Saint Michael’s College Durick Library
Colchester, VT
TIBETAN BUDDHIST LITERATURE IN DIASPORA
Exhibition Notes, Joanne Schneider, jschneider@smcvt.edu
Durick Library Left Front Lobby
BACKGROUND
The gradual takeover of Tibet by the Communist Chinese during the 1950’s culminated
in 1959 when the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and secular head of Tibet, was forced to flee
to India. This takeover threatened the viable and living religious tradition of Tibetan
Buddhism since Tibet was virtually the last stronghold of Buddhism as it was known in
the Buddha’s own lifetime. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s many libraries,
virtually all in monasteries, were destroyed. Monks fled, were imprisoned, or were
forced into lay life.
The Chinese takeover has had two far-reaching effects with respect to Tibetan literature.
For several decades, it shut off a good deal of the literature housed in monasteries, which
functioned both as learning centers in Tibet and as the printing houses. Secondly, the
takeover has forced some of the literature out of the once-isolated country in the form of
possessions by the monks and laity fleeing Tibet. With the opening of Tibet in the late
1970’s and growing interest in the West, many of these texts are being translated.
Ironically, this is in accord with a traditional Tibetan prophecy made long ago that
foretold that Tibetan Buddhism would continue to flourish over time, but in the West.
HOW TIBET DEVELOPED A LITERATURE
Although Chinese Buddhism was introduced in ancient times, the mainstream of
Buddhist teaching came to Tibet from India. The first Buddhist Scripture may have
arrived in the third century A.D., but the main period of transmission to Tibet took place
from the seventh to the eleventh centuries. By the fourteenth century all the Buddhist
literature that could be obtained from India had been translated by the Tibetans.
The Tibetan Tripitaka plays a major role in the scholar’s quest for the historical Buddha.
His life from birth and death is not found in any one source. The first half is available in
Sanskrit, the second in Tibetan.
Buddhist sacred literature, as it was translated into Tibetan, covered works ranging from
what were supposed to be the original discourses of the Buddha to exegetical works
inspired by the Buddha’s teaching and to religious and philosophical works which would,
in turn, spur the development of newer works. Only those texts documenting what the
Buddha said and did are included in the Buddhist Canon called the Tripitaka. All later
scholarship in Tibet concerning Buddhism stems from the Tripitaka.
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DIASPORT OF TIBETAN BUDDHIST TEXTS
Tibetan literature began to be translated into western languages by scholars only in the
early part of the 20th century. Theodore Stcherbatsky, the prominent Russian
Tibetologist, translated the classic work of historian Bu-ston Rinpoche, The History of
Buddhism, into French and English in 1904. Stcherbatsky’s pupil, E. Obermiller,
translated some of these works into English in 1931. In 1949, George N. Roerich
translated a companion work by Gos lo-tsa-ba gZon-nu-dpal, The Blue Annals, the
Stages of the Appearances of the Doctrine and Preachers in the Land of Tibet. Both
works were histories, chronicling the massive project of translating Sanskrit texts into
Tibetan.
During the first half of the 20th century, only a few scholars worldwide proficient in
Tibetan endeavored to translate a number of the works the great Tibetan lama scholars,
incarnations, and their Holinesses, the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas, representing the
indigenous contributions to Buddhist thought in Tibet. W.Y. Evans-Wentz translated The
Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927), Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa (1928), and The Tibetan
Book of Great Liberation (1954). Herbert Guenther translated a classic manual for the
understanding of Tibetan Buddhism by sGam-po-pa (1079-1153), The Jewel Ornament
of Liberation (1949). Other works deserving mention are Guiseppe Tucci’s Indo-Tibetica
(1932) and Tibetan Painted Scrolls (1949), Les Religions du Tibet (1957) by Marcelle
Lalou, and The Religions of Tibet (1961) by Helmut Hoffman.
The effect of Tibetan refugees settling outside Tibet in India, Europe, and the United
States was evidenced by increasing interest and scholarship in many of the universities
and the past twenty-five years have witnessed a profusion of translation work of Tibetan
religious texts.
BOOKS AS SACRED OBJECTS
Buddhist scripture describe that the commissioning of religious texts and their copying
are among the most meritorious acts that a Buddhist can perform. Tibetan monks were
great calligraphers. Undeterred by the time-consuming nature of the work, professional
and lay scribes produced thousands of volumes in the belief that the great the labor, the
greater the religious merit to be gained. Manuscripts served the purely practical function
of spreading the religion, but they also became sacred objects of veneration. Some were
copied simply for the utilitarian purpose of providing a seed text for an individual monk
to study and learn. Others were embellished with paintings, wrapped in ornamental
protective covers of wood and cloth, and stored gift cabinets or on temple alters.
Whenever Tibetan worship is practiced, an image, a book, and a chorten [reliquary]
should be present, symbolizing body, speech, and mind as receptacles for divinity.
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FROM WOODBLOCK TO COMPUTER
The physical form of Tibetan books as hand-scribed or woodblock printed, had remained
fixed throughout the past seven centuries up to very recently.
Each volume of a Tibetan-style book consists of a stack of loose, unbound paper leaves
or folios between two wooden boards that serve as covers. Each folio has writing on
recto and verso, backed-up upside down so that the verso can be easily read as each recto
is turned over. Originally, some books were bound by a leather strap or wrapped in rich
silk or satin covers for protection.
Commonly, Tibetan manuscripts were written in liquid lampblack ink with bamboo pens
upon bast paper made locally or imported from the ethnically Tibetan tribes of Nepal.
Rare, precious volumes of sacred scripture were calligraphed upon laminated indigo
paper. Ink for these special books was sometimes made from pure gold, silver, lapis
lazuli, turquoise, or coral. In these, pages were lavishly illuminated with iconographic
images painted in bright mineral colors.
Even after the introduction of paper to India from China in the thirteenth century, the
conventional format of loose-leaf, horizontal folios persisted into the 20th century. The
adoption of paper allowed the Tibetans to enlarge the size of their books.
Influenced by advances in Chinese printing, the introduction of xylography or woodblock
printing was adopted in the eleventh century. Since letters are fixed in wood, the blocks
became a means of standardizing the text and guarding against scribal errors. The
earliest extant Tibetan xylography yet to be identified was printed in 1308. Monasteries
became printing houses with printing blocks regarded among their most prized
possessions. They were carefully stored for future reprints. Woodblocks remained in
good condition in the arid atmosphere of Tibet and so entire monastic storehouses came
to be filled from floor to ceiling with them.
The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, authors many works originally published in
western languages to describe Tibetan Buddhism and its universal message.
SURPRISINGLY, THE TIBETAN SCRIPT CAN PROBABLY CLAIM
THE SAME ORIGINS AS OUR OWN ROMAN ALPHABET!
With the great Indian ruler Asoka (2720231), a principal writing system appeared known
as Brahmi which is the root of the Devanagari script used to record Sanskrit. A totally
alphabetic system containing both consonants and vowels, it reads from left to right
horizontally and scholars have traced the script to the Phoenician alphabet and Greece.
Sanskrit is considered an Indo-European language and there are several arguments to
support the theory of a common origin for Roman, Sanskrit, and Tibetan scripts. The
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Colchester, VT
Tibetan script was developed from Sanskrit expressly for the purpose of translating the
Buddhist Canon into Tibetan from Sanskrit.
WOODBLOCKS AND TEXTS
Xylographs were used to print objects other than books. They were used to print on
paper and silk images to be revered or prayers to be recited or invoked.
This woodblock carving of the goddess Tara would be inked and used to print images to
hang in temples.
This piece of fabric contains a woodblock impression of the mantra, “Om-mani-padmehum.”
Prayer wheels contained prayers in the form of rolled text inserted inside. Held in the
hand and swung around repeatedly, each turn of the wheel invokes the power of the
prayer inside.