The Archaeology of Tibetan Books Brill’S Tibetan Studies Library
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Archaeology of Tibetan Books Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library Edited by Henk Blezer Alex McKay Charles Ramble VOLUME 36 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/btsl The Archaeology of Tibetan Books By Agnieszka Helman-Ważny LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Monks reciting books at Bya mang po in Western Tibet. Photo by author, June 2013. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Helman-Wazny, Agnieszka. The Archaeology of Tibetan books / by Agnieszka Helman-Wazny. pages cm. — (Brill’s Tibetan studies library, ISSN 1568-6183 ; volume 36) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-27504-1 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27505-8 (e-book) 1. Books— Tibet Region—History. 2. Books—Conservation and restoration—Tibet Region—History. 3. Bookbinding— Tibet Region—History. 4. Book design—Tibet Region—History. 5. Printing—Tibet Region—History. 6. Papermaking—Tibet Region—History. 7. Manuscripts, Tibetan—History and criticism. 8. Tibet Region— Antiquities. 9. Archaeology and history—Tibet Region. 10. Arts, Tibetan—History. I. Title. Z8.T53H46 2014 002.0951’5—dc23 2014011156 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1568-6183 isbn ���-��-��-��5��-1 (hardback) isbn ���-��-��-��5�5-� (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. For Tomasz and Olga ∵ Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Illustrations xi 1 Introduction 1 The Starting Point 1 Borrowing the Term “Archaeology” 2 Books Written in Tibetan 3 Statistics in Book History 4 My Fieldwork, Sources, and Experiments 5 2 Methods: An Uneasy Alliance of Science and History 12 Many Typologies of Book Features 13 Tools to Read What is Not Written 13 Survey of Disciplines Used for Dating 17 Study of Paper in Books 21 3 Tibetan Books: A Craft and Artistry 47 4 Indigo, Gold, and Human Blood: Tibetan Illuminated Manuscripts 76 Manuscripts versus Prints 76 Patronage and Ownership 77 Gold Manuscripts 79 Format and Book Binding Style 81 Illuminations and Decorations 85 Calligraphy 95 Page Layout 96 Ink 99 Writing Tools 101 Paper 102 5 Tibetan Woodblock Printing Culture 116 Origin of New Technology and the Early Tibetan Woodblock Prints 116 Production of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon 125 Edition, Re-edition, and Reprint: Technical Identity of Hundred-Volume Sets 132 viii contents Early Editions of Tibetan Kanjur Produced in Beijing 136 Mongolian Kanjurs 158 Tibetan Kanjurs Produced in Tibet and Tibetan Borderland 163 Patterns of Physical Features in Selected Editions of Tibetan Kanjur in a Regional and Temporal Perspective 176 6 A Survey of Tibetan Paper 179 History of Paper in Central Asia and Tibet 179 Himalayan Papermaking Plants and the Localization of Tibetan Paper and Book Origins 183 Papermaking Methods in Tibet Traceable in Books 191 Papermaking Tools and Technology 192 7 Conservation 201 Typical Damage to Tibetan Books 206 Selected Procedures of Conservation Treatment 216 Appendix 1 Selected Items from the Tibetan Collections of the British Library 225 Appendix 2 Features of Paper in Selected Sets of Tibetan Kanjur 252 Appendix 3 Transcription of the Yongle Covers Inscriptions 262 Appendix 4 Selected Items from the Tibetan Collection of the Berlin State Library 265 Appendix 5 Selected Items from the Tibetan Collection of the Library of Congress, Washington DC, the Asian Reading Room 276 Bibliography 288 Index 299 Acknowledgements Research on the codicology and materiality of Tibetan books is very much in its infancy. Creating this book required considerable groundbreaking preparation before many research tasks could be started—much less completed. Without the generous support, guidance, and encouragement I have received from many people and institu- tions, I could not have successfully confronted the enormity and complexity of such a challenge. My research had to be conducted on original objects; I could not study fea- tures of paper from photographs, even if these were high quality digitized resolutions. Selecting which books to choose was yet another problem. Library catalogues rarely contained useful information on the material aspects of books; some collections were extremely difficult to approach—especially those that were not yet properly cata- logued. Thanks to very professional curators at many institutions, my work was made easier. I am enormously grateful to all who gave me essential advice on the selection of books for my study. Despite all the difficulties, I was fortunate to always meet the right people and profit from their professional help and knowledge. This book represents the culmination of the generosity of many individuals, and it is with pleasure that I am able finally to share it. With this in mind, my gratitude is directed first to the librarians and curators who supported my research on material aspects of Tibetan books with professional advice and organizational help. Thus, I would like to thank Dr. Susan Whitfield (British Library), Dr. Sam van Schaik (British Library), Mr. Burkhard Quessel (British Library), Dr. Michael Balk (Berlin State Library), Dr. Susan Meinheit (Library of Congress), Prof. Zdzisław Pietrzyk (Jagiellonian University Library), Dr. Monika Jaglarz (Jagiellonian University Library), Dr. Ellen Avril (Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University), Dr. Lauran Hartley (Columbia University Library, NYC), Gene Smith, Jeff Wallman, Lobsang Shastri and Kelsang Lhamo (The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA), and Dr. Peggy Daub (Special Collections Library, University of Michigan). I am grateful to Professor Richard Ernst for allowing me to examine many excep- tional examples of Tibetan books in his private collection, and also for sharing his knowledge and advice on the material aspects of books and paintings. I am very much in debt to Mr. Arthur Leeper for enabling me to undertake technical and material stud- ies on Yongle covers from his collection. Further, I would like to thank my husband Prof. Tomasz Ważny, of the University of Arizona, for identifying the wood of these covers. I would also like to thank Yudru Tsomu, Associate Professor of the Center for Tibetan Studies of Sichuan Province and Bugang Chashingtsang for their help with the Yongle covers inscriptions and the translation and identification of Tibetan terms. x acknowledgements I would also like to direct my warmest thanks to Tibetologist colleagues with whom I could always discuss ideas related to Tibetan books. I thank Dr. Hildegard Diemberger (University of Cambridge), Dr. Amy Heller (CNRS), Dr. Kirill Alexeev (University of St Petersburg), Dr. Alexander Zorin (Russian Academy of Sciences), Dr. Elena Pakhoutova (Rubin Museum), Dr. Orna Almogi (University of Hamburg), and Prof. Dorji Wangchuk (University of Hamburg) for their kind interest and constant support. For financial assistance, I am deeply grateful for the support I received from several sources over the course of the last six years. My gratitude is directed to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland for supporting my three-year project from 2007 through 2009, “The lost fragment of Wanli Kanjur in the Jagiellonian Library? The value of authenticity of Tibetan books from Pander Collection in Poland.” This project was realized together with Prof. Marek Mejor and Dr. Thupten Kunga Chashab, col- leagues from Warsaw University. I am also very grateful to the Library of Congress for granting me the 2010 Florence Tan Moeson Award to conduct research at the Tibetan Collection of the Library of Congress, Washington DC and the Frederick Williamson Memorial Fund, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge for funding the travel grant: Mapping Tibetan Paper. Finally, my gratitude is also directed to the Provost’s Author Support Fund at the University of Arizona for granting me award toward the publication of this book. I would like to thank Reeder (Wick) Dossett for reading the entire book. His many valuable comments made my text more fluent and consistent. I also thank Elizabeth Green and Kamila Janiszewska for reading fragments of the book and offering useful advice on English-language matters and my sister Dorota Dominiak for technical help with copy editing. Particular thanks are directed to Dr. Cynthia Col who helped pre- pare the final manuscript. Her help with final copyediting, indexing, and checking and correcting translations of Chinese and Tibetan terms is much appreciated. Last but not least, I would like to thank Patricia Radder of Brill for her support and understanding. Without the expert assistance and generous support of my Family and everyone involved, this book would not