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A recent NYTimes article explains how the world’s largest private collection of Tibetan literature was recently
returned to China–where it’s currently being digitized. Students and scholars using the collection will be able to trace the spread and evolution of Buddhism from its origins in India to Tibet, China, and Mongolia. The collection’s return to China has inspired monks from nearby monasteries to come to the Southwest University of Nationalities with centuries-old manuscripts of their own–waiting to be scanned…
In November, robed monks from the Dongkar Monastery in western Sichuan arrived with a yellowing collection of 300-year-old texts that had never been published. Scrawled in cinnabar and black ink, the manuscripts, detailing the tantric rituals of Buddhist deities, were copies of 15th-century texts. The monks stayed for five weeks while archivists scanned 6,000 pages, then returned home carrying their beloved texts and a single CD-ROM of digital copies. They vowed to return with seven more volumes.
