Tibetan Studies In India

SR No.: 269269
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: V V Gokhale
Publisher: V V Gokhale
Total Pages: 8
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 2

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1947
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300 mss. of Sanskrit Buddhist works in the monasteries of Western and Central Tibet, many of which were considered to be lost for good. He managed to photograph some of them- although not always successfully-, and these photographs have been deposited now in the K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute at Patna along with his collection of some important Tibetan books, including the Saskya Suplbum. This Institute has already published some of the important materials in its Tibetan Sanskrit Texts Series. Some of the photographs are still being deciphered. Most of the Sanskrit mss. in this collection are found to have been written on palm-leaves, in various Indian scripts current in the period from about the 10th to the 14th centuries A. D., and the photographs not being always legible, the Tibetan versions of some of the works contained in this collection are of inestimable value in deciphering them. It has thus been brought home to the Tibetologists that not only Nepal, but Tibet also has been a great repository of Sanskrit mss. since at least the 10th century, and that one of the tasks awaiting them is to discover further stores of IndoTibetan learning, like the unexplored mss. Library of Atīša of the 11th century, whose tomb is found at Net'ang near Lhasa, but whose whole collection of books is reported to have been deposited at Reting, about eight miles to the north-east of Lhasa.
In so far as Tibetan publications in India are concerned, Tibetan type for printing is now available at various places, particularly after the arrival of the Tibetan scholars in India. The International Academy of Indian Culture, founded by Dr. Raghu Vira and promoted energetically by Dr. Lokesh Chandra and his associates in Delhi has been publishing a series of important Tibetan books on history and philosophy, like the works of Bu-ston, the history of dPao-tsug-lag, etc., which are now difficult to procure from Tibet. A similar
series of Tibetan works, with erudite introductions by Gene Smith is also being published at Delhi, which is fast developing into a center of Tibetan learning. At Varanasi, where the Sanskrit Viśvavidyālaya is taking keen interest in Tibetan studies, a new centre of Tibetan publication is coming into being. In the older centers of Tibetan learning, Tibetan journals, bulletins and textbooks are being published at Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Gangtok and Calcutta, among which the Institute of Tibetology at Gangtok in Sikkim deserves a special mention for its propagation of Tibetology through the establishment of a big Tibetan library under the royal patronage of the Chos-rgyal of Sikkim. A publication project of important Tibetan works and textbooks is also being efficiently carried out at Dharmasala under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Let us now turn to the more recent tenden cies in the Tibetan studies in India. Political interests of the British rulers in India as well as the modern trends in area-studies all over the world have led the scholars to direct their attention from the religious to the sociological, historical, geographical, linguistic, economic and such other aspects of Tibetan life. Espe. cially, since the large scale migrations of Tibetans into India in 1959, these aspects of Tibetan life, particularly in the border regions of the tribal areas near Assam, Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh are attracting greater attention. The presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India along with his associates have led to the opening of a college for high Tibetan Lamas in Leh (Ladakh) and another at Sarnath with the object of providing them with the necessary training in theory and practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Although these are modelled on the Tibetan pattern, they are bound to absorb some of the modern technical knowledge from their Indian surroundings. The settlement of thousands of Tibetan refu