition is not the rigorous word-to-word translation of the Tibetan-Chinese edition of the medical thangka series, rather, it follows more strictly to the Tibetan originals. During the Process of translation, we have corrected some of the mistakes and shortcomings in the Tibetan-Chinese edition. Due to some technical reasons, the Chinese translation doesnt follow strictly to the Tibetan originals, instead, it is, actually, a liberal translation. Hence,some of the important points in the originals are not manifested, whereas some of the Chinese contents are not reflected in the Tibetan originals. What is more, there are some incorrect spellings of the Tibetan words. All of these shortcomings are checked. However, the most distinctive changes are the major revisions on the captions of some thangkas. Within the series, there are twin thangkas, including thangkas Nos. 6-7, 9-10, 16-17, 40-41, 49-50, 74-75, the original Tibetan captions of which should read from one thangka, line to line to its corresponding partner thangka. Unfortunately, the Tibetan- Chinese edition printed these captions of twin thangkas separately, thus, rendering the captions illegible and difficult to understand. We have re-rendered the captions so that it can be read smoothly and easily understood. Major revisions were also made on the Chinese translation of the thangka captions. All the revisions and corrections are based strictly on the originals from the Four Medical Tantras （rGyud-bzhi） and sDe-srid Sangs-rgyas rGyamtshos gSo-rig sMan-gyi Khog-bugs and Vaidurya sNgon-po.
　　In addition to the above changes, some minor changes were also made in this edition:
　　1. Since Tibetan language is succinct and precise, usually, a Tibetan word need explaining by several words or even with one sentence. Hence, it is necessary, sometimes, for us to supplement some extra words for easy understanding. For bistinguishing, we put these words in parentheses.
　　2. Many materia medicas are not identified scientifically as yet. Such medicaments are expressed by Latin transliteration, such as sGro-ba. Scientific terms are given when the species have been identified. However, where there are controversies on the species, a Tibetan herb might bear two or more Latin titles due to different interpretations, Under such cases, all the titles are givcn with their sources indicated for reference.
　　3. Some revisions were also made in the captions for detailed illustrations such as checking errors, suppelementing omissions, For instances, on p. 106, （5）., the Tibetan caption of Srog-rtsa and Srid-rtsa, missing in the illustration, are supplemented, All the wrong Tibetan spellings have been checked and corrected.
　　4. Generally, the English captions for each illustration begin with a capital letter. However, in many cases, a certain topic may cover several illustrations.Usually, the subjects of the following illustrations are omitted. In such instances, the captions of the latter illustrations begin with a small letter, indicating that the subjects are omitted, such as those of the （38）, （39）, （40）...in page 429.