| A Visit to
the Dege Sutra Printing House
ĦñNAJIANQING
Whe I first reached
Dege County which is skirted by
the rapid Jinshajiang River, I was
amazed to see a combination of scenes
belonging to both the past and the
present. While some people were
making cakes of cow dung to be dried
for fuel, others were calling friends
in other parts of China on the telephone.
I was attracted by
the Dege Sutra Printing House which
is tucked away at an elevation of
3,240 meters. It is a palace-style
building with four floors. Inside
the vermilion walls were Tibetans
in groups of there or five reciting
sutras as they walked in ritual
procession around the building.
In the sutra printing
block warehouse on the first floor
we were shown 217,000 sutra printing
blocks from various periods in the
past. They included those used to
print Hetu, Nyingma Gyupur of the
Red Hat Sect, Sagya Gyanpur of the
Striped Hat Sect, the Dangpur works
of the White Hat Sect, works by
Zongkapa of the Yellow Hat Sect,
Lhupur of the Bon Religion, texts
of Indian Buddhism that have long
been lost in India, the Eight Thousand
Lords in Tibetan, Sanskrit and Urdu,
and others classics.
"Making
these sutra printing blocks involved
enormous effort," explained
a lama at the sutra printing house.
"At the end of autumn maple
trees were cut down. Flawless logs
were used to make 110cm by 70cm
printing blocks for Buddhist paintings,
and 11-18cm by 3cm sutra printing
blocks. Once the blocks had been
made, they were left in sheep dung
throughout the winter, and then
placed over a fire for some time
before being carved.
"To ensure
the quality of the work, only one
inch was carved each day, and each
section of carving was proofread
12 times. The carved boards were
rinsed in Supra water containing
extracts from grass roots, and then
dried in the open air. We have boards
used to print 213 volumes of Dangyur
with 129,024 pages."
According to the
lama, the printing house is strict
over every work procedure. The paper
used is made from locally available
grass roots which are fibrous and
poisonous. The paper is elastic,
absorbent and poisonous to insect
pests and rats.
"We have
printed numerous copies of the Tripitaka
and other Buddhist works, which
have been well-received in India,
Nepal, Bhuttan, Sikkim, and Japa.
A set of the Tripitaka sells for
80 taels of silver, and as a result
we make good money."
During our visit
we were told that we were not allowed
to take any pictures. "if you
insist on taking them," said
the lama, "you will have to
pay 1,000 yuan."
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