EPUB and OPDS

EPUB is is an open standard format for electronic publications which has been widely used to create digital content for mobile devices. In order to give CBETA users easy and convenient access to the CBETA digital corpus, we have packed all CBETA content as thousands of EPUB files (one text as one EPUB file).

If you are interested in downloading the CBETA EPUB files, please visit the http://tripitaka.cbeta.org. The website provides easy search and browse functions for finding any desired CBETA text. However, with mobile devices such as Smart phones, or tablet devices, locating and downloading EPUB files from the website has proven to be a not always easy task. Another problem is that users would still need to execute their eBook reader software and import the downloaded EPUB files before being able to visualise the content on their screen. Fortunately, the OPDS (Open Publication Distribution System) standard has been developed to save us from all such troubles. The OPDS is a standard for building an online cataloguing service which aims at enabling content creators to distribute digital books via a simple catalogue format.

Now, the CBETA OPDS services has been set up, which means that if your eBook reader software is able to read the OPDS information, you can then access the CBETA EPUB files with just a few clicks. In the following, we use Stanza, a free eBook reader in IOS Platform (iPhone, iPad) to demonstrate how to set up a connection to the CBETA ODPS service.

First of all, execute App store in your iPad and download the free eBook reader "Stanza".

After the installation is completed, execute the Stanza software. You will see a menu similar to the below screen-shot: click "Get Books" button at the bottom of the page.

At this point you will see a menu similar to this screen-shot: click "shared", then the "+" key..

Your screen will now look like the following screen-shot: enter "CBETA" in the name field, and enter "http://cbeta.org/opds" in the URL field. Then click on the "save" button on the upper-right corner.

Then you will see the CBETA catalogue showing up on your machine.

Try to click the new added CBETA catalogue: you will see the list of the Chinese Tripiṭaka catalogues.

Now let us click the first item, "大正藏" (Taishō Shinshu Daizōkyō)

The system will give us the list of volumes in the Taishō edition ("大正藏"): now please click on "第一冊" (first volume).

Then we see the list of texts in the first volume. Now we click the first item, the Dīrgha-āgama (Chang ahan jing 長阿含經).

In case this text is not yet in your machine, the system will prompt you to download it from the CBETA server: just click on the download button.

After the downloading procedure is completed, click on the Chang ahan jing (長阿含經) item again to open the eBook.

A cover as in this screen-shot will appear.

This is how the content looks like:

Instead of browsing the catalogue to look for the desired texts, you can also try the search function: click the "Magnifier" button in the upper-right corner, and then enter "阿含" as a test. (You are thus able to perform searches for "title", "author/translator" and "sūtra number".)