The History & Culture of the Tibetan Book

Course Description

This course offers a broad overview of the history and culture of the book in Tibet. Participants will discuss what is meant by “the book” in Tibetan culture and explore how books fit into the larger material, religious, and intellectual cultures of Tibet. The course will focus on major periods and developments in the history of Tibetan manuscript and print cultures, the physical materials and process of making Tibetan books, and the book within Tibetan religious and scholarly culture. Early source materials, such as epigraphy and Tibetan manuscripts from the “library cave” of Dunhuang (pre-twelfth century CE), as well as the continuing importance of manuscript production in Tibet will be considered. Students will also trace the development of Tibetan woodblock printing, from the Yuan dynasty-era (1279–1368) books known as “Mongolian prints” (hor par ma) to the eighteenth-century editions of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon. The end of the course will briefly touch on contemporary Tibetan publishing, both print and digital. Students will have opportunities for hands-on examination of Tibetan books housed at the University of Virginia Libraries and Rare Book School while also utilizing photographic and digital reproductions. Most class discussions will be centered around issues raised by particular Tibetan books used in the classroom or selected excerpts from Tibetan literature representing a variety of genres (English and Tibetan versions will be available). These literary excerpts will give students an opportunity to discuss the wider cultural role and impact of the book in Tibet and also explore how Tibetan sources might be used in the study of book history. Students will come out of the course with a vocabulary for discussing Tibetan books, familiarity with important reference resources for studying Tibetan books, and skill in identifying salient aspects of Tibetan books which can provide clues to their provenance and/or historical social context. Several digital resources will be used during the course, so students should plan to bring a laptop with them. The course is open to anyone with an interest in Tibetan studies, Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist culture, or the history of the book in Asia. We warmly welcome students with no Tibetan language skills; for those with knowledge of Tibetan language, we will offer advanced reading suggestions (including Tibetan language sources) and there will be in-class activities in which these students will have the opportunity to use their language skills. In their personal statements, applicants should indicate their background (if any) in Tibetan language and/or Tibetan studies, their interest in the subject, and how they anticipate using knowledge gained in the course.

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Advance Reading List

Preliminary Advices

We recommend starting with the works marked off by asterisks and then, as time allows, review the other articles and books. Students admitted to this course will receive further instructions for accessing these readings.

General Introductions

* Eliot, Mark, Hildegard Diemberger, and Michela Clemente, eds. Buddha’s Word: The Life of Books in Tibet and Beyond. Cambridge, UK: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, 2014.

Helman-Ważny, Agnieszka. The Archaeology of Tibetan Books. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Schaeffer, Kurtis R. The Culture of the Book in Tibet. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

* van Schaik, Sam. “Manuscripts and Printing: Tibet.” In Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Volume 1: Literature and Languages, edited by Jonathan A. Silk, 959–67. Leiden: Brill, 2015.

Manuscripts

Chinnery, Colin and Li Yi. “Bookbinding.” International Dunhuang Project (IDP), 2007. A short paper with many useful diagrams of Chinese bookbinding styles. Although focused on Chinese books, similar bookbinding styles are found among the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts and later prints and manuscripts produced under Ming and Qing patronage.

* Cüppers, Christoph. “Some Remarks on Bka’ ’gyur Production in 17th-century Tibet.”  In Edition, éditions: l’écrit au Tibet, évolution er devenir, edited by Anne Chayet, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Françoise Robin, and Jean-Luc Achard, 115–128. München: Indus Verlag, 2010.

* van Schaik, Sam. “Towards a Tibetan Palaeography: Developing a Typology of Writing Styles in Early Tibet.” In Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field, edited by Jörg B. Quenzer, Dmitry Bondarev, and Jan-Ulrich Sobisch, 299–337. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014.

Printed Books

* Blo bzang ’phrin las, Dung dkar. “Tibetan Woodblock Printing: An Ancient Art and Craft.” Translated by Tsering Dhundup Gonkatsang. Himalaya 36:1 (May 2016): 163–177.

Clemente, Michela. “Different Facets of Mang yul Gung thang Xylographs.” In Tibetan Manuscript and Xylograph Traditions: The Written Word and Its Media within the Tibetan Cultural Sphere, edited by Orna Almogi, 67–104. Hamburg: Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, Universität Hamburg, 2016.

Diemberger, Hildegard, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, and Peter Kornicki, eds. Tibetan Printing: Comparison, Continuities and Change. Leiden: Brill, 2016. An edited volume with many good contributions on Tibetan printing as well as some comparative pieces focusing on other Asian print cultures.

* Jest, Corneille. “A Technical Note on the Tibetan Method of Block-Carving.” Man 61 (1961): 83-85.

Some Approaches to the Study of Tibetan Books and Book History

* Cabezón, José Ignacio. “Authorship and Literary Production in Classical Buddhist Tibet.” In Changing Minds: Contributions to the Study of Buddhism and Tibet in Honour of Jeffrey Hopkins, edited by Guy Newland, 233–263. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2001.

Childs, Geoff. “How to Fund a Ritual: Notes on the Social Usage of the Kanjur (bKa’ ‘gyur) in a Tibetan Village.” Tibet Journal 30:2 (2005): 41–48.

* Diemberger, Hildegard. “Holy Books as Ritual Objects and Vessels of Teaching in the Era of the ‘Further Spread of the Doctrine’ (bstan pa yang dar).” In Revisiting Rituals in a Changing Tibetan Context, edited by K. Buffetrille, 9–41. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

Diemberger, Hildegard. “The Younghusband-Waddell Collection and Its People: The Social Life of Tibetan Books Gathered in a Late-colonial Enterprise.” Inner Asia 14:1 (2012): 131–171.

* Eubanks, Charlotte. Miracles of Book and Body: Buddhist Textual Culture in Medieval Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Pp. 4-7, 34-36, 40-41.

* Howsam, Leslie. Old Books and New Readers: An Orientation to Studies in Book and Print Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Chapters 1 and 2.

Klein, Anne Carolyn. “Oral Genres and the Art of Reading in Tibet.” Oral Tradition 9:2 (1994): 281–314.

van Schaik, Sam. “The Uses of Implements are Different: Reflections on the Functions of Tibetan Manuscripts.” In Tibetan Manuscript and Xylograph Traditions: The Written Word and Its Media within the Tibetan Cultural Sphere, edited by Orna Almogi, 221–242. Hamburg: Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, Universität Hamburg, 2016.

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Course Evaluations

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Course History