The DHARMA Encoding Guide for Diplomatic Editions is a complete and comprehensive set of guidelines for the TEI EpiDoc compliant XML encoding of epigraphic documents (and diplomatic editions of manuscripts) written in South and Southeast Asian languages in historic regional scripts. It includes detailed instructions, coupled with illustrations and code samples, for a wide variety of phenomena including some that are peculiar to the scripts, languages, support types and text genres of the region and have thus not yet been addressed elsewhere. These guidelines have been developed for work in the ERC project DHARMA, but it is hoped that the practice recommended here will be a major step in establishing wider new standards in the fields of digital South and Southeast Asian studies.