In old Tibet, archaeological study of cultural
relics was not taken into consideration by local rulers.
Only some foreign missionaries, merchants, explorers and
scholars, all with different purposes, made some fragmented
and unsystematic studies in this field.
lt was
only after the founding of new China that domestic
scientists began to make planned investigations a
reality.
Tibet's first cultural relic's
administrative department was Set up in 1959. And in 1965,
the Tibet Cultural Relic's Administrative Commission was
formally initiated.
In the early 1960s,
archaeological workers went to different parts of Tibet.
They collected tens of thousands of cultural relics
scattered among the people. These cultural relics included
the most rare Pattra Suttra , Thangka (tapestry), known as a
treasure of Tibet's painting art, and other rich and
colorful folk religious ware. The discovery of the Pattra
Sutra was especially important, a sutra written in Sanskrit
on the leaf of Mantra, it originating from ancient india.
Very difficult to preserve, only few Pattra Sutra are able
to be seen in the world at present. They are the rarest of
cultural relics. The work of collecting and studying the
Pattra Sutra is of important significance to the study of
Buddhism, as well as the ancient South Asian area. The
cultural relics found in this research also included the
imperial mandates issued by the central government in and
after the Yuan and Ming dynasties to appoint local
officials. They also included edicts, seals, golden books,
inscribed boards, the stone tablets built in Lhasa and other
parts of Tibet by Emperor Kangxi and Qianlong of the Qing
Dynasty, the Jinbenba Bottle bestowed by the Emperor
Qianlong for the use of deciding the incarnate boy of the
Dalai Lama through drawing lots, and memorials to the stone,
also documents and letters sent to the central government by
local Tibetan government and tribal chiefs. These cultural
relics provide indisputable evidence that Tibet is an
inseparable part of China and that the Central Chinese
Government has exercised sovereign administration over Tibet
for a long time.
Since the early 1960s, Tibet's
cultural relic's administrative department has also made
investigations into the historical ruins, ancient buildings,
grates and stone tablets, and cliff carvings which existed
across all of Tibet. As a result, the department was able to
get a comprehensive view and much clear knowledge about
those historical monuments and cultural relics under state
protection in the entire autonomous region. At present, the
historical monuments and cultural relics under state
protection in Tibet total 13; the Jokhang Monastery, the
Potala Palace, Gandan Temple, Sa'gya Temple, Tashilhunpo
Temple, Changzhug Temple, Tombs of Tibetan Kings, kingdom of
Guge, Drepung monastery, Sera monastery, Norbulingka, Shalu
Monastery, and the site of resistance to British aggression
at Zongshan Gyangze. In addition, another 11 protected
historical monument and cultural relics were decided on by
the local government The state every year allocated a large
amount of special funds, plus rare and valuable materials,
for their maintenance. In 1988, the State Council approved
an all-round renovation project of the world - famous Potala
Palace. The working team was headed by State Councilor Li
Tieying; the estimated investment was 35 million yuan (
about U.S. $ 4 million ). By 1992 , the investment rose to
53 million yuan (about U.S $ 6 million). The repair of the
Potala Palace set a record in China for the maintenance cost
of an ancient building. The renovation project has been
successfully completed.
By the end of the
1980s, Tibet?/FONT>s archaeological workers had found
five sites of the Paleolithic Period, more than 30 of the
Microlith Period, over 20 sites of ruins of the Neolithic
Period. Meover, they also found in Lhoka, Nagqu, and Lhasa
more than 20 graves of the ancient Tubo Dynasty, totaling
more than 2,000 tombs.
From 1978-79, the Tibet
Cultural Relic's Administrative Commission organized a Study
of ruins left from the Neolithic Period in Karub, Qamdo.
These ruins were especially rich with distinctive
characteristics of cultural relics. As a result, the
research attracted great attention from both domestic and
overseas academic circles. It was considered of epoch-making
significance in the study of the ancient culture of Tibet.
Experts felt it provided representative view of
archaeological exploitation in the Tibetan Plateau. In 1984,
archaeological workers found another ruin of the Neolithic
Period in Qunkong in the northern suburb of Lhasa. This ruin
of the Neolithic Period also proved of high academic
value.
IV. COLLECTIOAN AND CATEGORAIZATION OF
FOLK LITERATURE AND ART
The long-standing folk
literature and art of the Tibetan nationality has
distinctive national and regional characteristics. From the
1950s, literary and art workers of Tibetan and Han
nationalities began to concentrate their attention in this
field. After a long period of research, Tibetan Folk Stories
and other works were eventually published.
In
the 1984 instruction on the works in Tibet by the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, it is clearly
written: ''The Tibetan nationality has old and unique
cultural tradition as well as rich and colorful literature
and artistic heritages. This nationality is good at singing
and dancing. We should pay great respect to it, and do our
utmost to inherit and develop Tibetan national culture and
art, as well as protect its historical heritages in a
scientific way,'' In line with the spirit expressed in this
instruction, the Tibet Autonomous Region's government
devoted a vast amount of manpower, as well as material and
financial resources into a well-organized and large-scale
work-study project of folk music, dances, operas, songs,
rhymes, proverbs, fables, legends and stories. By the end of
1992, hundreds of millions of words had been compiled of the
folk literatures of Tibet, Monba and Lhoba Nationalizes. The
barge folk literature series including Collection of Tibet
Folk Stories, Collection of Tibetan Ballads, Collection of
Tibetan Proverbs, Collection of Tibetan Folk Dances,
Collection of Tibetan Folk Music, Annals of Tibetan Opera ,
and Annals of Tibetan Folk Art. This literatures helped to
Save and protect the national cultural heritages
effectively.
After the founding of New China,
efforts to Save the Life of King Gesar should, especially,
be mentioned here. This is a great ballad - epic about an
ancient Tibetan hero; it is the longest epic in the world.
It tells about King Gesr and his followers' brave and
resourceful struggles against evil forces. It also tells us
much about ancient Tibetan society, including war,
production, living styles, nationality, religion, morality,
love and family, It is a virtual encyclopedia about the
lives of ancient Tibetans, and of high aesthetic and
academic value. This epic provides invaluable material for
today ' s study of ancient philosophy, social science,
history, culture, ethnology, religion and
aesthetics.
In the past, Life of King Gesar was
transmitted down orally. However, that was great danger that
this cultural treasure would be lost. From the 1950s, the
State began a series of measures to save this epic. After
1978, Life of King Gesar was listed as the State Important
Scientific Research Project for the Sixth and Seventh Five
-Year Plan periods. The Folk Literature Research Institute
of the Social Science Academy of China and related regions
and provinces, such as Tibet, Qinghai and Sichuan where this
epic had left its traces all set up special leading groups
and working teams for this work. These departments
coordinated all work and research. They also organized
related academic discussions and performances of folk
artists. In Tibet alone, from concerned working departments
had collected more than 180 editions for oral telling and
singing, and 83 copies recorded in woodblock and
handwriting. They put together a catalogue, including seven
parts, 18 chapters and 149 stories, totaling 174 sections.
They also had recorded 70 related stories from folk artists
using more than 3,000 types; in addition, they found a batch
of legendary ruins of King Gear, 11 original objects said
once used by him, as well as 30 folk legends. These
materials totaled an estimated 80 books with about one
million lines containing 15 million words. To date, more
than 20 books have been produced. Moreover, Collection of
King Gesar Study, which fully demonstrates the fruits of
this project over the past half century, was recently
published.
V. PUBLICATION OF ANCIENT TIBETAN
BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS
In China, the ancient books
and documents on Tibetan study written in characters of
different nationalities are numerous. In the 1920s and
1930s, some scholars had planned to sort out these materials
systematically. However, owing to lack of necessary
conditions, their hope died quietly.
After the
founding of New China, particularly in the last decade, the
related research bodies at both state and local levels have
done much to save, categorize and publish ancient books and
documents on Tibetan Studies. By the end of the 1980s,
ancient Tibetan books published in China totaled over 200
kinds, with more than one million copies. These include not
only famous historical works as Green History, Red History,
The Wiseman Xerab, Records of Royal Rulers in Tibet, The
Lang Family, and Sakw Genealogy, but also a large number of
representative works on religion, literature, poetry,
artistic theory, grammar and so on. Some scientific
documents, such as Four Medical Codes and Classics of
Calendar Calculation were also published and available to
the world.
Besides the original Tibetan works,
a large batch of Tibetan historical materials, such as
Selected Official Documents From Tibetan Historical
Archives, Selected Ancient Tibetan Laws and Regulations and
Selected Tibetan Historical Materials Series were completed
and published. Some important historical documents
originally preserved only in original Tibetan historical
books were also included in these
publications.
Tibetan Tripitaka, including the
Kanjur (the translated scriptures), and the Tanjur (the
translated elucidating treaties), are an encyclopedias of
traditional Tibetan study. In 1987, the Center for Tibetan
Study of China set up the Bureau for Correcting Tibetan
Tripitaka in Chengdu. The duty of this working body was to
read different editions and then compare and correct them.
These efforts would finally result in the publication of an
authoritative Tibetan Tripitaka (Revised Edition) of 158
volumes in deluxe edition of 16 mo, which is expected to be
a perfect combination of the published Chinese Great
Scriptures in Chinese. This work is currently under way. The
first volume of Tibetan Tripitaka is scheduled to be
published by the China Tibetology Publishing House sometime
later this year.
While successfully
categorizing and publishing historical documents in Tibetan,
a similar work on those materials written in Chinese has
also achieved considerable success. To date, the published
historical documents in Chinese total about two hundred and
cover the period from the Tang Dynasty to the Republic of
China. They include historical records, dossiers, memorials
to the throne, surveys, local annals, travelogues, and notes
and diaries. Some are exceptionally rare; Historical
Materials About Tubo Quoted from ''The Complete Tang Prose''
and "The complete Tang Poetry'', Tubo History as a
Mirror, Tibetan Historical Materials From ''Records of the
Ming Dvnasty'' , Tibetan Historical Materials From ''Records
of the Qing Dynasty'' , Memorials to the Throne From Local
Tibetan Government, Dossiers About the Situations on the
Borders of Sichuan and Yunnan in Late Qing Dynasty,
Telegrams on Tibetan Affairs in 1912 , Selected Documents on
the Death and Funeral Service of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama
and the Reincarnation of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Selected
Dossiers About Ninth Panchen Lama's Activities in Inland
China and the Obstructions He Met When Returning Tibet, and
Reports From Huang Musong, Wu Zhongxin , Zhao Shouyu and Dai
Chuanxian on Their Duties of Dealing With Tibetan Affairs,
all are vitally important materials for Tibetan
Study.
Thanks to the close cooperation and
joint efforts of those involved units, the work of
translating historical documents between Chinese and Tibetan
has also been undertaken smoothly.
Equally
important is the publishing of ancient books and documents
in both Chinese and Tibetan so that this irreplaceable
material is not lost. It has not only provided interested
scholars with rich historical materials, but also given
convincing evidence to expose the plot of ''Tibet's
Independence'' and safeguard China's unification. At the
same time, it also protects an important historical cultural
heritage. According to a concerned personnel in Tibet, in
the past, many valuable works had only one or two
handwritten copies. They were printed on wood -blocks, and
their distribution was strictly limited. Even in modern
time, the local Tibetan government locked the historical
documents in dark rooms. Ordinary people were not permitted
to read them without charge. Only after the founding of new
China were these works, for the first time, publicly
published and widely distributed. They have returned to the
hands of all Tibetans.
|