Rechung, Jampal Kunzang

Sinha, Nirmal C.

Apollo (Cambridge)

PUBLICA TIONS THROUGH TWENTYFIVE YEARS - JKR: NCS A quarter of a century is. a fragment in the history of letters. In modern period, particularly in the current century, learning finds speedy expression in wide and varied forms. Numb::}" or quantity of books or publications come out in a quarter of the current century would be many times than that come out an over the last century; the rate of increase is in a geometrical progression. Yet the publication of new books or original works would not be even in any arithmetical progression. If we add to this, the difficulties or disadvantages of Tibetan publications, a quarter of the prolific twentieth century would be too small a period to account for. The first two publications planned in the first two years, since inception (1958), were the famous language book on Sanskrit/Tibetan and the original version of the RED ANNALS. PRAJNA The language book, generally referred to by its sub-title PRAJ-NA, is a Sanskrit-Tibetan Thesaurus-cum-Grammar compiled in 1771. Though the book was preserv(:d in xylograph, few copies of the block prints were found outside Tibet: one copy was in the British Museum in Charles Bell Collection. We had a copy among our first acce-ssions. This was a posthumous gift from Sawang Rag-kha-sha who besides being the Senior Minister of His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Was a great scholar and a patron of scholarship. PRA]NA was in good demand among Western Orientalists; al'l.d the American Foundations failing to locate the copy in the British Museum sent word to the Tibetan refugee camps in hldia for a copy for a thousand dollars. We had no funds for photo-mechanic reproduction though the cost for this in India was at that time less than Rs. 25,000 (=3000 US Dollars). We applied for a Special Grant to the Govt. of India. When Prof. Humayun Kahir mentioned this to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru the latter readily recommended issue of Rs. 25,000. The Special Grant was received in 1960 and we went into production in 1961. We chose the latest photo-mechanic process (i.e. offset) just then available in India. We checked and cleansed the pages (handmade paper) of the xylograph and took nearly a year over this. The pro-28 duction, with modem binding on the head (i.e. spine), was completed in November 1962. Mt'anwhile the lexicon portions, with Sanslcrit words in Sanskrit type and Tibetan words in Tibetan type, were pub-lished by us in modem format in October 1961. The two publications were hailed by both modern scholars and Tibetan scholars. Production of this xylograph gave the academic world the first bright and clear reproduction of a Tibetan book anywhere in the West or the East. The Lexicon portions, as we published, formed the first such bilingual (Sanskrit/Tibetan), work in the respective scripts. The scholars of Japan were unreserved in admitting our achievemmts vis-a-vis Japanese and Western publications earlier. RED ANNALS Kunga Dorje's RED ANNALS was written.in 1346 the author's title was HULAN DEBTHER. A revision and reduction was published in 1538, this edition carried the title DEBTHER MARPO. 'Hulan' is a Mongol loan word in Tibetan while 'Marpo' is pure Tibe-tan diction. While the revised text was available in xylograph, the original was not; the original became so obscure that in 1950S only three authenticated copies could be found in Lhasa. Barmiok Athing Densapa located a copy with a Tibetan family in Gangtok in 1959. She Kusho Pheunkhang checked and confirmed the copy as authentic. The book was produced by letterpress composing and put in traditional (Le. palm leaf) format with binding on the head. This publication of RED ANNALS in April 1961 was an event in academic circles. The Tibetan scholars were as happy as modern scholars like Hugh Richardson and Token Tada. Most happy were the Mongol scholars. From Ulan Bator, Aeademician Rinchen sent his greetings and Prof. Bira made an appreciative review hailing this publication as a distinct' 'gain for the science of history" . The original book has not only Mongal usage in the title and text, the original is a valuable soUrce of history of the Mongols in the period of the Ka Khans. RGYAN - DRUG MCHOG - GNYIS Along with PRAJNA and the RED ANNALS, we had a plan to describe a set ofThankas (painted scrolls) depicting RGYAN-DRUG MCHOG-GNYIS (the Six Ornaments and the Two Exoellents), that is, Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Dharmalcirti, Gunaprabha and Sd.<lyaprabha. At the time of our Opening in Octo-ber I958, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had very much admired a set of Thankas depicting these great saint-scholars. He evinced as deep 29 intant in the philcsophy of thue masters as in the iconographical detaiils of their portraits. In commemoration of this we planned in 1960 to bring out the bock RGYAN-DRUG MCHOG-GNYIS and had the volume published in 1962. We intended the volume to be as grand in its co:nt~nts as in its productio)I.. For the text (in English) explainhl.g the iconographi-cal details of the exquisite Thankas we had advice ad guidance of Lama Jamyang Khmtse Rimpoche, Lama Gyastoll Tulku, Lama Dodrup Rim-poche, Lama Lhodo Zangpo and Beno),tosh Bhattacharyya. For presell-ting the p~ilosophy of Nagarjuna and other Acharyas we had advice and guidance of Nalinaksha Dutt, Tokan Tada :md Satkari Mockerjee as also from the cmiw nt scholars mentioned above. A faithful nproduction of the Thankas waS made; no retouching of port ions worn out or dama-ged (by ill.o. nse sm( Ic:'~) was attempted. R-caders found the IDagJ,jfic01t portraits magnific(ntly reproduced j and the layout <lld get up of the volume were, in r(:aders' opinion, in unison with the grand~ur of the theme. Scholars like Swami Prajnanananda and Lama An.agarika Govinda wrote in appreciation. of the text presen-ting the Mahayana philosophy. Art cirities like Ajit Ghose and M.S. Randhawa wrote in appprt'ciation of the text prcseHing iconographical details. The volume w(nt into a reprint in 1972. Funds permitting, we have to go into a second reprint early. SANSKRIT I TIBETAN BILINGUALS Tibetan scholars as wdl as Lamas who hc.d noticed in our library Asiatic Society of lkngal's S~nskrit/Til;(.tm bilillgur:l works, like Avadana Kalpalata, sugg<'steed such publications hy Us. Our tv.'O pubilicatio11s, namely, PRAJNA (kxicon portior,s) and BHADRACHARI «,d. Suniti Pathak) wac in high (kmand. So in 1964 we published Vasubandhu's classic VIJNAPTI-MATRATA-SIDDHI with its Tibetan transla'ioll and introd, cd on and notes bv the eminent scho-lar Aiyaswami Sastri, who has recmtly givtn u~ the privilege of pubi-shi~g, in our Bulletin for 1980, a similar edition 0f Dignaga's ALAM-BANAPARIKSA. BULLETIN OF TIBETOLOGY Tn 1964 we started the Bulletin of Tib<.,tology. This Bulletin has -within two decades and with occasional brtaks- tumed out to be a landmark in studks relating to Buddhism and Inner Asia. For a journal devoted to an obscure discipline 'Tibetology' its n'cord gives us reaSons to b(~ proud. Among the contributors are;- AIY ASW AMI 30 SASTRI; Michael ARIS; Harold W. BAILEY; BUDDHA PRAKASH; Bijanraj CHATTERJI; M.N. DESHPANDE; Nalit,aksha DUTT: Lama Anagarika GOVINDA; EInt'st HENTENY: Siegbel t HUMMEL; Nathan KATZ; Josef KOLMAS; KRISHNA DEVA; Lob~ang LHALUNGPA; Swami LOKESWARANANDA; MARCO PALLIS; Jean M. PERRIN; Niharranj<.n RAY; Hugh E. RICHARDSON; Toni SCHMID: Sukumar SEN; Tsepon SHAKABPA; C. SIVARAMAMURTI; Richald K. SPRIGG; Vakntina STACHE ROSEN; Wdllgchtn SUR-KHANG; Mari"Me WINDER; and Turrell V. WYLIE. We are proud as much of the names of our contributors as of the variety of topics coVt'red in the Bulletin. Twenty five years ago Tibdology was mostly dthtr CHHOS (DHARMA) or BOD SKAD (BHOTA BHASA). Today Tibetology is a difcipline covering Gt'ographyand History, La'.guage i.llId Litaature, Religklls <lId Cults as well as Aesthetics <nd Iccnography. Claims of Tibetology are now admitted in the univt:rdli-cs ~.nd academic circles all ova dee world. Modell1 scholars, particularly of J"pc:l1, UK md USA, r'fcognize the role of the Bulletin of Tihetology in expansion of the frontiers (If Tjbetology to its furthest limits. Funrls pomitting, m cnthology of rdect articlt's frc,m the Bulletin betwt~n 1964 md 1982 will CtOme out early in 1984. TIBET AN TEXTS Tibetan scholars end Lamas, afsociated with us, r;dvised publi-cation of Tihctan Texts. We made a beginning with Chat kya Khutu-ktu's Ccmmentary on Bhadrachari tdited by Loke~h Chandra, m au-thority (.n San~krit le31ning in Tibet and Mongolia, with Introduction in 1963. This editkn W(l1t a lc,ng way in elucidating the gn:at Mahayana lyric. In 1966 we published Jet~un Dagpa Gyaluhm's treatise (,n medi-cine, SOCHA GYALPO KORZOD, in palm leaf fOlmat photo-mecha-nically printed from a calligraphed text. This publicatiun was appre-ciated by British, Gelman and Russian ~cholars engaged in work on old schools of medicine. In I968 we published Lama Ugyan Tcl1zing's wor}Q on poetics. SNYAN-NGAG, edited with a prefaoe by Athing Barmk}Q Dtllsapa; the productiun was also in the same manner as that for the treatise on medicine. A learned but little kno'V\'n wor}Q by a Sikkim Lama was thus out for the wide world. We have a few Tibetan tracts on grammar, liturgy etc; these are xylographs printi.d on handmade paper. An interesting it('m is the Coronation Story of His Holiness The Dalai Lama. The Tibetan text is translatiun from Sir Basil Gould's narrative in English; the trans1atiQD 31 waS by Rani Chuni Dorje and SOllam Gyalpo. We had the woodcarved blocks as gift from Rani Chuni Dorje. In 1976 we decided to produce important Tibetan works direct from the original prints. The practice of tran~fer into Calli-graph Copy, and thereafter into print, on palm leaf format, is not free from errors and omissions in copying proc('Ss. For authentication of the text a direct photo-mechanic reproduction of the original is thus indispensable, ev<:n though this may be costlier. So in 1976 a pro-gramme of direct photo-mechanic reproduction of ancient and classic works as in the case of the PRAJNA xylograph was taktn up. RINCHEN TERZOD RINCHEN TERZOD (Palpung, Kbam), in 61 volumes of xylo-graphs, of which the only set available outside Tibet was in our Collec-tion was the first item in this ambitious programme. Lama Dodrup Rimpoche and Athing BarmicN Densapa advised and supervised checking and cleansing the pages (handmade paper). His Holiness The Dalai Lama and His Holin{'s~ The Gyalwa Karmapa blessed the project. So far 4 volumes have been published. The demand for speedy production is reaching us both from Lamas and modern scholars. KADAM PHACHO KADAM PHACHO, the principal authority on Srijnana Dipan-bra Atisa (C.982-loH) was tallen up for direct photo-mechanic repro· duction in 1977. This production, in 3 volumes, wa~ completed in 1981 when Lamas and scbolars, both Tibetan and non-Tibetan, were planning the Sahasra Varshiki (millenary) of the great Jndian Pandita whose life spanned the Buddhist lands fam the Golden Chersonese in the south to the Land of Snows in the north. Lamas and non-Tibetan scholars request us for early production of the succeeding source book KADAM PHUCHO. FUTURE Due to spiralling cost of printing and stationery and other unavoidable circumstances, our programmes for publications had to be cut down or halted. Present President of the Institute, His Excellency Homi J.R Taleyarkhal1, a great admirer of Buddhist philosophy and learning. has given us his weighty support for extraorspecial grants from the Government and on his recommendation already such grants are under issue. With such prospects inour Silver Jubilee Year and with dee-pest thanks to His Excellency Homi J .H. Taleyarkhan, we look forward to a brighter future in publications relating to Buddhism and Inner Asia. 32 

Publications through Twentyfive Years

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Publications through Twentyfive Years

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