1

Treasure Ho use o f T ibet an Cu lt ure: Cano nizat io n, Pr int ing, and Po wer in t he Derge Pr int ing Ho use

by

Jo sep h Scheier-Do lberg

Submitted to the Committee on Regional StudiesEast Asia in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the A.M. degree in Regional StudiesEast Asia Harvard University

Approved _________________________

Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2nd, 2005

CONVENTIONS OF ROMANIZATION I have employed the Wylie system of romanization to transcribe Tibetan words and names. In rare cases that are repeated extensively throughout the following study, I have used simplified, phonetic romanization for the sake of clarity and cleanliness within the text (e.g. Sde dge is rendered as Derge throughout; bsTan pa Tshe ring is rendered as Tenpa Tsering throughout; bka gyur and bstan gyur are rendered as Kanjur and Tanjur throughout.) In such cases, the complete Wylie romanization will be offered in the footnotes upon first appearance of the name. Following general convention, I have in some cases used popular English spellings, such as Lhasa. For Chinese, I have employed the Pinyin system of romanization throughout, except in direct quotes from other sources. Pinyin romanization is followed upon first appearance of a term or name by the Chinese characters where needed. Chinese terms other than proper names are italicized throughout the study, with the exception of the term tusi , which will receive such treatment only upon its first appearance. Because the term tusi is used so extensively throughout the paper, I have opted to leave it unitalicized, for the sake of cleanliness within the text.

CONTENTS Conventions of Romanization .................................................................... INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 1. CANONIZATION, PRINTING, AND POWER .............................. 1.1 Canonization, Printing, and Power in China ............................. 1.2 Canonization, Printing, and Power in Tibet .............................. i 4 10 13 26

2. THE TUMULT OF THE HISTORICAL MOMENT ............................ 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 DergeA Kingdom in the Margins ......................................... Tumult in Central Tibet............................................................ The Effects of Central Tibetan Instability on Kham ................. Direct Links Between Tenpa Tsering and the Qing Government

52 53 59 68 74

3. THE DERGE PRINTING HOUSE AND ITS KANJUR

..................

87 87 90 92

3.1 Architectural History of the Printing House ............................. 3.2 The Administration of the Printing House ................................ 3.3 The Derge Kanjur ...............................................................

CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 99 Bibliography ......................................................................................... 108

INTRODUCTION In 1729, the ruler of the small Derge1 kingdom in Eastern Tibet, Tenpa Tsering, 2 commissioned the construction of a large-scale xylographic printing house in the seat of his kingdom. Along with the construction of the printing house, Tenpa Tsering ordered that a new edition of the Kanjurthe section of the bipartite Tibetan Buddhist canon containing the words of the Buddhasbe undertaken, and he employed some of the foremost Eastern Tibetan intellectuals of the time in its compilation. Tenpa Tsering and his successors complimented this canonical collection with xylograph editions of a wide range of Tibetan literaturereligious works of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the Bonpo tradition, along with works on philosophy, medicine, and art round out a collection that today comprises over 270,000 printing blocks. In addition to these textual xylographs, the rulers of the Derge kingdom filled the stacks of the printing house with large format picture blocks, allowing for images of deities, great teachers, and religious diagrams to be printed in an efficient fashion with standard results. As imprints from the Derge xylographs made their way into libraries in Tibet and, eventually, abroad, the reputation of the small semi-independent kingdom that produced them grew in strength. Josef Kolma, one of the first Western scholars to devote significant attention to Derge and its cultural output, states in his Genealogy of the Kings of Derge that we can even say without exaggeration that if Derge became famous in the

Tibetan: Sde dge; Chinese: Dege , Deerge , Dege or Deergete .

Tibetan: Bstan pa Tshe ring; Chinese: Dengba Zeren , Queji Dengba Zeren , Danba Celing , or Danba Celun .

Lamaist world, it owes this in the first place to its printing house founded by the enlightened ruler, Tenpa Tsering, the most eminent of all rulers of the Derge family.3 Kolma is correct in identifying the printing houses founding as a crucial factor in Derges rise to prominence in the Tibetan cultural sphere. After all, the high-quality printed books that flowed forth from Derge in the eighteenth centurywhen printing was still being adopted in Tibetmust have burned the name of the small eastern kingdom into the consciousness of Tibets educated elite, who would have had opportunities to read the well-edited and finely printed editions. In instilling in the reader a sense of appreciation for the great cultural endeavors of Tenpa Tsering and his printery, however, Kolmas rhetoric tends to have the effect of divorcing the printing house from the specifics of time, place, and the circumstances under which it was created.4 Kolma is not alone in this regard; indeed, the Tibetan source upon which his study is based, the Sde dgei Rgyal rabs, evinces the same tendency toward decontextualization. The Rgyal rabs enumerates Tenpa Tserings three great accomplishmentsthe expansion of Derges landholdings, the establishment of a formal relationship with the Manchu Qing dynasty in China, and the establishment of the printing housebut does not suggest or explain the nature of the connections between these events. The reader is left with the sense that Tenpa Tsering was a savvy political leader, military strategist, and diplomat; and, in

Josef Kolma, A Genealogy of the Kings of Derge: Sde-dgei rgyal-rabs (Prague: Oriental Institute in Academia, 1968), 40.

In the field of Western Derge studies, Josef Kolma is without doubt the pioneer in whose shadows we all stand. In identifying a shortcoming of his treatment of Derge studies, I mean not to denigrate Kolmas research, which indeed forms the very foundation of my own studies of Derge. I aim only to advance the cause that Kolma undertook decades agoas complete an understanding of the kingdom of Derge as possible.

unrelated news, he also liked to print books. An implicit dichotomy between the cultural and the political is at play in the Rgyal rabs; the effect is that the links between the Derge Printing House and the mechanisms of power at play in 18th century Eastern Tibet remain very much unexplored. It is the primary goal of this study to probe the connections between canonization, printing, and power through use of the Derge Printing House as a case study. In this goal, I am inspired by a challenge laid before the scholarly community by Paul Harrison in his 1992 study of the formation of the Kanjur, entitled In Search of the Source of the Tibetan Bka gyur: A Reconnaissance Report. In his study, Paul Harrison notes the inextricable relationship between grand publishing projects and the political contexts which have yielded them: from the very beginnings of Buddhism in Tibet, the quest for the standardized and authoritative text or collection of texts has been driven by the struggle for prestige, power and hegemony, as much as by more scholarly imperatives.5 Harrison challenges his colleagues to take up the task of contextualizing the great Kanjur projects of Tibetan historyto know how these materials relate to the historical, social, and political matrix in which they were produced and used.6 Paul Harrisons general observations apply in very interesting ways to Derge, for the establishment of the printing house was an act undertaken within a complex web of cultural, political, and military concerns that were very much specific to Eastern Tibet in the 18th century; further it was one of many acts undertaken by Tenpa Tsering during the period of his reign, acts which
Paul Harrison, In Search of the Source of the Tibetan Bka gyur: A Reconnaissance Report, in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Fagerne 1992, ed. Per Kvaerne (Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1994), 309.
6 5

Harrison, In Search of the Source, 309.

in one way or another were all carried out with the goals of strengthening and preserving his kingdom and its way of life. In the pages that follow, I will attempt to respond to Paul Harrisons challenge by situating the Derge Printing House within the context of 18th century Kham, a time and place where shifting concerns of religious, political, and military power created a particularly dynamic environment. In providing a foundation for discussing the specifics of the Derge Printing House, I will begin my study with an overview of the connections between canon-making, printing, and power in China, where the technology of xylograph printing was born. The history of printing in China is more than just an enlightening parallel to the Tibetan example; Chinas influence, both direct and indirect, upon canon-making and printing in Tibet, was both significant and persistent from at least the 14th to 18th centuries, the formative period of Tibetan xylography. 7 In traditional China, a rulers ability to establish his authority over the most hallowed canonical texts of Chinese history was tantamount to his ability to control the empire. The early rulers of Han pioneered a practice of inscribing imperial editions of these texts on stone tablets and erecting them in public for the entire empire to see. To help understand this method of establishing textual (and extra-textual) authoritya method that was intended to be permanentI will introduce the concept of text petrifaction, which I define in Chapter One. A discussion

I feel compelled to state here that by starting with the Chinese example I do not intend to imply that Tibetan material culture generally derives from Chinese culture. Such arguments can too easily be employed for political purposes in the contemporary context, specifically for the sake of justifying the Chinese presence in Tibet under the Peoples Republic of China. It is my contention that, in the cases of literary canon-making, printing and their integration into the machinery of power, the Chinese example exerted influence on Tibet at very crucial points throughout the course of Tibetan history, and so an exploration of the Tibetan case would be incomplete without a foundational understanding of the Chinese example.

of the rise of woodblock printing in China will demonstrate the technologys connection to this lineage of text petrifaction, evincing the close ties between xylography and the apparatus of power in imperial China. I will then turn to the Tibetan history, tracking the development of the canonization and printing of Tibetan texts both inside and outside of Tibet. The creation of literary canons and their printing in Tibet demonstrates similar ties to power as those seen in the Chinese example, and the notion of text petrifaction remains a useful tool in the Tibetan example. An investigation of Tibetan canonization and printing will lay bare not only the connections to the Chinese example, but also the intimate ties between power and printing in Tibet. In Chapter Two I will establish the specifics of time and place by moving to the particular case at hand, the Derge Printing House. I will first briefly introduce the key playersDerge and the kings who ruled over the kingdom in the periods leading up to and including the founding of the printing house. Then, in response to Paul Harrisons aforementioned exhortation, I will turn to a detailed exploration of the historical circumstances of the period of the printing houses establishment. The historical moment of the late 17th and early 18th centuries was a time of great flux for Tibet, China, and Mongolia, which is also to say that it was a time of acute limbo for the small, semiindependent kingdoms of Kham and Amdo that lay between these powerful neighbors. In Chapter Two I will track the disquietude of this period in Central Tibet, then I will discuss the effect of this instability on Kham generally and Derge specifically. Of particular interest in this discussion are two pieces of correspondence sent by Tenpa Tsering himself to the Sichuan Provincial Government, direct evidence of the kings response to the instability of the years directly preceding the founding of his printing

house. An understanding of the shifting tectonics of power in Kham during the years leading up to the founding of the Derge Printing House will provide the reader with a robust understanding of the forces that local rulers such as Tenpa Tsering had to contend with during this moment of great historical flux. Finally, in Chapter Three I will turn to an exploration of the Derge Printing House and its seminal canonical collection, the Derge Kanjur. I will begin with a discussion of the grand structure that was constructed to house the printing blocks and operations of the institution, along with the administrative structure of the printing house. I will also note the particularities of the Kanjurs printing and distribution in its earlier years, noting the resonance with text petrifaction projects throughout Tibetan and Chinese history. Finally, I will countenance the notion of direct Chinese involvement in the operation and funding of the Derge Printing House.

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CHAPTER ONE CANONIZATION, PRINTING, AND POWER The creation of literary canons has long been the province of stable and effective governments. The power to survey literature and to differentiate right from wrong is authority in the most literal sense of the word, and has been treated as such by ruling bodies the world over since the creation of the written word. In Confucian East Asia, where the connection between letters and ruling has always been particularly electric, the ability to control literature has been a crucial skill for healthy governments to possess. In the words of R. Kent Guy, A dynastys stewardship of the canon, and its invocation of classical sanction were vital bases of its legitimacy. The organs and mechanisms of this stewardship, therefore, occupied a far more important place in the apparatus of Chinese rule than they did in Western governments, and their histories were correspondingly more revealing of political dynamics.8 The most revered dynasties in Chinese historyHan and Tang for examplehave been glorified in large part for their impeccable administration of the literature in their charge. In dynastic China, editorial power was one fundamental aspect of imperial power. Because the ability to make literary canons was seen as one mark of a strong government, it assumed a weighty significance in Chinese culture. Ambitious factions seeking to distinguish themselves from their rivals in times of turmoil often turned their attention to canon-making in an effort to link themselves to the hallowed dynasties of the past that had successfully used literary canons as part of their ruling strategies. In this way, literary canons became the mark not only of strong governments, but also of those
R. Kent Guy, The Emperors Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Chien-Lung Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies at Harvard University, 1987), 3.
8

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who wished to be seen as strong during times of strife. This held true not only for Chinese governments, but also for other East Asian governments whose diplomatic ties to China had impressed upon them the political importance of canon-making.9 Creating canons alone did not ensure that they would be seen; likewise, recording canons on paper, silk, or bamboo did not ensure their durability. In China, a concomitant practice arose alongside canon-making that attempted to address these two issues visibility and permanencesimultaneously. In this practice, which I call text petrifaction, the imperially sanctioned editions of classic texts were engraved in stone and displayed in public; these petrified classics and the authority they represented were meant to stand as irrevocable monuments to a dynastys right to rule. 10 First practiced by the rulers of Han, text petrifaction was also employed by the Tang dynasty, which modeled much of its rule on Han precedents. During the unsettled interlude between the Tang and Song dynasties (960-1279) called the Five Dynasties period (907-960 AD), the medium for imperial text petrifaction was shifted to wood as xylographic carving replaced incised stone tablets. No longer were the petrified texts themselves erected in public; instead, imperially printed editions of canonical texts were distributed sparingly to important institutions throughout the empire while the petrifactions themselvesthe xylographic blocksremained cloistered but nonetheless charged with normative power. It was a shift that would have significant consequences for the history of xylography in East Asia and beyond.
9

The case of the Tripitaka Koreana (printed in 1011), to be discussed below, is instructive in this regard.

In terming the practice text petrifaction I take a cue from Susan Cherniaks comments on the petrifying effect of engraving literary classics into blocks of stone. See Susan Cherniak, Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54, no. 1 (1994): 19.

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Understanding the nature of large printing and canonization projects in the Tibetan context depends on a thorough comprehension of the Chinese precedent, for as in the rest of Asia, the history of printing in Tibet was profoundly influencedboth directly and indirectlyby the Chinese example. On a direct level, there are suggestions everywhere that the Chinese model played a role in the development of canonization projects in Tibet. The first manuscript Kanjur compilation project, which took place at Narthang Monastery in the early 14th century, was sponsored by 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, a Tibetan scholar who had been brought to the imperial court of the Yuan dynasty some years earlier. When the Kanjur was first printed, again the Chinese court was involved: the project was sponsored by the Ming Emperor Yongle and executed in Beijing. On an indirect level, it seems that the evolution of Chinese xylography from its normative stone ancestors had an influence on Tibetan printing history, as the large xylographic printing projects of Derge, Narthang, and other institutions seem to have a large element of text petrifaction at their cores. In the proceeding chapter, I will lay the framework for an understanding of Tibetan xylography by first taking stock of the development of printing in East Asia more generally, paying close attention to xylographys pedigree as a descendant of text petrifaction. After outlining the trajectory of printings rise in China, I will turn to an investigation of the dual histories of printing and canonization in Tibet, all the while keeping in mind the relationship of these strains of history to Chinese precedent and influence.

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CANONIZATION, PRINTING, AND POWER IN CHINA The rise of the literary anthology in China can be traced to the Zhou dynasty (late 10th century B.C.-221 B.C.), during which time the Shi jing (Classic of Songs) and the Shu jing (Classic of Documents) were compiled. These collections, along with others, came to form the core of a highly treasured body of Chinese literature that was revered by scholars, officials, and emperors alike. As David Knechtges argues, to accurately term these texts literature we must expand somewhat the definition of the English word itself: The role of these collections in traditional Chinese civilization of course went far beyond purely literary concerns. These hallowed texts attained the status of jing , a word that is most commonly translated classic, but perhaps is more appropriately rendered scripture. As such, they were viewed as repositories of moral wisdom, guides to proper human conduct, models for writing and literature, and even sources for social and political institutions.11 Because the Confucian classics were so highly esteemed, and because they contained the ultimate word on subjects from poetry to political theory, the relationship of governments to the classics was a crucially important one. As the proceeding investigation will show, ruling bodies throughout the course of Chinese dynastic history sought not only to control the most sacred written words of the literary tradition, but also to make known to their subjects the extent of their power over the classics.
THE STONE CLASSICS OF THE HAN AND TANG DYNASTIES

While the creation of literary canons in China is traceable to the time of Zhou, the practice of text petrifaction did not emerge until the Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD).

David Knechtges, Culling the Weeds and Selecting Prime Blossoms: The Anthology in Early Medieval China, in Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200-600, ed. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro and Patricia Ebrey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 200.

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Between the years of 175 AD and 183 AD the rulers of Han commissioned the engraving of a complete collection of seven Confucian classics on stone stelae. 12 According to Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin, the grand project saw over 200,000 characters inscribed into forty-six stone tablets, which were then erected in public view in at the east side of the National Academy in the capital Luoyang. 13 The Han Stone Classics served as a resource for those wealthy and learned enough to make use of them as they recorded the definitively correct version of Chinas most esteemed texts. It is recorded in the Hou Han shu (The History of the Later Han) that when the tablets were first erected people flocked to the site from around the empire, snarling traffic in the capital. 14 The exact manner in which literate subjects of the empire took advantage of this resource is not entirely known, though some scholars have advanced opinions. Thomas Francis Carter, one of the earliest Western scholars to write on the subject of Chinese printing, contended that visitors to the Stone Classics may have taken rubbings of them, which would have produced a negative image on paper of the text.15 It is in this way that Carter ties the Stone Classics into the history of printinghe suggests that the Han Stone Classics may
The texts included in the Han stone classics were the Classic of Changes, the Classic of Documents, the Classic of Songs, the Classic of Rites, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Gongyang Commentary, and the Confucian Analects itself. The Han stone classics set a precedent that was emulated six times over the course of Chinese dynastic history: Wei dynasty (240-248), Tang dynasty (to be discussed below, 833-837), Shu kingdom (950-1124), Northern Song dynasty (1041-1054), Southern Song dynasty (1134-1177), and Qing dynasty (late Qianlong period, 1791-1794. Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962), 73-83. Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Paper and Printing, vol. 5, Science and Civilization in China, ed. Joseph Needham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 141; Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925), 13; Tsien, Written on Bamboo and Silk, 74.
14 13 12

Quoted in Tsien, Written on Bamboo and Silk, 74.

15

Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925), 13.

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have functioned as a kind of static printing press from which individual imprints could be made as needed by the public. Max Loehr differed with Carter, saying, The engraved stones, permanent and complete in themselves, were not conceived as printing tools but as monuments to which to turn for the authentic wording of scripture or, more often perhaps, for guidance in calligraphy. 16 Whatever the exact nature of peoples interaction with the Han Stone Classics, it is clear that they served a normative functionthey petrified for eternity (it was thought) the correct and true version of the Confucian classics. If anyone in the empire was to study these classics, which served as the basis of Chinese moral and ethical thinking and hence political theory, they would have to base their study on the stone editions, presided over by the imperial government. The act of text petrifaction pioneered by the Han dynasty was to function as a powerful precedent for later dynasties seeking to assert their authority over the written word and, by extension, the empire. The rulers of the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) greatly admired the Han and sought to model their rule after the Han precedent. One highly visible way in which the Tang emulated Han rule was to erect its own version of the Confucian Classics in stone, establishing with monumental finality17 a definitive public text that was both reverential to the past but uniquely Tang in its editorial specifics. 18 The Tang, by petrifying Chinas most treasured texts for all the empire to see, were not only establishing imperially sanctioned correct versions of the classics, they were also placing
16

Max Loehr, Chinese Landscape Woodcuts: From an Imperial Commentary to the Tenth-Century Printed Edition of the Buddhist Canon (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1968), 3.
17

Cherniak, Book Culture, 61. Carter, The Invention, 13; Cherniak, Book Culture, 61.

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themselves alongside the Han, declaring their own government to be inextricably linked with the greatest of Chinese dynasties. The House of Tang was not able to bring its grand project to completion, however. In 755 the rogue general An Lushan sacked the western capital city of Changan, driving the emperor south to Shu. Though An Lushan was in time defeated and Tang rule was restored, the waning Tang had been dealt a blow from which it would never recover. It is interesting to note that in the twilight years of the dynasty following the An Lushan Rebellion the importance of completing the stone classics assumed ever greater urgency for Tang loyalists. The urgency was driven by the parallel goals of text petrifaction: the need for a definitive version and the ideal of a monumental engraving to reflect the greatness of the dynasty.19 The imperative to finish the Tang stone classics before the dynasty fell was expressed by famous calligrapher of the period Li Yangping (fl. 765-80 AD), who wrote of his goal to engrave stone in the seal script, to write out in full the Six Canons and erect them in the Ming-tang, as an inerasable authority, to call them the Tang canons in stone, so that a hundred ages hence no adjustments [in their text] need be made. 20 That the stone classics project would assume a heightened significance in times of such thoroughgoing strife for the Tang, as the very walls of the kingdom were collapsing around them, evinces the political significance of such canonization and text petrifaction projects. It was not just literature that was at stake in the Tang stone classicsthe very right of the Tang to rule hung in the balance. As we will see in our investigation of
19

David McMullen, State and Scholars in Tang China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 99. McMullen, State and Scholars, 99.

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imperial printing projects during the Five Dynasties period, the frenzy to establish canons and petrify them would continue into the unstable period that followed the fall of the Tang dynasty as well.
PRIVATE PRINTING DURING THE TANG DYNASTY

It is known from written records and from archaeological evidence that print culture was beginning to emerge in Chinas provinces in the period directly preceding the carving of the Tang stone classics. Amidst the chaos of the An Lushan rebellion in the late Tang dynasty, Emperor Xizong alighted to Shu (modern-day Sichuan) with some of his closest ministers to wait for peace to return to the capital. While there, the imperial party stumbled upon a nascent print culture. In 883 A.D. the imperial minister Liu Bin recorded finding printed books in the markets of Shu; this is the earliest known Chinese account of printed books: These books consisted mostly of works on divination, portents, dreams, and fengshui, and writings of the Chiu-kung, and Five Planet sects; but there were also some character books and elementary school books. Most of these were books printed with blocks on paper, but they were so smeared and blotted that they were not readily legible.21 In other words, the books Liu Bin saw were of a popular nature, and the xylograph technology being used to print them had not yet been perfected. Archaeologists have also established that, in addition to the low-quality, popular works observed by Liu Bin in Shu, Buddhist works were being printed privately during the late Tang dynasty. Evidence of private Buddhist printing during the Tang is none other than the Diamond Sutra now preserved in the British Museum, a beautifully printed illuminated text that was taken from Dunhuang by Aurel Stein during his 1907 journey
21

Quoted in Carter, The Invention, 44.

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through Chinas Northwest. The Diamond Sutra is enlightening on a number of levels. First, it is dateable to 868, which makes it the earliest known printed book in existence. Second, the impeccable quality of both the pictorial images and the text of the book demonstrate that, in spite of the low-grade works to be found in the markets of Shu, xylographic techniques and execution were already highly developed in certain parts of China by the late 9th century.22 The print culture that had begun to emerge and develop by the late Tang dynasty was to be combined with the petrifying techniques of the stone classics in the Five Dynasties period in the Five Dynasties period to form the first largescale imperial printing project in Chinese history.
THE FIVE DYNASTIES XYLOGRAPHIC EDITION OF THE CONFUCIAN CLASSICS

A series of short-lived regimes known as the Five Dynasties succeeded one another during the troubled years following the fall of Tang. During this fifty three-year period the capital and its immediate environs were subject to the rule of no fewer than thirteen emperors, while the provinces were ruled by warlords who had established themselves as de facto local kings. Politico-military might shifted from group to group; no one faction was able to establish overweening power for any appreciable amount of time. One of the few constants throughout this unstable period was the presence in the capital of Feng Dao, an influential minister who believed strongly in the importance of canonization and the establishment of normative texts. Like the rulers of Tang and Han before him, Feng Dao believed strongly that power over the empire itself must radiate from authority over Chinas most treasured classical texts. In a memorial to the emperor,

22

Tsien, Paper and Printing, 151.

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Feng Dao petitioned the throne to grant him the authority to oversee a canonization and text petrifaction project of huge proportions. The ministers mindfulness of the dynastys straitened circumstances led him to suggest the relatively affordable medium of wood rather than stone: During the Han dynasty, Confucian scholars were honored and the Classics were cut in stone.In Tang times also stone inscriptions containing the text of the Classics were made in the imperial school. Our dynasty has too many other things to do and cannot undertake such a task as to have stone inscriptions erected. We have seen, however, men from Wu and Shu who sold books that were printed from blocks of wood. There were many different texts, but there were among them no orthodox Classics. If the Classics could be revised and this cut in wood and published, it would be a very great boon to the study of literature. We, therefore, make a memorial to the throne to this effect.23 That Feng Dao explicitly drew a parallel between the stone classics and his xylographic project demonstrates the evolutionary link between the two. As with the Han and Tang stone classics, literary concerns were married to those of power and prestige in Feng Daos great project. In the words of Susan Cherniak, Establishing new texts for the Confucian classics by correcting the texts of the Tang stone classics in Changan would confirm the dynastys claim to legitimacy.24 Just as the Tang had sought to invoke the Han precedent with their stone classics, so did Feng Dao seek to link his own era to the glory of Tang by taking up the mantle of editing and petrifying the Confucian classics. Feng Daos proposal was accepted by the emperor and implemented by the Directorate of Education in 932 AD under the sponsorship of the Later Tang dynasty (923-36 AD). It was not until 953, three ill-fated dynasties later, that the project was completed.

23

Carter, The Invention, 50. Cherniak, Book Culture, 20.

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In the Five Dynasties xylographic edition of the Confucian classics we see two precedents combinedthat of the Han and Tang stone classics with the early xylographic culture of Shuand both of these precedents are crucial to understanding the nature of this project. Technologically, the Five Dynasties edition was xylographic; philosophically, it was stone. The capacity to make numerous prints from the Five Dynasties woodblocksto take full advantage of xylographic technologywas not at the heart of Feng Daos project. Rather, it was hoped that the woodblocks themselves would be invested with the normative power of the Han and Tang stelae, and the imprints that were struck from these would act as representatives of this exemplar. That Feng Daos xylographic classics were intended to serve primarily as a normative standard and not necessarily as a catalyst for literacy is borne out by the very limited number of imprints that were made. As Susan Cherniak points out, The main purpose in utilizing printing seems not to have been to replicate the texts in huge quantities, as was the case in Buddhist printing projects, where replication itself seems to confer karmic benefits; nor was printing intended to replace hand-copying as the popular medium for transmission, though the directorate editions were put up for sale. The directorate imprints were intended to serve as standards for personal transcription, just as the Tang stone classics had. 25 Feng Daos innovationone necessitated partly by the poverty of his sponsorswas to marry the nascent technology of woodblock printing to the established tradition of text petrifaction. It was to be an epoch-making initiative, for it not only spurred on Chinas nascent print culture, which would soon come to full flower with the private printing of the Song, but it also introduced wood as a viable medium for the petrifying of important

25

Cherniak, Book Culture, 21.

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texts. What is perhaps most instructive about the Five Dynasties Directorate edition is the way in which it lays bare the bond between canonization and power in Chinas medieval period. The centrality of these hugely time-consuming and expensive projects seems out of place amidst the turmoil of the Five Dynasties period until we realize that, by editing and engraving these texts upon wood, the leaders of these momentary empires were fighting for their very survival.
THE FIRST PRINTED EDITION OF THE CHINESE BUDDHIST CANON: THE KAIBAO ZANG

The Five Dynasties period ended in 960 with the establishment of the Song, a dynasty which, though it would eventually lose North China to the invading Jurchens, was to oversee one of the greatest periods of cultural efflorescence in Chinese history. In 971 Emperor Taizu commissioned the engraving of blocks for the first imperially sanctioned xylographic edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon, known as the Kaibao Zang. The blocks were carved in Chengduthe heart of Shuand completed in 983, at which point they were shipped to the capital at Kaifeng. The Kaibao edition is particularly germane to this discussion, since it represents the first collision of two important strains of historythose of Chinese imperial text petrifaction and Buddhist print culture. We may say that, of these two incongruent forebears, the Kaibao edition shows more of the characteristics of imperial text petrifaction, for it seems to have served a normative function rather than a meritproducing function. Unlike other Buddhist printing projects of the time, which were designed to produce a great deal of merit in the most efficient way possible, the Kaibao edition was sparingly produced and stingily distributed.26 As was the case with Five
26

Cherniak, Book Culture, 40.

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Dynasties Confucian classics, Much of the Kaibaos power resided in the blocks themselves, and it was seldom transferred to imprints. The blocks recorded the standard, and the standard stayed in the capital. That the Kaibao canon petrified a normative textual precedent is not the only way in which it was enmeshed in the Song matrix of political power; the Kaibao ushered in an era of cultural diplomacy in which gifts of printed canonical collections were part of the geopolitical currency of East Asia. Of the historical accounts that survive about the Kaibao edition, several report that imprints of the collection were given to the governments of Buddhist countries surrounding China. The leaders of Korea, Japan, Annam, and Khitan all received copies of the massive canon.27 Given the scarcity of Kaibao imprints, and the fact that the receiving countries print culture was not nearly as highly developed as Chinas at the time, such a gift must have been overwhelming in its impression. 28

27

Loehr, Chinese Landscape Woodcuts, 15-17.

28

It is clear that this impression had a particularly strong impact upon Koryo dynasty of Korea, for the Koryo had a profound appreciation for the connections between canonization, printing, and power. After receiving a copy of the Kaibao canon from the rulers of Song China in 991, the Koryo produced its own xylographic edition of the Chinese Buddhist canoncalled the Tripitaka Koreanain 1011. Like the Five Dynasties Confucian classics and the Tang stone classics before them, the Tripitaka Koreana was created in an environment of great instability, when the very independence of the kingdom of Koryo was under threat from the Khitan of the Liao kingdom of North China. Caught in a position of relative weakness with respect to the Khitans, the Koryo was forced into an uneasy alliance with the Liao, one which to the Koryo seemed destined to end in outright invasion of their peninsula. Yi Kyubo, a Korean scholar of the late 12th to early 13th centuries, testified that it was believed [in the time of Koryo] that the carving of the Tripitaka Koreana would help the expulsion of the Liao invasion; see Park Byeng-Sen, Korean Printing: From its Origins to 1910 (Seoul: Jimoondang, 2003), 98-100. Presumably the Liao, themselves recipients of an imprint of the Song Kaibao Zang, would have seen the Koryo kingdom in a different light if it had been able to produce its own xylographic edition of the canon. That the Koryo would attempt to produce their own version of the Kaibao Zang as its own political integrity was being threatened speaks to their desire to emulate the Chinese Song dynastyto be a state, like the Song, powerful enough to control textual authority in its own right.

23

THE RISE OF PRIVATE PRINTING AND THE LIMITS OF XYLOGRAPHY

Feng Daos introduction of wood into the practice of text petrifaction was undoubtedly innovative; it was also, on some level, self-destructive. Within a century of the carving of the Five Dynasties classics it became clear that wood was not an ideal medium for text petrifaction in the Chinese context.29 Indeed, the very factors that made wood such an appealing material to the Five Dynasties rulers were those that eventually enticed private entities to co-opt the technology of xylography. Very early in the history of Chinese printingas early as the Song dynastyprivate entrepreneurs and scholars took advantage of woodblock printings convenience and affordability to produce their own editions of books, even editions of the classics. 30 Between the years of 1041 and 1054, Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song undertook a stone classics project in the tradition of the Han and Tang dynasties. It is not clear that the Northern Song stone classics were a direct reaction to the dissolution of imperial authority over classical texts, but the timing is certainly suggestive.31 If it was in

29

Much of the proceeding discussion of the limits of xylography is based on Cherniak, Book Culture.

The 11th-century shift to a print culture was accompanied by an equally powerful shift in attitudes toward canonical texts, one fueled by newly raised questions about the authorship of the classics. Hugely influential Neo-Confucian thinkers of the period such as Cheng Yi (1032-1107) and Zhu Xi (1130-1200) encouraged a thoroughgoing skepticism in their students, insisting that even the classics, the very textual basis for Confucianism itself, must be questioned. Private printers began to respond to the new climate of intellectual volatility by printing new versions of canonical texts which had no imperial sanction. Private editions came to be respected above imperial editions for the high quality of their scholarship and their legibility, areas in which the relatively static and closed imperial agencies could not compete. Of course, private editions were also far cheaper and much more widely available, as their very raison dtre was to produce money for their printers and to raise the profile of their authors/editors. In this way, authority over the printing of classical texts was wrested from the government in a surprisingly short period of time, effecting a massive shift in Chinese culture. See Cherniak, Book Culture, 21-28.
31

30

Especially since the imperial government relinquished authority over the printing of the Confucian classics during this period, around 1064.

24

fact the intention of Emperor Renzong to reestablish imperial dominance over the classics, he was too late. In the words of Susan Cherniak: At the outset of the Sung, textual authority in the Confucian classics was monopolized by the imperial government, which claimed to be the most faithful custodian of the authorial texts, a claim confirmed by a long history of orthodox transmissionimplanting the idea that imperial authority and textual authority were not necessarily one and the same was sufficient to promote the destabilization of the received texts. The received texts were now in play. 32 Establishing definitive versions of Confucian canonical texts was no longer the sole responsibility of the imperial government; it was now shared by the entire scholar class. Interestingly though, Chinese dynasties continued to produce imperial xylographic editions of important texts from the Northern Song until the end of Chinas dynastic period in the early twentieth century. It seems that, at least in the eyes of the imperial government, official xylographic editions continued to carry some of the normative weight of their forebears, if only symbolically. That the imperial government never attempted to increase production levels of its own editions to rival private printing houses suggests that it conceded true authority over classical texts once it was clear that private printing could not be regulated, while attempting to retain symbolic authority.
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF CANONIZATION AND PRINTING IN CHINA

Xylography originated in China, and the Chinese use of the technology had a great impact on other societies both within the immediate Confucian cultural sphere and beyond, Tibet included. On this basis alone, a knowledge of Chinese printing and canonization history is a valuable foundation for the study of Tibetan canonical xylograph projects such as Derge. But the impact of the Chinese precedent was profound
32

Cherniak, Book Culture, 27.

25

and persistent enough to warrant the in-depth analysis that I have provided here, as we will see in the discussion of the Tibetan example that follows. Two particularly important points emerge from the history of Chinese printing that will influence our ongoing discussion of printing in Tibet. First, large-scale canonical printing projects are directly connected to a lineage of text petrifaction stretching all the way back to the Han dynasty. To be sure, the technological precedent for imperial xylograph projects came from the early popular woodblock printing seen in Shu during the latter part of the Tang dynasty, but their conceptual precedent lay in the engraved blocks of stone erected by the rulers of Han and Tang. These stone editions of the classics petrified a normative textual example in monumental form, testifying to a dynastys authority over the most fundamental texts on which Chinese society was based. The ability to control these texts was equivalent to the ability to control the empire itself. Feng Daos innovative use of wood as a medium for text petrifaction changed the practice slightly, introducing the ability to strike imprints in convenient fashion from these monuments, but the idea remained the same, as evidenced by the very few imprints actually made. Imperial printing projects in China continued throughout history to operate as the stone classics hadeven when it was clear that certain texts could not be petrifiedshowing their true pedigree as descendants of the lineage of text petrifaction. Second, we have seen from the Chinese example that the great printing and canonization projects of Chinese history tended not to be undertaken during times of peace and prosperity, but rather during times of chaos and war. The Tang stone classics became a greater priority after the An Lushan rebellion; likewise the Five Dynasties xylographic classics were executed in times of great tumult. The pattern extends to the

26

Korean peninsula, where the rulers of Koryo attempted to fend off the invading Khitan by producing their own xylographic Tripitaka. That these projects coincide with periods of chaos demonstrates that the ability to select, edit, and petrify the correct and authoritative version of canonical texts was seen as crucial to a ruling mandate. In addition to other strategies, rulers attempted to employ xylography and canonization to establish their legitimacy in times of distress. As we will see in the discussion of Tibet that follows, a similar pattern can be observed in the history of printing and canonization there. CANONIZATION, PRINTING, AND POWER IN TIBET The technology of woodblock printing was known of and utilized in Tibet before the first printing of a Kanjur collection in 1410; great teachers and their students were collating important texts and having them xylographed and printed as early as the 13th century. Likewise, canonical Kanjur and Tanjur collections were being compiled in Tibet centuries before they were ever printed, beginning in earnest around the early 14th century at the Central Tibetan monastery of Narthang. It was not until the 17th and 18th centuries, the age of the classic xylograph Kanjurs and Tanjurs,33 that large-scale, single-project, blockprint Kanjurs and Tanjurs were undertaken within Tibet itself; it is within this flood of canonical printing that the Derge Kanjur and Tanjur fall. To understand the Derge Printing House and its own Kanjur we must first explore the dual histories of canonical text collections and woodblock printing in Tibet. After examining these two strains of history, I will then investigate their collision in the xylographic Kanjur and Tanjurs of the 18th century. As in the preceding section, I will also pay
33

Term used by Peter Skilling, A Brief Guide to the Golden Tanjur, The Journal of the Siam Society 79, pt. 2 (1991): 138.

27

special heed to the political circumstances that surrounded the great canonization and printing projects of Tibetan history in an effort to apprehend the connections between printing and power in the Tibetan sphere.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF MANUSCRIPT CANONICAL COLLECTIONS IN TIBET

The Old Narthang Manuscript Kanjur and Tanjur. It is current scholarly opinion that the first single-project Kanjur and Tanjur compilation effort was embarked upon in Tibet in the fourteenth century.34 This project, known as the Old Narthang Kanjur and Tanjur [ON], would come to serve as the conceptual prototype for virtually all Buddhist canonical collections in Tibet that followed it, as they would all be structured in the same bipartite fashion. 35 The collation of the ON, which most likely took place during the years 1310 to 1320 A.D., was conceived of and funded by the scholar Jam pai dbyangs, who as a young man had himself studied at Narthang. 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, after being expelled from Narthang for an episode of misbehavior, went to the great monastery of Sa skya, where he was noticed by the Mongols and eventually invited to the court of Emperor Renzong (r. 1311-1320) of the Yuan dynasty to serve as court chaplain. 36 From

Following Paul Harrisons suggestion, I will not refer to the Old Narthang Kanjur and Tanjur as an edition, but rather as a collection or compilation of texts. Harrison posits the reasonable hypothesis that the ON was a raw collection containing many duplicates, and so set the scene for future editions of the canon without being an edition itself. See Harrison, In Search of the Source, 298; Harrison, A Brief History, 77-8. Peter Skilling, From bKa bstan bcos to bKa gyur and bsTan gyur, in Transmission of the Tibetan Canon: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, ed. Helmut Eimer (Wien: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 100-101. Skilling seeks to dispute the long-standing notion that the ON was the first Kanjur and Tanjur project. Such a notion is misleading, says Skilling, because it implies that ON set a textual precedent for later Kanjurs and Tanjurs, when in fact no Kanjur can be shown to directly reproduce the ON, since the latter remains unknowable. Skilling prefers, therefore to talk of the ON as the conceptual prototype for later, largescale, single project Kanjurs. I will follow his suggestion in this study.
36 35

34

Harrison, In Search of the Source, 297.

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his post in Beijing, Jam pai byangs sent a cache of materials, probably ink and paper, to Narthang and encouraged the religious leaders there to seek out high-quality examples of the most important texts of Tibetan Buddhism, make copies of them, catalogue them, and store them at Narthang Monastery. The project was conducted by the scholars Dbus pa Blo gsal Byang chub ye shes, Bsod nams od zer, and Rgyang ro Byang chub, under the supervision and according to catalogues or lists compiled by Bcom ldan rig pai ral gri, the teacher who had expelled Jam pai byangs from Narthang years earlier.37 No example of the ON remains in existence, nor does any catalogue detailing texts included in the compilation. As a result, we know very little about the specific textual composition of the ON. One thing we do know about the ON is that it attempted to preserve in canonical form the anti-Rnying ma bias that was prevalent in 14th-century Central Tibet. E. Gene Smith notes that around the time of the ONs compilation, purists who had until that point focused on ridding the land of the Bon religion turned their attention to the Rnying ma school of Tibetan Buddhism, which they viewed as backward. In a pointed anthological decision, the scholars of Narthang, did not include within the Tibetan canon the tantras that the Rnying ma pa had treasured though the long period of cultural darkness on the grounds that the Indic originals from which they had been translated could no longer be demonstrated.38 Never mind that there was some evidence of Indic originals of some excluded texts, the compilers of the ON eliminated even these texts on technical grounds. That sectarian interests were represented in the compilation of the ON sets an interesting precedent for

37

Harrison, In Search of the Source, 297.

38

E. Gene Smith, Among Tibetan Texts: History and Literature of the Himalayan Plateau (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001), 238.

29

later Kanjur and Tanjur collections, and demonstrates the extent to which concerns of power, religious and political, were at play in the early Tibetan canonical collections.39 One other salient issue must be addressed in our discussion of the ONthat of Chinese influence. There is no written record of Jam pai byangs professing direct Chinese influence on his commission of the ON, nor does the earliest chronicler of the ON project, Bu ston (1290-1364), mention directly a Chinese connection. Nonetheless, the circumstantial evidence pointing toward a Chinese inspiration for the ON is highly suggestive. As Paul Harrison rightly points out, 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, working at the Yuan dynasty court, would no doubt have been influenced by his Mongol patrons' sense of importance of previous editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon produced under imperial sponsorship, and by their desire to add lustre to this tradition.40 On the basis of the preceding discussion of canonization and power in China, Harrisons point seems particularly trenchant.41 In addition, we know that Narthang Monastery, along with 'Jam

39

It is worth noting here the interesting history of the Rnying ma rgyud bum. Adherents to the Rnying ma school of Tibetan Buddhism developed, in response to the Rnying ma Tantras exclusion from the Kanjur, their own canonical collection Rnying ma rgyud bum (Collected Tantras of the Ancients). The Rnying ma rgyud bum was never intended to replace the Kanjur or to compete with it; its compilers rather intended it as a supplementary canon of texts they felt had been improperly excluded of their own traditions. See David Germano, History and Nature of The Collected Tantras of the Ancients, http://iris.lib.virginia/tibet/ collections/literature/ngb/ngb-history.html, Written 3/25/2002; accessed 4/7/2005. The Rnying ma rgyud bum was xylographed for the first time at the Derge Printing House under the editorial leadership of Jigs med Gling pa. See Janet Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 141.

Paul Harrison, A Brief History of the Tibetan bKa gyur, in Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. Jos Ignacio Cabezn and Roger R. Jackson (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 1996), 76. In addition to the notion of Chinese influence, the issue of Indian Buddhist influence on Tibetan (and Chinese) views of canonization must be mentioned here. The first Buddhist canons, which were developed in India, were like many of the cases under study here, produced in a context of dispute, to use Steven Collinss wording; see Steven Collins, On the Very Idea of the Pali Canon, Journal of the Pali Text Society XV (1995): 96. Collinss exploration of the notion of canon in the Pali context reveals that sectarian interests were at play in the fixing of the Pali canon in the 5th century A.D., when monks of the Mahaviharin school believed that their position as sole legitimate custodians of Buddhism was under threat; Collins, On the Very Idea, 98. The example of the Tripitaka, which was transmitted to China,
41

40

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pa'i dbyangs other home institution Sa skya, enjoyed close ties to the Yuan rulers. 42 In light of the evidence of Chinese influence, it is interesting that the ON was a manuscript project, given that xylography had already been employed in the service of Chinese canonization projects for centuries. Perhaps such a grand project was beyond even the financial means of a court chaplain such as 'Jam pa'i dbyangs, or perhaps there were not enough skilled craftsmen in the Narthang area to execute a printing project of such outsized scope at the turn of the 14th century. The Tshal pa and Zha lu ma Manuscript Editions. Less than three decades time had elapsed from the ONs completion before two major projects were undertaken to improve upon it; as the ON was more accumulation than edition, it still required editorial attention.43 The first of these projects took place at Zha lu Monastery in Gtsang under the scholarly leadership of the great translator Bu ston Rin chen grub (1290-1364). 44 We know from gZhon nu dpals Blue Annals that the editing of the Tanjur was overseen personally by Bu ston, who rearranged the ordering of texts, removed duplicates, and inserted new titles into the collection. 45 Though Bu ston and his followers amended
must have exerted significant influence there. It is unclear how the notion of canon-making was transmitted to Tibet by India, either directly or by way of China.
42

Harrison, A Brief History, 76.

43

Harrison, A Brief History, 78. The Tshal pa and Zha lu ma chapter of Kanjur history is a murky one which heretofore has been best addressed by Paul Harrison. In particular, the movement of texts and scholars from Narthang to Tshal pa, Zha lu, and beyond, is obscure. For the most detailed Englishlanguage exploration of this maze, see Harrison, In Search of the Source. Harrison, A Brief History, 78. Few firm dates are known for the Zha lu ma project. We do know that Bu ston wrote his dkar chag to the Tanjur in 1335.

44

Harrison, A Brief History, 75; Harrison, In Search of the Source. Who was responsible for editing the Kanjur is a more mysterious question, but Paul Harrison provides compelling evidence that Bu ston also participated in reorganizing this side of the canon at Zha lu. Harrison also shows, however, that the editing of the Zha lu ma canon was done by a large group of scholars over a period of decades, for the canon remained open even after one scholars work was completed. Thus, the Zha lu ma canon must be thought

45

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many of the anthological decisions made by the scholars of Narthang, they elected to preserve the anti-Rnying ma bias represented in the ON by excluding the Rnying ma Tantras from the new Zha lu edition.46 The second ON improvement project took place at Tshal Gung thang Monastery during the years 1347 to 1351 with the financial backing of the local ruler Tshal pa Kun dga rdo rje (1309-1364). From gZhon nu dpals Blue Annals we learn that three copies of the ON were taken from Narthang to Tshal Gung thang where they came under the detailed scrutiny of a group of scholars. 47 The Tshal pa Kanjur, because of the high standard of scholarship that was applied to it, came to be regarded as an authoritative original for subsequent copies.48 It is worth noting here that, like the ON, the Tshal pa was a manuscript project, a fact which is particularly interesting given that the earliest reference to a Tibetan printed work comes from the writing of Tshal pa Kun dga rdo rje himself, in the rulers famous Red Annals.49 Given that the technology of printing was known to Tshal pa Kun dga rdo rje, we must assume that for reasons of cost, materials, and/or technological know-how xylography could not be feasibly applied to the Tshal pa

of as an edition in progress that was worked on not only by Bu ston but by his followers at Zha lu in the years and decades after his death.
46

Smith, Among Tibetan Texts, 238. Quoted in Harrison, A Brief History, 74-5.

47

Helmut Eimer, Some Results of Recent Kanjur Research, Archiv fr Zentralasiatische Geschichtsforschung 1 (1983): 13. David Jackson, Notes on Two Early Printed Editions of Sa-skya-pa Works, The Tibet Journal 8, no. 2 (1983): 5-6. Jackson makes note of a reference in the Red Annals to a history of China and Tibet that was translated from Chinese into Tibetan by the Chinese translator Ba-hu-gyang-ju at Shing-kun in the woodbird year (1225?). Later, in the wood-ox year (1265?) it was published in Tibetan script by Bla-ma Rinchen-grags Gu-shrithe work would appear to have been published in 1265, though one would have expected the next possible wood-ox year, 1325.
49

48

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edition. As the first proper editions of the seminal canonical compilation project in Tibetan history, the Tshal pa and Zha lu ma editions came to exert a great influence on the later tradition; in the words of Paul Harrison they are the twin fonts from which most of the later standard editions of the bKa' 'gyur appear to flow.50 The Them spangs ma Edition. The Them spangs ma edition was executed in Gyantse in 1431 under the sponsorship of the local ruler Situ Rab brtan Kun bzang 'phags.51 The Them spangs ma had a great impact on the canonical tradition in Tibet, for it was copied over a hundred times by the Fifth Dalai Lama and distributed to parties both within and without Tibet. One such gift, made to the Mongols in 1671, may be seen as an echo of the type of cultural diplomacy practiced by the Northern Song in their gift of the Kaibao Chinese canon to foreign governments such as the Liao and the Koryo dynasty. 52
THE EARLY HISTORY OF PRINTING IN TIBET

Xylographic technology had been employed in the service of printing Tibetan texts even before the scholars of Narthang began compiling their prototype canon in the early 14th century. As early as the thirteenth century Tibetan works were being xylographed in Mongolia and then distributed to Tibet.53
50

Harrison, A Brief History, 80.

51

Some recent textual studies have sought to elucidate the foggy links between the Them spangs ma and the earlier editions of Tshal pa, Zha lu, and the prototype ON compilation. Peter Skilling has argued that divergences between the Them spangs ma and Tshal pa Kanjurs evince that they could not possibly have both descended from a single source (i.e. the ON); see Skilling, From bKa' bstan bcos, 101. Paul Harrison has responded to Skillings discovery by positing the theory that the Zha lu ma edition is the missing link between the two, and that the Them spangs ma actually descended from the ON by way of Bu stons changes at Zha lu; see Harrison, In Search of the Source. Harrison, A Brief History, 81. The copy that was gifted to the Mongols is still extant, and is currently preserved in Ulan Bator. Jackson, Notes on Two Early Printed Editions, 5-6.

52

53

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Xylographs Executed under Mongol Patronage, 13th Century. 54 The earliest known xylographic imprints in Tibetan are those of the Kalacakra Tantra, carved under Mongol sponsorship at the request of Lama Urgyanpa (1230-1309). Also dating from this period is a xylograph of Sa skya Panditas Tshad ma rigs pai gter and autocommentary currently preserved in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities in Beijing. 55 During this period Tibet itself was still dominated by manuscript culture, in spite of the importation of a few works from outside the direct cultural sphere. It is clear from the surviving imprints that during this initial period of Tibetan-language printing, the Mongols and, by extension their subjects the Chinese, played a leading role in the xylographing of Tibetan texts. Xylographs Commissioned by Tsong kha pa, early 15th Century. Evidence suggests that it was not until the 15th century that books began to be printed in Tibet proper. The earliest surviving imprints known to have been printed in Tibet are of the Guhyasamajamula Tantra and its Pradipoddyotana commentary by Candrakirtipada. 56 It

54

Some comments should be made regarding the term Mongol patronage. The Mongol Yuan dynasty of China is usually said to begin in 1276. This is the year in which the Mongols formally conquered the Southern Song dynasty, which had lost control of northern China (and its capital) in 1115 to the Jurchen Jin dynasty. In fact, the Mongols took control of northern China in 1215 when they sacked the Jin capital of Yanijng (modern Beijing) and consolidated that power in 1234 when they took the newly established Jin capital at Kaifeng, ending the Jin dynasty permanently. It is likely that the Mongols inherited significant printing resources from the Jin, which had inherited the state printing apparatus from the Northern Song when they took the Chinese capital in 1115. In addition, private printing, which had begun to explode during the Northern Song, no doubt continued during the Jin. In short, Mongol patronage during this period must be taken as intimately tied to China and the history of Chinese printing. Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, Two Mongol Xylographs (Hor Par Ma) of the Tibetan Text of Sa Skya Panditas Work on Buddhist Logic and Epistemology, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 16, no. 2 (1993): 280-81.

55

David Jackson, The Earliest Printings of Tsong-kha-pas Works: The Old Dga-ldan Editions, in Reflections on Tibetan Culture: Essays in Memory of Turrell V. Wylie, ed. Lawrence Epstein and Richard F. Sherburne (Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1990), 115.

56

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is written in a biography of Tsong kha pa (d. 1419) that the great Dge lugs pa reformer himself administered the printing project, which began in 1418 and was completed in 1419 in Lhasa. 57 David Jackson has noted the distinct possibility of Chinese influence on Tsong kha pas Guhyasamajamula Tantra, suggesting that perhaps the printing of the Yongle Kanjur (about which, see below) in Beijing less than a decade earlier forcefully awoke Tsong-kha-pa and other Tibetans of the early fifteenth century to the great possibilities of this technology.58 There was certainly sufficient flow of ideas, objects, and people between Beijing and Central Tibet during this period to facilitate such an impact, as the travels of several prominent Tibetan Buddhist monks to the Ming court indicate.59 In fact, there was a direct line between Tsong kha pa and the Yongle court in the person of Sha kya ye shes, whose very presence in Beijing was in the stead of Tsong kha pa, who had himself declined an imperial invitation to travel to the Ming capital. 60 Not only was Sha kya ye shes present at the Ming court just after the printing of the Yongle Kanjur, but he was given one of the very rare imprints of the canon to take with him upon his return to Tibet in 1416, just two years before Tsong kha pas commission of the Guhyasamajamula Tantra; this precious gift would surely have been seen and studied
57

The biography in question was written by Mkhas grub rje. See Jackson, The Earliest Printings, 107. Jackson, The Earliest Printings, 115.

58

59

Elliot Sperling, The 5th Karma-pa and some Aspects of the Relationship between Tibet and the Early Ming in Michael Aris and Aung San Suu Kyi, eds., Tibetan Studies in Honor of Hugh Richardson: Proceedings of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Oxford, 1979 (Westminster: Aris and Philips, 1980), 281-5. The first three emperors of Ming were devout Buddhists and were also deeply interested in Tibetan Buddhism. During the first fifty years of the Ming dynasty three prominent leaders, De bzhin Shegs pa, Kun dga bkra shis, and Sha kya ye shes, traveled to the court of Ming and acted as lamas in residence for some amount of time. For more on these Tibetan visitors to the Ming court, see the investigation of the Yongle Kanjur below. Tsepon W.D. Shakabpa, Tibet: A Political History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967), 84.

60

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by Sha kya ye shess great teacher Tsong kha pa.61 Though the colophon of the Guhyasamajamula Tantra does not attest to direct Chinese influence, the chronological and personal circumstances strongly suggest such a possibility. Tsong kha pas commission of a major printing project in the late 1410s is further interesting for it highlights once more the indissoluble link between printing and power. The Guhyasamajamula Tantra project coincides with a period of significant expansion of the Dge lugs pa schools influence in Central Tibet, during which time Tsong kha pa was engaged in a comprehensive campaign to establish Dge lugs dominance over the religious life of Lhasa. In 1409, Ganden Monastery was founded near Lhasa, followed in 1416 and 1419 respectively by the great monasteries of Drepung and Sera on the outskirts of the city. 62 Tsong kha pas consolidation of religious power in the hands of the Dge lugs pa was accompanied by a rise in the political influence of the sect, which replaced the rapidly waning Phagmogrupa as the dominant group in and around Lhasa. Taking into account the history of Chinese printing and its relation to power, it is not surprising to see xylography used as one facet of a comprehensive strategy to consolidate power; as we will see, Tsong kha pa was only the first of many Tibetan rulers to make use of woodblock printing in this fashion. Early Sa skya pa Xylographs, mid-15th Century. Sa skya pa works were being printed in Central Tibet as early as the mid-15th century, not long after Tsong kha pas

61

Jonathan Silk, Notes on the History of the Yongle Kanjur. In Suhrllekhah: Festgabe fr Helmut Eimer, ed. Michael Hahn, Jens-Uwe Hartmann, and Konrad Klaus (Swisttal-Odendorf: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 1996), 168. Warren W. Smith Jr., Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996), 101.

62

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printing of the Guhyasamajamula Tantra in Lhasa. Imprints survive from xylographed works of Sakya Pandita, Thub pai dgongs gsal and Legs bshad rin po chei gter, which were printed at Sa skya beginning in 1439.63 David Jackson has argued that these extant 15th century works, along with several others in various collections throughout the world, belong to an early printed edition of the Sa skya bka' 'bum, the collected writings of the five great founders of Sa skya. The sponsor of these printed works was a Sa skya pa scholar named Gong dkar ba (1432-1496),64 the son of a noble family from Central Tibet that, according to historical records, financed numerous manuscript and print projects during the fifteenth century, including a manuscript Kanjur copied in gold letters and a printed edition of gZhon nu dpals Blue Annals.65 Jackson contends that early printed editions of Tibetan books are probably more common than scholars have suspected, and that they remain to be located in monastic and private collections around the Tibetan cultural sphere. Clearly, on the basis of Jacksons studies of Tsong kha pas printed works and the early Sa skya pa xylographs, woodblock printing had made its way to Central Tibet by the fifteenth century. At the same time, it is clear that in this early period of Tibetan printing, the technology was not yet being applied to Kanjur and Tanjur collections, in spite of the precedent set by the Yongle Kanjur of 1410, which was likely seen in the elite circles of Tibet (about which, see below). Further, the institutions and figures involved in xylograph printing during this early period were, suggestively,

63

Jackson, Notes on Two Early Printed Editions, 6. Full name: Gong dkar rdo rje gdan pa. Jackson, Notes on Two Early Printed Editions, 12.

64

65

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institutions with close ties to the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China, such as the hierarchs of Sa skya and Tsong kha pa himself.
THE HISTORY OF PRINTED KANJURS AND TANJURS

The Yongle Kanjur. For evidence of Chinese influence on the history of Tibetan printing, one need look no farther than the Yongle Kanjur, the first printed Tibetan Buddhist canon, which was executed in Beijing under the sponsorship of the Ming imperial family. 66 The Yongle Kanjur, so-called due to its sponsorship by the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402-1424) of the Ming dynasty, was printed for the first time in Beijing in 1410.67 The historical moment of the Yongle Kanjurs printing was one of significant exchange between the great religio-political centers of Central Tibet and the Chinese court, and the Yongle Kanjur is best understood as integral to this period. The first Ming emperor, Taizu (r. 1368-1398, also called the Hongwu emperor), was a devout Buddhist who counted among his advisers at court a number of trusted monks.68 Taizu was keen from the outset of his dynasty to cultivate a multifaceted relationship with the Tibetans
66

The Yongle Kanjur perhaps belongs more rightfully to the preceding section on Chinese printing, for though the language being printed was Tibetan, the impetus, technology, and funding were all Chinese. I have included it in this section because it will allow for a more robust discussion of the particulars of the Kanjur building on the foundation of the foregoing discussion of manuscript Kanjurs and Tanjurs in Tibet.

The Kanjur was reprinted with occasional minor changes in the Wanli reign of the Ming (1605), several times during the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty (1684/92, 1700, 1717-1720), and at least twice during the Kangxi reign period of the Qing dynasty. See Harrison, A Brief History, 81. It is interesting to note the Kangxi emperors acute interest in reinvigorating the Chinese imperial printing of Tibetan canonical texts in the late 17th and early sixteenth century, for this was the period that directly preceded the great xylograph Kanjur and Tanjurs produced in Tibet proper, which will be discussed below. It appears that the Kanjur craze that swept Tibet in the 18th century was also felt in Beijing. In addition, in the early 18th century, the Yongzheng emperor commissioned the carving of a complete set of Tanjur blocks to complete the bipartite canon that had for centuries remained unfinished These blocks were completed in 1724, just five years before the Derge Kanjur project was initiated. See Skilling, A Brief Guide, 138.
68

67

The following account of early Ming Sino-Tibetan exchange is based on Sperling, The 5th Karma-pa.

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one that involved trade, amicable border relations, and religious exchange. To those ends, the first Ming mission to Tibet was sent in 1369 in the hopes of establishing a redefined relationship between China and Tibet in the wake of the Mongol Yuan dynastys collapse. In 1378 Taizu followed his previous mission by dispatching one of his most trusted monk-advisors on a four-year mission to Tibet to obtain scriptures, the first mission nominally dedicated to purely religious pursuits. Around 1403 the Yongle emperor, son of Chengzu, built on his fathers tradition of missions to Tibet by directly inviting one of Tibets most eminent monks, the Fifth Kar ma pa De bzhin Shegs pa to visit his court. The Yongle emperor entreated the lama to come aid the imperial family in performing Buddhist rites for the salvation of his recently deceased parents, and in 1407 the Karma pa arrived at the Ming court in Nanjing. Both Chinese and Tibetan sources attest to the Kar ma pas participation in ceremonies for the sake of Taizus recently deceased parents while in Nanjing, as well as to the great miraculous occurrences that took place during his visit; the mystical powers of the hierarch, writes Sperling, made a deep impression at the court.69 But religious pursuits took place alongside political ones during De bzhin Shegs pas visit, for the Yongle emperor was deeply interested in cultivating some sort of alliance with the Karma-pa along the lines of that established between the Yan rulers and the Sa-skyapa.70 Though the emperor was rebuffed by the Karma-pa, who apparently wanted no part of any type of subjugation to the Ming, his efforts to nurture ties with Tibetan power holders did not end with the Kar ma pas departure in 1408.
69

Sperling, The 5th Karma-pa, 283. Sperling, The 5th Karma-pa, 284.

70

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In the years directly following the printing of the Yongle Kanjur, the emperor invited numerous Tibetan lamas to his court, among them the eminent monk Kun dga bkra shis, who arrived in 1413 and spent roughly one year there.71 As Jonathan Silk has demonstrated on the basis of Chinese historical sources, Kun dga bkra shis was almost certainly presented with a newly printed copy of the Yongle Kanjur, before his return to Tibet in early 1414.72 In the following year Sha kya ye shes, Tsong kha pas aforementioned disciple and stand-in, traveled to the Ming court in the stead of the great reformer. Like Kun dga bkra shis, Sha kya ye shes was given upon his departure imprints of the entire Yongle Kanjur, which he brought back to Tibet with him in 1416.73 What is perhaps most illuminating as to the nature of the Yongle Kanjur is the way in which it was printed. Imprints were rarely struck from the Kanjur blockswe know of only three instances of the collections printing, though there may have been more. The Ming Wanli emperor, in his edict concerning the reprinting of the canon, attested to the sparing manner with which it was produced, saying [the Yongle Kanjurs] production and dissemination never became widespread.74 Clearly, printing was not employed as a technology of convenience in the production of the Yongle emperors canon. The stinginess with which the Yongle Kanjur was produced lays bare the projects Chinese imperial ancestry in the lineage of grand text petrifaction projects dating back to the Han. As with the Kaibao Zang edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon,
71

Silk, Notes on the History, 167. Ibid., 167-8. Ibid., 168. Quoted in Ibid., 170; English translation mine.

72

73

74

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the production of imprints from the Yongle blocks was of marginal importance, for it was the blocks themselvesbearers of the petrified, normative, permanent textual standard that bore the real power of the project. The signs of text petrifaction come into even starker relief on consideration of the Yongle Kanjurs distribution. Of the three imprints that are known to have been made from the Yongle blocks prior to the Wanli reprint of the early seventeenth century, two of them went to prominent Tibetan lamas on their return to Tibet from ChinaKun dga bkra shis, and Sha kya ye sheswho, in the eyes of the Yongle emperor, were not only great religious teachers but also important political contacts to the Central Tibetan religio-political elite. In the Kanjurs distribution, we are reminded of the diplomatic uses of the Kaibao Zang, which was gifted to dignitaries from foreign Buddhist lands on their departure from China. We might imagine that the impact of the copies of the Yongle Kanjur given to Kun dga bkra shis and Sha kya ye shes were even more profound than the copies of the Kaibao canon given to the kingdoms of Liao and Koryo in the tenth century, for the canon was in the language of the recipient, not the giver. Jonathan Silk surmises that in presenting the monks with copies of his Kanjur the Yongle emperor desired to doubly impress the Tibetanswith the new technology of printing, and with the Chinese respect for the Tibetan canonical traditiona proposal that we can accept but cautions that it is perhaps going too far to suggest that the Chinese emperorwished to shift the locus of religious authority to China from Tibet.75 Even heeding Silks caution, to ignore the highly charged connection between text petrifaction and power in

75

Silk, Notes on the History, 171.

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the instance of the Yongle Kanjur would be remiss. We must suggest the addition of a third motivating factor to Jonathan Silks two: by printing the Kanjur, and by maintaining the blocksthe objects in which the ultimate power of text petrifaction was investedin Beijing, the Yongle emperor desired to establish normative authority over the Tibetan Buddhist canon. This kind of power, as our examination of Chinese canonization and printing has demonstrated, was inextricably tied to ruling in China. The Jang sa tham/Lithang Xylographic Kanjur.76 When the first single-project, xylographic Kanjur was finally commissioned in Tibet, it came in a seemingly unlikely placenot in Lhasa or its environs but in the small southeastern kingdom of Jang sa tham, Kham (current-day Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China).77 The project was commissioned by the local ruler Kar ma Mi pham bSod nams Rab brtan (Ch. Mu Zeng , 1587-1646) some time between the years 1609 and 1623.78 Kar ma Mi pham was
76

The 'Jang sa tham/Lithang Kanjur is so-called because the printing blocks resided in both places over the course of their lives; they were carved in 'Jang sa tham and later moved to Lithang Monastery further north in Kham.

It is surprising how little attention has been devoted to the Jang sa tham/Lithang Kanjur both in English language and Chinese language studies, given the projects honorable position at the junction of canonmaking and printing history within Tibet itself. Studies in English are limited to Jampa Samten Shastri and Jeremy Russell, Notes on the Lithang Edition of the Tibetan bKa-gyur(sic), Tibet Journal 12, no. 3 (1987): 17-40 and Helmut Eimer, The Position of the Jan sat ham/Lithang Edition within the Tradition of the Tibetan Kanjur. Acta Orientalia Academiaie Scientarium Hungaricae XLIII, no. 2-3 (1989): 297-304. I have found no detailed study of the Jang sa tham/Lithang Kanjur in Chinese sources, though general studies of the history of Lijiang and the Mu family that ruled Jang sa tham in the early 17th century and commissioned the Kanjur project have been somewhat helpful. See He Xudong , ed., Lijiang diqu minzu zhi (An ethnological gazetteer of the Lijiang region) (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2001) and Yu Haibo and Yu Jiahua , Mushi tusi yu Lijiang (The Mu Family tusi and Lijiang) (Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2002).
78

77

The exact dates of the Jang sa tham/Lithang Kanjur are not certain. Paul Harrison dates the project between the years 1609 and 1614; see Harrison, A Brief History, 80. Jampa Samten Shastri and Jeremy Russell agree with Harrisons dates; see Shastri and Russell, Notes on the Lithang Edition, 17. He Xudong offers entirely different dates, saying that the project took place from 1614 to 1623. He Xudong, ed. Lijiang diqu, 68-9, 323. He Xudong et al do note that the original suggestion to commission a xylograph edition of the Kanjur came in 1609, but was not acted upon until 1614; perhaps this is the source of the dating discrepancy.

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granted permission to borrow a manuscript copy of the Tshal pa Kanjur which was preserved at 'Phying ba stag rtse to serve as a textual exemplar for his new edition of the canon. The 6th Zhad mar, Gar dbang Chos kyi dbang, was invited to administer the scholarly work of editing the canon by the king of 'Jang, but it seems that he did not take an active role in the toil of collating and correcting until the process was very far along; in other words, he was a celebrity editor.79 We do know that the Zhad mar was there to consecrate one set of newly carved blocks of the 'Jang sa tham Kanjur along with the Si tu Rinpoche when they were completed, perhaps as early as 1611.80 The rest of the blocks were consecrated by the Zhad mar later, perhaps in 1614.81 Like so many of the grand canonization and printing projects we have examined in the preceding discussion, both in China and in Tibet, the 'Jang sa tham Kanjur was executed during a time of great political strife. Whether we adhere to Harrison and Shastris dates for the project or follow He Xudongs later chronology, the 'Jang sa tham edition coincides generally with the Central Tibetan civil war of 1603-1621, in which the Dge lugs pas of Lhasa and the Kar ma pas of Gtsang dueled for supremacy in Central Tibetan affairs. Though the civil war was fought hundreds of miles away from the 'Jang sa tham kingdom, the disconnect is not so great as it might seem; the Karma pas of
Shastri and Russell, Notes on the Lithang Edition, 17-18. On the one hand, Shastri and Russell maintain that supervision of the new edition was entrusted to the 6th Zhadmar, but they also note that he did not arrive in 'Jang sa tham until the initial work of carving the blocks was completed, at which point he did edit some of the more troublesome sections. It seems that the participation of the eminent monk was quite limited but nonetheless would have lent a great deal of prestige to the edition.
80 79

That the Zhad mar and Situ pa would have been called upon to consecrate the 'Jang sa tham blocks indicates that the project was backed strongly by the Kar ma Bka rgyud school, of whom the Zhad mar and Si tu lineages represent two thirds of the spiritual leadership (the Kar ma pa, the most important reincarnate lineage in the Kar ma Bka rgyud tradition, completes the trio.) Shastri and Russell, Notes on the Lithang Edition, 18.

81

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Gtsang, after all, were key players in the editing of the 'Jang edition. In fact, the bloody conflict in Central Tibet may have been set off by a perceived snub of the Dalai Lama by the Zhad mar, the great editor of the 'Jang sa tham canon himself. 82 We cannot say for certain whether the Zhad mars sponsorship of the canon was in any way connected to the turf war in Central Tibet at its time, but we may note with interest the persistentand perhaps counterintuitivepattern whereby the most unstable of times give rise to the grandest of printing projects. The New Narthang Xylographic Kanjur. The printing project that has the most in common with Derge is the New Narthang Xylographic Kanjur/Tanjur (NN), executed during the 1730s and 40s at the great gTsang monastery where the compilation of the ON had taken place over four centuries earlier.83 The project was sponsored by Pho lha nas, the newly minted ruler of Tibet who, with the imprimatur of the Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors of the Qing dynasty, along with that of the Panchen and Dalai Lamas, maintained primary power over Tibet from 1729 to 1747.84 Pho lha nas initiated the
82

Ahmad, Zahiruddin. Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century. Roma: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1970.
83

It is important to distinguish between the NN and ON in particular to clarify confusion in early Kanjur scholarship as to whether the ON was a xylograph or manuscript project. It seems that during the early stages of Kanjur studies in the West the two Narthang editions were occasionally conflated, resulting in the fallacious claim that the ON was a xylograph project. See for instance Kenneth Chen, The Tibetan Tripitaka, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 9, no. 2 (June 1946): 53-4. Tucci helped to clarify the issue; see Giuseppe Tucci, Tibetan Notes, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12, no. (1949): 477.

Scholars have not always agreed on who served as main sponsor of the NN. Kenneth Chen asserts that the Seventh Dalai Lama himself commissioned the xylograph project; see Chen, The Tibetan Tripitaka, 56. Tucci says that the NN was made under the Seventh Dalai Lama, but by the regent Pho lha nas; Tucci, Tibetan Notes, 479 . Petech, on the other hand, implies that the project was conceived of and funded by Pho lha nas himself (although he does mention that the Dalai Lama was presented with a printed copy of the Tanjur in 1742); Luciano Petech, China and Tibet in the Early XVIIIth Century: History of the Establishment of Chinese Protectorate in Tibet (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), 160-1. As the Dalai Lama was in exile from Lhasa during this period, it seems unlikely that he participated directly in commissioning the New Narthang Kanjur, though the scripture project may have been invested with the Dalais imprimatur from long-distance. It is also likely that the Panchen Lama played some role in the Kanjur project. It was

84

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Kanjur project some time in the eighth month of 1730, and the first imprints were struck during the first month of 1732; the Tanjur blocks were carved almost a decade later, during the years 1741-2.85 The first notable point of commonality between the Derge canon and the NN is their virtual simultaneity. Both Kanjur projects were initiated in the same year and took roughly the same amount of time to complete. Then, after nearly identical hiatuses of roughly a decade, Tanjur projects were initiated at both printeries, occupying similar time spans. Great geographical distance separated the two projects, but we should not assume that they existed in isolation from one another. I will not be the first to suggest some element of competition may have fueled these strikingly similar timelines; as David Jackson has written, These activities may also reflect in part how the patrons and lamas in Derge were then asserting themselves as a center of religious culture independent of the great courts of Lhasa and Tashilhunpo. It is probably no coincidence that that these projects overseen by both Si-tu [editor of the Derge Kanjur] and Zhu-chen [editor of the Derge Tanjur] just slightly preceded or followed the parallel ones at the great gTsang printery of Narthang, both in the field of canonical printing and iconographical models. Some degree of regional and religious rivalry was no doubt at work, especially among the great patrons.86

during the early period of the Dalai Lamas exile from Lhasa that Pho lha nas began to cultivate the Panchen Lama as an ally, investing him with secular powers in Gtsang to match his spiritual ones. Furthermore, the Narthang Monastery lay close to the Panchens home monastery of Tashilhunpo. That the Panchen was somehow intimately involved with the project is suggested by Petech, but not explicated: In the middle of 1733 [the complete set of New Narthang Kanjur blocks] was presented to the Panchen for his blessing, and was then deposited in the temple of Narthang, where it remains to this day; Petech, China and Tibet, 161. Shakabpa also points out that it was the Panchen, not the Dalai Lama, who blessed the Narthang blocks upon their deposit at Narthang Monastery; Shakabpa, A Political History, 144-5. In any case, it seems that the projects main sponsor and architect was Pho lha nas, new ruler of Central Tibet, with the Dalai and Panchen Lamas acting in more indirect roles.
85

Tucci, Tibetan Notes, 479-80.

86

David P. Jackson, A History of Tibetan Painting: The Great Tibetan Painters and Their Traditions (Wien: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996), 312.

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While the likelihood that Tenpa Tserings and Pho lha nass great canonization projects were fueled at least in some part by struggles for prestige remains at this point unknowable, the circumstances of both patrons rule at the time certainly supports Jacksons suggestion, for both were engaged in larger struggles for political legitimacy. Pho lha nass position in Central Tibet in the early 1730s was marked by the uncertainty of a new administration attempting to establish its authority. Though the ruler was backed by the Qing court, he had come to establish power over Lhasa by force, and so was eager to extend the scope of his rule beyond the sword into the all-important realm of religious affairs. Luciano Petech describes how Pho lha nas embarked on a comprehensive campaign to win over the support of the monastic hierarchy by granting vast land holdings to the Dge lugs pa institutions of Sera and Drepung, paying state visits to the Panchen Lama at his home monastery of Tashilhunpo, and offering lavish festivals for the religious community. 87 Pho lha nass sponsorship of the Narthang xylographic canon may be seen, at least in part, as belonging to this larger project of blandishment. It is notable that the NN was initiated just a year and a half after Pho lha nass reconquest of Lhasa, as the very dust of war was still settling in Central Tibet. Indeed, the other projects being undertaken at the timethe repression of robber bands, disarming of the countryside, and ongoing pacification of hostile Mongol groupsappear on their face to ring with greater urgency than a canonical printing project. That Pho lha nas made the NN such a clear priority of his new administration, devoting significant natural and human resources to the effort, speaks to the importance of such projects, especially to

87

Petech, China and Tibet, 158-162.

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new rulers eager to outfit their polities with the trappings of strength and permanence. It also speaks to the persistence of the pattern identified earlier in discussion of the Chinese example, whereby unstable times produce publishing projects on a grand scale. In these ways, the New Narthang Kanjur echoes the peculiarities of text petrifaction seen in the Chinese example. One final point of commonality between the Derge canon and the NN that must be mentioned is the looming Qing dynasty, which had an established presence in both patrons consciousnesses at the time of their xylographic projects. Pho lha nass involvement in Tibetan governmental affairs owed much to Qing dynasty, for he was one of the four ministers chosen by the Manchus to serve on a collective governing body when the Qing instituted governmental reforms in Tibet in 1721. In 1727, Pho lha nass ministerial colleague and ally Khan chen nas was assassinated, forcing Pho lha nas to flee to Western Tibet, where he rallied his army to retake Lhasa. When he did recapture Lhasa and place it under his rule in 1728, it was again the Qing government that supported him, collaborating to put on trial and execute the ministers responsible for Khan chen nass assassination. Their support came not only in the form of administrative aid, but also with a substantial military force that arrived in Lhasa two months after Pho lha nas had established his rule.88 It is clear that Pho lha nas had much ongoing contact with the Qing, mostly by way of two Qing officials (ambans) stationed in Lhasa in the wake of the coup of 1727.89 While the role of the ambans gradually dissipated over the

Melvyn Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 15-16.
89

88

Goldstein, The Snow Lion, 16.

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course of Pho lha nass reign as he gained the confidence of the Qing dynasty, they nonetheless remained a presence in Lhasa and a point of contact for the minister-cumruler. As we will see in the case of Derge, the long shadow of the Qing dynasty fell on that kingdom somewhat less directly, but unmistakably nonetheless. Such circumstantial evidence does not, of course, establish with certainty that Chinese influence played any role in Pho lha nass decision to create printed editions of the Kanjur and Tanjur. Nevertheless, given the persistent pattern that is emerging from the proceeding discussionthat of Chinese contacts in and around the home institutions of many of Tibets great canonization and printing projects, the NN includedpositing the possibility of Chinese influence seems not only reasonable, but necessary. Co ne Xylographic Kanjur (and Tanjur?) One last edition of the Tibetan Buddhist canon must be mentioned before we move on to a more detailed exploration of Derge and its Kanjur/Tanjur project. The Co ne edition, though historically somewhat obscure, seems to share many of the characteristics of the Derge project, from its location within the liminal space between China, Tibet, and Mongolia to its date and even its connection to the Qing dynasty. The project was roughly contemporaneous with Derge though its exact dating is a matter of some dispute.90 The small kingdom that gave rise to the Co ne
90

Paul Harrison provides the earliest date of 1721-1731; see Harrison, A Brief History, 82. Harrisons dates are corroborated by Qi Dianchen , ed, Zhuoni Xian zhi (Zhuoni [Co ne] County gazetteer) (Lanzhou: Gansu minzu chubanshe, 1994), 747. Peter Skilling, on the other hand, dates the completion of the Co ne blocks at 1772; see Skilling, A Brief Guide to the Golden Tanjur, 146, n. 1. It would not be surprising to learn that Skilling was referring to the date for a later Cone Tanjur project, given the topic of the article and the outstandingly late date he gives for the Kanjur. However, a similar date is recorded in Gyurme Dorje, Tibet Handbook (with Bhutan) (Bath, England: Footprint, 1999), 643. Mibu Taishun stated that the blocks for the Co ne Kanjur were carved between 1733 and 1743, and he bases these dates on the dkar-chag of the Co ne Kanjur itself; Mibu Taishun, A Comparative List of the Bkah-hgyur Division in the Co-ne, Peking, Sde-dge and Snar-than Editions, with an Introduction to the Bkah-hgyur Division of the Co-ne Edition. Taisho Daigaku Kenkyukiyo no. 44 (1959): 1. Mibus article provides perhaps the most plausible dates. Unfortunately, Mibus study is also riddled with mistakes of chronology and factual inaccuracies (e.g. naming 1723 the second year of the Qianlong era when it is actually the

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Kanjur was located in Amdo, near the current borders of Qinghai and Gansu Provinces. The monastery in which the blocks were housed, a Dge lugs institution known as Co ne Gon chen Ga lden She drub gling, experienced a great period of expansion in the years leading up to the Co ne Kanjurs commission, perhaps under the auspices of direct Qing patronage.91 The abbot of the Cone Monastery, Awang Chile Jiacuo (1688-1738) traveled to the Qing court in 1713 where he was granted the title of national preceptor (guoshi ) and given a gold seal by the Kangxi emperor.92 It was Awang Chile Jiacuo who oversaw the Cone Kanjur and Tanjur project some years after his visit to Beijing.93 Ultimately, the exact nature of Qing involvement in the Cone xylographic canon project is unknown, and awaits further research. That Qing China seems to have been involved in the project on some level is worth noting, for it fits with a general pattern we have already seen in Tshong kha pas printing projects as well as the ON and NN, and one which will continue with our examination of the Derge Kanjur and Tanjur.
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF CANONIZATION AND PRINTING IN TIBET

Two patterns emerge from the preceding examination of the dual histories of printing and canon-making in Tibetan history. The first of these is the coincidence of politically

Yongzheng era, as well referring to the ON as a xylographic edition of the canon.) Given these inaccuracies, it is difficult to take Mibu as the primary guide for Cone chronology.
91

Dorje, Tibet Handbook, 643. Dorje states that a stele with inscriptions in both Chinese and Tibetan commemorating Qing involvement in the monasterys expansion still stands on the monasterys grounds. While I cannot find corroborating evidence for Dorjes claim of Qing patronage, it is clear that the Cone religious hierarchy enjoyed extensive and friendly relations with the Qing during the mid-1740s, as outlined below.

I have been unable to find the Tibetan equivalent for this name, which is rendered by the authors of Zhuoni County Gazetteer, only in Chinese. Ngag dbang and Rgya mtsho are highly likely for the first and last names respectively, but Chile does not have an obvious Tibetan equivalent.
93

92

Qi Dianchen, ed. Zhuoni Xian zhi, 745.

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unstable periods with great printing and canonization projects, a concurrence largely consonant with the Chinese example. While intuition might suggest that the periods of greatest stability and efflorescencewhen natural and human resources were plentiful and could be sparedwould give rise to projects such as the NN, the Li thang/Jang sa tham Kanjur, and Tsong kha pas printing projects of the 15th century, historical fact suggests otherwise. Rather, the most ambitious canonization and printing projects in Tibetan history coincided generally with the earliest stages of power consolidation for the governments that sponsored them. For Tsong kha pa and the emerging Dge lugs pa hierarchy in Central Tibet, this period was the late 1410s, after the establishment of the schools three great monasteries around Lhasa, when the sects strength was just beginning to be felt; for Pho lha nas, it was after his triumphal return to Lhasa in the late 1720s, when he was eager to rebuild a region rent by civil war; for Karma Mipham bSod names Rab brtan, king of Jang sa tham and his great editor the Zhad mar of gTsang, it was the late 1610s, when the Dge lugs pas and Karma pas were fighting a bloody turf battle for the control of Central Tibet. The exact relationship of each of these projects to its political environment of course requires more focused study, but the trend is clear: in Tibet, grand printing and canonization projects carry with them the weight of political legitimacy, and have been used by rulers throughout Tibetan history as part of larger campaigns to establish political power. Paul Harrisons comment that in Tibet the quest for the standardized and authoritative text or collection of texts has been driven by the struggle for prestige, power and hegemony, as much as by more scholarly imperatives seems all the more salient in light of the preceding discussion. 94
94

Harrison, In Search of the Source, 309.

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The second pattern that emerges is one of Chinese influence, not only in the area of xylographic technology, but in the practice of canon-making as well. From the very first grand-scale Kanjur compilation project, the ON, the mark of Chinese canonization practice (as mitigated through the Mongol rulers of the Yuan dynasty) is seen on Tibetan Buddhist canons. What is perhaps more striking, though, than this initial point of influence, is the persistence of Chinese involvement with Tibetan canon-making and canonical printing projects even into the 18th century, when the great Kanjurs and Tanjurs of Derge and Narthang were printed. In Tsong kha pas Guhyasamajamula Tantra, in Karma Mipham bSod names Rab brtan Jang sa tham xylographic Kanjur, in Pho lha nass NN, and even in Awang Chile Jiacuos Co ne canon we see varying degrees of Chinese involvement. Further research is required to determine exactly what role Chinese influence played in each situationwhether it played a direct or merely inspirational role, whether it was a minor or major factor, whether it was germane at all in each case. What is clear is that it should not be overlooked, for its persistence is one of the most noteworthy aspects of Tibetan canonization and printing to emerge from the preceding overview. It is my hope that the close examination of the situation in Derge that follows will provide us with one detailed example of how Chinese influence may have played a role in the later history of Tibetan printing and canonization. One final note must be made about Chinese influence. The Yongle Kanjur of 1410 is a crucially important moment in Tibetan history, for it sits at the junction of xylography and Tibetan canon-making. That the Yongle Kanjur was so intimately connected to the Chinese lineage of text petrifaction projects is critically important, for the Tibetans who came into contact with the projectKun dga bkra shis, Sha kya ye

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shes, Tsong kha pa, and undoubtedly countless other important figuresmust have observed the peculiarities of text petrifaction at work. These peculiaritiesthe deliberate limits on printing, the diplomatic distribution of imprints, and the indissoluble bond between canonical printing and rulingmust all have made an impression on the Tibetans. It is impossible to say with certainty what elements of printing and canonization practice were transmitted to Tibet from China, but we may say without a doubt that the Yongle Kanjur was a crucial point of transmission, and that as the first printed Kanjur may have exercised an enormous amount of influence over later Tibetanproduced canonical printing projects.

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CHAPTER TWO THE TUMULT OF THE HISTORICAL MOMENT As we have seen from the preceding overviews of printing and canon-making both in China and Tibet, the grandest of printing and canonization projects often take place during times of great tumult. The Derge Printing House falls squarely within this pattern, for the period directly preceding its founding was a time of great flux in Tibet generally and in Kham specifically. The years of the late 17th and early 18th century witnessed great shifts in the geopolitical structure that undergirded Eastern Tibetan society, shifts that were touched off by instability in Central Tibet but which had specific and definite consequences for the small kingdoms of Kham and Amdo. The proceeding chapter will be given over to a detailed exploration of the specific circumstances of tumult that set the stage for the establishment of the Derge Printing House, from the turbulence that shook Central Tibet in the late 1600s to the shockwaves it set off in Eastern Tibet and in Derge itself. The primary roots of upheaval in Eastern Tibet in the 17th and 18th centuries lay in the three competing and powerful interests that surrounded the regionimperial China, the Central Tibetan religio-political hierarchy, and Mongol groups to the north. These groups expanded and contracted during this period, creating vacuums of power in spots and filling them in other spots, leaving rulers of small polities such as Derge with difficult decisions of alignment. The dynamism of this period in Kham was fuelled by the push and pull of these three contending external forces and by the response of local leaders to their consequences on the ground. In the pages that follow, I will track the movements of these three interests during the 17th and 18th century, taking heed of which

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group acted as the preeminent external power in Kham at any given time. I will also pay close attention to the ways in which the Derge kings reacted to (and, in some cases, acted in preemption of) the effects of Central Tibetan instability on their own kingdom. Finally, I will turn to an in-depth investigation of Tenpa Tserings establishment of formal ties with the Qing, focusing on a letter from the Derge king to the Sichuan Provincial Government, which was in turn forwarded to the Emperor of China himself. This document, preserved in the Secret Palace Memorials of the Qing dynasty, testifies directly to the tumult of times, and moreover provides us with a concrete example of the ways in which the Derge kings of this period proactively attempted to manage the great powers that loomed over them for the sake of their own self-preservation. Before turning to the discussion that will occupy the bulk of this section, however, I will first introduce very briefly the kingdom at issueDergeand a small segment of its lineage of kings. After introducing these key players, I will move to the disturbances of Central Tibet, which I will then follow eastward to Derge and the time of the printing houses establishment. The picture that will emergethat of an unstable political time in which the rulers of Eastern Tibet were seeking to establish the legitimacy of their ruleis very much consonant with the history of great text petrifaction projects discussed in Chapter One. DERGEA KINGDOM IN THE MARGINS Derge is located at 32 north by 98 east, roughly four hundred kilometers from the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, where the altitude drops precipitously and the topography becomes decidedly Chinese in character. The town of Derge, home to the Derge Printing House, Derge Gonchen Monastery, and the administrative apparatus of

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both the traditional and modern local governments of Derge, is cradled in a deep river valley some three thousand meters above sea level, with steep peaks rising upwards on both sides of the small city. The Ser shul (Ch. Shiqu ) River, which runs directly through the center of town, flows into the upper reaches of the Yangtze River at Gangtok, just fifteen kilometers from the main town; it is this river, known by the Chinese name Jinshajiang this far north, that forms the current border between Sichuan Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Lhasa sits over six hundred and fifty kilometers hard travel to the west, separated from Derge by numerous high mountain passes, while the closest Chinese population center, Chengdu, is about equidistant, also accessible only by a high, treacherous road that leads east. The eighteenth-century Mongolian stronghold of the Kokonor lies roughly the same distancesix hundred kilometersto the north.95 Derges interstitial geographical position was, for much of its history, mirrored by its political, religious, and cultural situation. Culturally and religiously, Derge was tied most closely to institutions to its west, in Central Tibet and beyond. Politically, also, Derge had to take account of the power to its west, since for much of its history it came under the jurisdiction of the Tibetan central government and so was required to pay taxes to Lhasa. At the same time Derge had to keep one eye on imperial China, which at various points took a keen interest in what it thought of as border affairskeeping the regions on Chinas immediate periphery stable as a way of ensuring that chaos beyond
95

Du Yongbin has suggested that Derges geographically isolated and protected position in the Ser shul river valley contributed to the kingdoms development of a unique societal system. See Du Yongbin , Lun Dege tusi de tedian (On the Special Characteristics of the Dege Tusi), Xizang yanjiu 1991, no. 1: 66.

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those buffer zones would not directly affect the empire itself. At times in Derges history, tax jurisdiction in the liminal region of Eastern Tibet shifted from Lhasa to Beijing, at which point the king of Derge would be forced to take greater official heed of the looming dynasty to his east. Finally, and at times most worryingly, there was the loose conglomeration of the Mongol groups situated to the north, which exercised a huge amount of real power on the ground owing to their martial strength and their patronage of Tibetan Buddhism. All three of these interestsMongol, Tibetan, and Chinesewere considerations in the operation of the small Derge kingdoms rule. There was, of course, an advantage to being marginal: by keeping the major external groups that surrounded them content, the Derge kings were able to maintain a significant amount of autonomy throughout their history, even through some particularly awkward periods of transition; it was not until 1908, when the ruthless general Zhao Erfeng of the waning Qing dynasty established direct imperial rule in Derge, that the kingdom finally lost its independence outright to an outside power.96 A brief history of the Derge kings that ruled during the 17th and 18th centuries will illuminate the ways in which the small kingdom maintained its relative independence through key alliances and uncanny prescience.

96

Lauran R. Hartley, A Socio-Historical Study of the Kingdom of Sde-dge (Derge, Kham) in the Late Nineteenth Century: Ris-med Views of Alliance and Authority, (M.A. Thes. Indiana University, 1997), 11.

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The Kings of Derge.97 According to Josef Kolmas, with the thirty-seventh generation begins the golden age of Derge: a period which saw the expansion of the secular power of the ruling house and simultaneously great religious activity.98 The Xikang jiansheng ji (An account of the establishment of Xikang), a Republican period quasi-ethnographic-historical document, attests to the Derge kingdoms rising power in the region during this period, stating that all the tribes and tusi of Xikang [roughly correspondent to Kham and Amdo] took Derge to be the greatest among them.99 A harmonious relationship with a powerful outsider in large part sparked the period of expansiona pattern that predated the golden age and would continue into Tenpa Tserings rule and beyond. 100 During the thirty-seventh generation it was the
The proceeding selective history of the Derge clan is based in large part on the Sde dge rgyal rabs (Royal Annals of Derge) as studied by Josef Kolmas, A Genealogy. The impact of the Derge Printing Houses Kanjur and Tanjur and the scholars that helped to edit its great collections are felt even as we pursue basic knowledge about the history of the Derge clan, for it is the index (dkar-chag) volumes to the Kanjur and Tanjur, written by Si tu Pan chen and Zhu chen respectively, that served as the major sources for the compiler of the Sde dgei rgyal rabs (which formed the basis of Josef Kolmas 1968 study of Derge.) The rgyal rabs and other early sources are scant on firm dates for the early generations of Derges kings. Firm dating for the birth and death dates of the Derge kings begins with the 39th generation in the 16th-17th centuries. The following overview is intended to demonstrate the shifting nature of power in a liminal kingdom such as Derge and the kings uncanny ability to strike advantageous alliances at convenient times.
98 97

Kolmas, A Genealogy, 32.

Quoted in Du Yongbin, Lun Dege tusi de tedian 66; English translation mine. Leonard van der Kuijp notes that Chinese sources invariably refer to the kings (rgyal-po) of Sde-dge by the rather derogatory tusi, and offers a history of the terms early usage in Tibetan sources; see Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, Two Early Sources for the History of the House of Sde-dge, The Journal of the Tibet Society, vol. 8 (1988): 10, n. 1. The use of the term tusi in a document such as the Xikang jiansheng ji evinces the type of cultural narcissism for which the Chinese empire was known throughout its historythe kings of Derge came to exist as a useful entity to the Chinese government when they became tusi, and so they were known in Chinese documents. The exclusive use of the term tusi to describe the kings of Derge is less acceptable in modern Chinese scholarship, where it is nonetheless still to be found in many sources. For example, a special relationship between the Derge royal family and the Sa skya school of Tibetan Buddhism was born during the twenty-third generation of the Derge clan, when the clans leader, Gzhon nu rdo rje, traveled to Sa skya Monastery in Central Tibet to study under the great lama Sa skya Pandita (1182-1251). The second representative of the twenty-fifth generation, Bsod nams rin chen, was for a time the attendant to Phags pa, Sa skya Pan di tas successor, further strengthening the relationship between the Derge lineage and the Sa skya hierarchy in central Tibet. During Bsod nams rin chens time a link was established for the first time between the imperial government of China and the Derge kingdom; Phags pa
100

99

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Khoshote Mongol ruler Gushri Khanpatron of the Fifth Dalai Lama and staunch supporter of the Dge lugs schoolwho looked kindly on the small Khampa kingdom. With Gushri Khans support the Derge royal family annexed large swathes of land in their vicinity, expanding its tax base and consolidating its power in Kham. In the seat of the kingdom, the generations leader Byams pa phun tshogs completed the construction of the Derge Gonchen Monastery, greatly expanding the scope of the existing structure to accommodate an increased monastic population.101 The king of the thirty-ninth generation of the Derge royal family was known as Dbang chen mgon po, but it is his brother Bsod nams phun tshogs, abbot of the Derge Gonchen Monastery, whose accomplishments are chronicled in the rgyal rabss treatment of the era between Byams pa phun tshogs and Tenpa Tsering. 102 Bsod nams phun tshogs is best remembered for his provision of temporary asylum in the Derge Gonchen Monastery to Skal bzang rgya mtsho, the Seventh Dalai Lama, in the dangerous period before he had been recognized as such by the governments of Lhasa and Beijing. It is also likely that Tenpa Tsering played some role in harboring the Dalai Lama, though the
advocated for the Bsod nams rin chen with Khubilai Khan, then ruler of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China, winning the Derge ruler an official title from the khan; see Kolmas, A Genealogy, 23-30. Kolmas, A Genealogy, 33. In addition, Byams pa phun tshogs is remembered in the rgyal rabs for having established a regular line of succession for the abbacy of the monastery, effectively splitting the secular and religious powers of the Derge kingdom, which had been merged in the chief representative of the generation from the time of Bsod nams rin chen up until the 17th century. Under Byams pa phun tshogss succession system, the first born son of a given generation to become a monk would assume the role of abbot of Derge Gonchen, while the first born son of the generation who did not become a monk would assume the secular powers of kingship. While the author of the rgyal rabs remembers the Derge Gonchen succession system as one of Byams pa phun tshogss great accomplishments, it is not clear how long-lasting it was, for the system seems to have been bucked frequently by royal family members after his time. In any event, the close connections between governmental and religious affairs in Derge ensured that though the roles of king and abbot were formally split, spiritual and secular power remained very much entwined.
102 101

Kolmas, A Genealogy, 34-6.

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rgyal rabs doesnt associate him with the act of political derring-do, for he was in his mid-thirties at the time and undoubtedly had already begun to play an active role in the royal familys administration of the polity. Tenpa Tsering (1678-1738), chief representative of the fortieth generation, looms large over the history of the Derge kingdom. The Sde dgei rgyal rabs points to two major accomplishments that solidified Tenpa Tserings reputation as the most eminent of all the rulers of the family of Derge 103: first, the strengthening of Derges political position by way of acquiring new territory and establishing friendly relations with the Qing court; second, the founding of the Derge Printing House.104 Due to the untimely death of his only brother, Tenpa Tsering served concurrently as abbot of Derge Gonchen Monastery and as Derge king from roughly 1714 to his death in 1738, dual roles which allowed him to exercise widespread power over the life of his kingdom.105 Alongside the dual accomplishments attested to in the rgyal rabs, we may add a third: Tenpa Tserings cultivation of an environment of great intellectual and spiritual inquiry within which the greatest scholars, artists, and religious practitioners of the day pursued their callings with the support of the local government. David Jackson has pointed to the vitality of the early 1700s in Derge, calling it a period of great cultural efflorescence that came into

103

Kolmas, A Genealogy, 40.

Kolmas, A Genealogy, 34. The former subject will be treated in detail in this chapter, the latter in the next.
105

104

Josef Kolmas, The Iconography of the Derge Kanjur and Tanjur (New Delhi: Sharada Rani, 1978), 16. It is very difficult to find precise chronology for this period of Derges history, even for the life of such an eminent king as Tenpa Tsering. The Sde-dgei rgyal rbas, according to Josef Kolmas, does not include a beginning date for Tenpa Tserings reign. The above-mentioned source, also by Kolmas, is the only source I have found attesting to the beginning of the rulers reign period.

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being through the patronage of the Derge king bsTan-pa-tshe-ring.106 The Printing House and the culturally vibrant context within which it was produced were mutually reinforcing: the major projects in the literary and visual arts would not have been possible without a talented group of scholars to execute them; likewise, these individuals would not have been drawn toand retained bythe Derge court without the promise of such exciting undertakings. Having introduced Derge and the kings that ruled it during the period leading up to and during the founding of the printing house, I will now turn to an in-depth exploration of the momentous changes that rocked Eastern Tibet during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The story, which begins in Central Tibet, will come full circle, arriving back in the kingdom of Derge in the 1720s. TUMULT IN CENTRAL TIBET The Rise of the Fifth Dalai Lama and Tibetan Control of Kham. The bitter civil war that raged between the Kar ma pas of Gtsang and the Dge lugs pas of Lhasa ended in 1642 when Gushri Khan (who, it will be remembered, was instrumental in helping the Derge king Byams pa phun tshogs expand the Derge kingdoms land holdings in Kham) marched into Lhasa, defeated the Gtsang pas, and established the Fifth Dalai Lama as the most supreme ruler in Tibet.107 One of the Dalai Lamas advisors, Bsod nams chos phel, was appointed regent (sde srid) to oversee the day to day filth of operation of Tibets government, with which the Dalai Lama could not soil his hands.108 Two years later,
106

Jackson, A History, 301. Goldstein, The Snow Lion, 9.

107

John E. Herman, National Integration and Regional Hegemony: The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Qing State Expansion, 1650-1750 (Ph.D. Diss. University of Washington, 1993), 114.

108

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the Ming dynasty finally toppled after nearly three centuries of rule, giving way to the Manchu Qing, who would rule until the fall of dynastic China in 1911. As the new orders were established in both countries, the relationship between them was renegotiated. Tibet was finally stable after decades of unrest,109 and the Qing felt comfortable enough with the leadership of the Dalai Lamas government that they assumed a relaxed posture toward Tibetan affairs, leaving their administration in what they considered capable hands. During this period, the border between Tibet and China was marked at Dar rtse mdo (Ch. Dajianlu ; present-day Kangding ), a boundary that was agreed upon by the major players in the regionManchu Qing, Khoshote Mongol, and Central Tibetan. 110 The Dga ldan Pho brang government of the Dalai Lama had jurisdiction over all areas west of Dar rtse mdo, Derge included, and collected taxes in the region during the mid- to late seventeenth century. In 1677 the Fifth Dalai Lama dispatched two officials to Dar rtse mdo with the task of registering the local population and preparing tax records and with the charge of converting many of the local Karma pa and Bon monasteries to the Dge lugs sect.111 As John Herman has pointed out, the Dalai Lamas move to register, tax, and administer to well-being of the
109

Certainly those of the Kar ma Bka rgyud sect, who represented the losing side of the civil war and as a result underwent vicious persecution during this period, would argue with this characterization. Many Kar ma Bka rgyud monasteries were forcibly converted to the Dge lugs sect during this period. Inasmuch as there was one overweening power in Tibet during this period, however, it can be said that it was a stable time; instead of warring factions, Central Tibetans had one dominant force.
110

Ahmad, Sino-Tibetan Relations, 61; Herman, National Integration, 116.

Herman, National Integration, 116. Shakabpa provides a rosier account, saying The Dalai Lama, realizing the importance of the towns near the Kham border with China, sent representatives to Gyarong, Golog, Tachienlu, Gyalthang, Chating, and Jun, with instructions to reduce heavy taxation, mediate local feuds, establish new monasteries, and to resettle areas that had been abandoned by the people. Similar steps were taken in Central Tibet. Such measures indicate that the Dalai Lama was a great leader both spiritually and politically. Shakabpa, Tibet, 122.

111

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people of Dar rtse mdo, and to all people living west of this border town was not challenged by either the Khoshote Mongols to the north or the Manchu rulers of China to the east.112 In 1677, the most immediately relevant external power in Dergeand in all of Khamwas Lhasa. This was a situation that would fluctuate greatly during the next half century. The Death of the Fifth Dalai Lama and the End of Stability in Central Tibet. The Central Tibetan religio-political hierarchy remained stable and strong until the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama; then the weakness of reincarnation succession started a process of decline.113 The Fifth Dalai Lama died in 1682, but the world outside the Potala Palace was not informed of his death until 1696. For fourteen years the regent Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (served 1679-1703) concealed the great leaders death and served as acting leader of Tibet. In 1697 Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho announced to the public the reincarnation of the Great Fifth in a boy named Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho (1683-1706), who at that time was already fourteen years old. The Sixth Dalai Lama, however, was more interested in worldly pursuitsarchery, poetry, carousingthan in the rigors of monastic life, and by the time he was in his late teen years it was clear that Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho had a major problem on his hands.114 In 1702 Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho traveled to the Tashilhunpo Monastery, seat of the Panchen Lama, and renounced the vows of monkhood that the Panchen had administered to the boy in secret when he was a child. With his monks vows renounced, Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho pursued the life of a
112

Herman, National Integration, 116. Goldstein, The Snow Lion, 10. Shakabpa, Tibet, 129.

113

114

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playboy without abash, traveling the streets of Lhasa at night and indulging in drink and romantic adventures.115 The regents inability to control the libertine Dalai Lama, in whom the most supreme spiritual and secular authority over Tibet were supposed to be vested, began to draw the ire of external forces with interests in the stabilityand purityof Tibet. The Dalai Lama Succession Controversy and Derges Involvement. The Khoshote Mongols, led from Lhasa by Gushri Khans grandson Lajang Khan, were particularly scandalized by the Sixth Dalai Lamas behavior and Sangs rgyas rgya mtshos powerlessness to rein it in. 116 Their anger was bolstered by the fact that Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho had been intriguing with the Zunghar Mongols of Ili, a highly fanatical, pro-Dge lugs Mongol tribe that harbored ambitions of reunifying Mongolia. 117 In 1705, after more than a decade of dissatisfaction with the regents rule, Lajang Khan mustered troops, marched on Lhasa, executed Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, and assumed control of Tibet.118 Lajang Khan, now in charge of the government of Tibet, was in the unfortunate position of having to deal with the Sixth Dalai Lama, who continued to cause trouble by leading the life of a playboy in Lhasa.

115

Shakabpa, Tibet, 129. Goldstein, The Snow Lion, 12.

116

The Zunghar attempt to reunify Mongolia failed when they suffered a major defeat at the hands of Qing forces in 1696. It may be said that there was nothing the Qing empire feared more than a unified Mongolia, which would have transformed a loose conglomeration of groups on their border into a dominant martial power on their doorstep, and so they looked unkindly on any Mongol group with such aspirations. See Goldstein, The Snow Lion, 10-13.
118

117

Herman, National Integration, 119-20.

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Lajang Khans political life became further complicated when the Qing Kangxi emperor took the khans seizure of power as an opportune moment to involve himself directly in the dynamic events in Central Tibet. Kangxi dispatched one of his top officials to Lhasa in 1706 to bestow upon Lajang Khan the title of Religious and Devoted Khan (yifa gongshun han ), offering his imprimatur to Lajang Khans administration.119 It did not take the Kangxi emperor long to prevail upon his new relationship with the Khan. Shortly after investing Lajang with his symbolic title, the Kangxi emperor ordered him to arrest Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho, whom the emperor declared to be a fraud. Lajang Khan sent the young Dalai Lama east toward Beijing, but he never made it past Amdo, where he fell sick and died at the age of twentythree.120 Lajang Khan was now in a new predicament: Having thus eliminated as spurious the Sixth Dalai-Lama, the consequence was that the true incarnation of the preceding Dalai-Lama, the Great Fifth, had still to be found.121 The khans solution came in the form of a twenty-one year old monk of the Lcags po ri medical college in Lhasa; he was presented in 1707 as the true incarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama, installed in the Potala, and given the name Nga dbang ye shes rgya mtsho.122 Adherents of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan and Mongol alike, were not so quick to accept Lajang Khans new Sixth Dalai Lama; in spite of his indiscretions, Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho had been greatly beloved by many Tibetan Buddhists, and they were
119

Petech, China and Tibet, 14-15. Herman, National Integration, 121. Petech, China and Tibet, 17. Ibid., 18.

120

121

122

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unwilling to simply disavow him. In addition to skepticism about his replacement Sixth Dalai Lama, more trouble concerning the Dalai Lamas succession was brewing in Kham. Unbeknownst to Lajang Khan, a boy was born in Li thang (Ch. Litang ), Kham just after Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtshos death who many believed to be his reincarnationin other words, the rightful Seventh Dalai Lama.123 Word of the Li thang boy, Skal bzang rgya mtsho, spread quickly throughout Eastern Tibet and the Kokonor region, and by 1712 many Khoshote and Zunghar Mongols began to openly question the legitimacy of Lajang Khans hand-picked Sixth Dalai Lama.124 The khan, who by now was all too aware of Skal bzang rgya mtsho and the currency he was gaining in Kham and Amdo, sent two envoys to Litang to investigate the increasingly worrying situation. Their intentions were only too apparent, writes Luciano Petech, and before their arrival the father thought it necessary to remove his son out of danger.125 On February 17th, 1714, Skal bzang rgya mtsho was brought to Derge, where he was housed at the Derge Gonchen Monastery under the protection of troops from Derge along with Mongol forces.126 The young Seventh Dalai Lama was granted a temporary asylum in Derge by Bsod nams phun tshogs, abbot of Derge Gonchen and religious representative of the thirty ninth generation of Derge. This episode is
A famous poem written by Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho presaged his rebirth in Li thang, and in the eyes of the seventh Dalai Lamas supporters, bolstered the young boys legitimacy: Lend me your wings, white crane; I go no farther than Litang, and thence return again. See Shakabpa, Tibet, 133.
124 123

Herman, National Integration, 122.

Petech, China and Tibet. 22. Shakabpa provides a slightly different account of the boys flight from Litang, saying that one of Lajang Khans envoys, a Tibetan general, confided in Skal bzang rgya mtshos father that Lajang Khans intentions toward the boy might be nefarious, and suggested that he take his son to a safe place. See Shakabpa, Tibet, 134.
126

125

Petech, China and Tibet, 22.

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particularly interesting, for in it we see yet again the ever-shifting nature of the matrix of powers surrounding Dergeespecially during the early eighteenth century. Just a few decades earlier, under the rule of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the dominant external power exercising influence in Kham had been Lhasa. In 1714, the situation was far more muddled and required a politically savvy leadership to understand and react to it. We also see the Derge kings uncanny ability to align themselves with the right powers at the right times. As with earlier alliances struck with Phags pa and Gushri Khan, the choice to ally themselves with the groups backing Skal bzang rgya mtsho would prove prescient indeed, for the boy was eventually to be enthroned in the Potala as the Seventh Dalai Lama. It is not known how long Skal bzang rgya mtshos entourage stayed in Derge, but after some time the Mongols of the Kokonor decided the boys safety could no longer be protected at Gonchen Monastery, and so brought him to their own stronghold. From there, the Mongols appealed to the Qing to recognize the boy as the true incarnation of the Dalai Lama. The Kangxi emperor, who at this point began to apprehend Skal bzang rgya mtshos importance to the Tibetan Buddhist sphere, was not yet sure whether to recognize the boy but also interested in keeping him in hand, and so in 1715 he placed him under house arrest in Xining, where he could keep a watchful eye over him. 127 Zunghars take Lhasa. Meanwhile, back in Lhasa, Lajang Khans grip on power was weakening and his enemies were growing more inflamed. The Zunghar Mongols, who backed Skal bzang rgya mtsho, were particularly distressed about the state of affairs in

127

Petech, China and Tibet, 22-3.

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Tibet. In 1717, the Zunghars embarked on an effort to rid Central Tibet of the Qingsupported khan and his illegitimate Dalai Lama: They planned to strike first at Xining and rescue the Seventh Dalai Lama from his Manchu captives, and then take him to Lhasa and establish a Zunghar Mongol protectorship over the Holy See in Lhasa. By the end of the year the Zunghars had enjoyed surprising success. They controlled Lhasa and much of Central Tibet, as well as large portions of Western Tibet. Yet the seminal part of their plan proved to be a disaster: they failed to rescue the Seventh Dalai Lama from the Manchus. 128 The Zunghars were their own worst enemytheir undisciplined behavior quickly alienated the local populace of Lhasa. When it became apparent that the Zunghars did not even have the seventh Dalai Lama with them, what little support they had faded completely. 129 By this time, the Kangxi emperor was finally convinced of Skal bzang rgya mtshos legitimacyat least in the eyes of those who matteredand he recognized the boy as the true incarnation of the Dalai Lama.130 Kangxis Forces Invade Lhasa, Defeat Dzungars, Install the Seventh Dalai Lama. In 1720 a large force of Manchu, Mongol, and Chinese under the direction of forces retook Lhasa from the Zunghars and installed Skal bzang rgya mtsho in the Potala as the Seventh Dalai Lama. A provisional government was established under the watch of a Qing administrator. With the Seventh Dalai Lamas ascension, the Bsod nams phun tshogss 1714 provision of refuge to the Seventh Dalai Lama was rewarded: the Derge

128

Herman, National Integration, 124. Petech, China and Tibet, 54.

129

130

Herman, National Integration, 126. The Qing court recognized Skal bzang rgya mtsho as the Sixth Dalai Lamathe true and only incarnation of the Fifth Dalai Lama; both previous Sixth Dalai Lamas were declared to be fraudulent. This declaration carried little weight: adherents to Tibetan Buddhism still consider Tshangs dbyangs rgya mtsho the Sixth Dalai Lama and Skal bzang rgya mtsho to be the Seventh Dalai Lama.

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Gonchen Monastery was generously repaid for its support and protection, and the Derge kingby this time, Tenpa Tseringwas invested with a seal of official recognition and long-term privileges from the Lhasa government.131 Civil War Breaks Out, Pho lha nas Emerges on Top in Lhasa. In 1725 Khan che nas, a Tibetan administrator who had been loyal to Lajang Khan and to the Qing, was murdered in Lhasa by anti-Qing elements. Pho lha nas, the other senior Tibetan administrator in the provisional government, retreated to Western Tibet, gathered forces, and retook Lhasa from the anti-Qing faction in 1728. Backed by the Qing, Pho lha nas assumed the top role in Lhasas government in 1729. Pho lha nas began to solidify his rule over Tibet at this time, first tending to the rebuilding of the country in the wake of civil war. It was at this time that Pho lha nas organized the massive New Narthang xylographic Kanjur project, which was discussed in detail in Chapter One. In the meantime, the Seventh Dalai Lama, who stood accused of having organized the anti-Qing factions, was exiled to Kham and did not return until 1735. 132 A Tumultuous Century in Central Tibet. The century covered in this brief overview was a tumultuous one for Central Tibet, especially the final fifty years from the death of the Great Fifth to Pho lha nass seizure of power in 1728. During these five decades

Kolma, A Genealogy, 36; Lai Zuozhong and Deng Junkang , Dege tusi jiazu de youlai ji qi shehui zhidu jian kuang (A simple explanation of the origins of the Dege Tusi clan and its societal systems), Sichuan wenshi ziliao xuanji 33 (1984): 185; Yang Jiaming , ed., Ganzi zangzu zizhizhou minzu zhi (An ethnological gazetteer of the Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Region) (Beijing: Dangdai zhongguo chubanshe, 1994), 32. Given the close involvement of Qing officials in the administration of Lhasa during the early years of the provisional government, it seems likely that such a symbolic award would have been noticed, or perhaps even partially administered, by Qing administrators.
132

131

Petech, China and Tibet, 175.

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Lhasa was presided over in turn by the Tibetan Dga ldan Pho brang government under the Great Fifth and then the regent Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, a Qing-backed Khoshote administration under Lajang Khan, a zealous Zunghar junta, a provisional government overseen by Qing administrators, anti-Qing forces, and finally by Pho lha nass Qingbacked administration. As Derges embroilment in the Dalai Lama succession controversy demonstrates, Eastern Tibetan kingdoms were at times directly involved in the chaos of Central Tibetan affairs during this period. But the effects of Central Tibetan instability on Eastern Tibet were felt most profoundly in the changes they engendered in the regional balance of power. In 1677, the Dalais Lama government exercised ultimate control over Derge and everything else between Lhasa and Dar rtse mdo; by 1729, the situation in Kham had changed drastically, particularly with regard to the three external powers surrounding the region. This great shift in the political balance of power, initiated as a Qing response to the chaotic events outlined above, will be described in the proceeding section. THE EFFECTS OF CENTRAL TIBETAN INSTABILITY ON KHAM The intrigue and turmoil that followed the Fifth Dalai Lamas stable rule in Tibet were met with uneasiness by the Qing rulers. When the Qing empire approved of the 1677 borders of Eastern Tibet and China, they did so because they believed the Great Fifth Dalai Lama capable of maintaining order in that region. With the disintegration of strong, continuous, central government in Lhasa, the thinking in Beijing changed dramatically. The crucial strategic importance of Kham was underlined anew for the Qing, and Eastern Tibet came once again to be viewed as a buffer region that, if properly administered, would shield China from the instability of Central Tibet and Mongolia. Changes began to

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take place first in Qing thinking, then in Qing actions on the ground in Kham, resulting ultimately in Chinese annexation of most of Kham. The First Steps of Annexation.133 By the time the Zunghars sacked Lhasa in 1717, Eastern Tibetan affairs had been neglected by Lhasa for some time due to the turmoil in Central Tibet itself. Chinese officials in Sichuan believed that there existed a golden opportunity to move in to the power vacuum and become the preeminent force in the region. Postal stations, one of the most foundational infrastructural institutions, provided the local Qing administrators with the pretext they needed to involve themselves in Eastern Tibetan affairs. In 1718 Nian Gengyao , Governor of Sichuan Province, memorialized the throne arguing that, at the very least, the Qing should set up military postal stations between Dar rtse mdo and Li thang to replace the Tibetan postal stations that had been disrupted by the Zunghar invasion of 1717. Without the previously existing post offices, the governor argued, even the most basic communication between China and Tibet would be impossible. Nian sweetened his proposal by pointing out to the emperor that the postal stations, in addition to serving as points of transit for communication, could also be utilized as valuable intelligence-gathering outposts, a necessity for Qing officials who were under intense pressure to provide Beijing with an accurate account of events in Tibet. 134 With the openly anti-Qing Zunghars rampaging around the region, information was at a premium, and Nian believed that Chinese postal stations located in the major cities of Eastern Tibet could help gather it. It was this

133

The following section is based primarily on Herman, National Integration, 124-6. Herman, National Integration, 125.

134

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innocuous proposal, which was accepted by Kangxi and implemented by Nian Gengyao, that began the process of Qing annexation of Kham. It became clear within two years of Nians original memorial concerning postal stations that this modest extension into mDos-Kham was wholly inadequate for the task he envisionednamely the annexation of Eastern Tibet into the territory of Sichuan Province.135 Nian further extended the reach of the Qing apparatus into Kham in 1719 with the dispatch of a small expeditionary force to Ba thang (Ch. Batang ). The force, led by Sichuan Provincial Military Commander Yue Zhongqi , was charged with the task of preparing a safe transportation route across the southern road through Khamfrom Dar rtse mdo to Ba thangtowards Lhasa, which the Qing was preparing to wrest from the hands of the Zunghars. Nian also entrusted to his subordinates the task of cultivating relationships with local rulers, ensuring them significant rewards for their cooperation.136 Derge, though it was located on the northern route through Kham, seems to have been one Khampa kingdom which entered into such an arrangement with the Qing forces. According to Yang Jiaming, in 1719 when Qing forces passed through Derge on their way to Lhasa, the Derge king Bsod nams phun tshogs helped to organize corve laborers to aid in their advance, and assisted in the transport of food supplies in order to show his sincere partnership.137 The editors of the Dege Country Gazeteer go one step further, saying that:
135

Herman, National Integration, 125.

Herman, National Integration, 126. John Herman points out that it is not known whether these rewards were to include the conferral of tusi status. Yang Jiaming, Ganzi Zangzu, 32. It is interesting that both Yang and the editors of the Dege County Gazeteer cite Bsod nams phun tshogs as the Derge king who oversaw this collaboration with Qing forces, since other chronologies suggest that by 1719 Tenpa Tsering was already at the helm of the Derge kingdom,
137

136

71 Bsod nams phun tshogs received amnesty from Sichuan Governor Nian Gengyao for the pledge of his allegiance to the Qing government, and he allocated both men and horses to the Qing army to transport grain and fodder. Later, [this act] was eulogized by the Yongzheng emperor, who wrote, In the past when we sent forth troops into Tibet, the people of Derge138 put forth their efforts; they served the Dalai Lama, and were exceedingly respectful in their allegiance.139 The Derge kingdoms participation in the 1720 Qing move on Lhasa indicates that even during its earliest stages, the Qing annexation of Kham was felt acutely in Derge. Though there is no mention in Chinese sources of the establishment of Chinese postal stations along the northern route, it is clear that Derge was one of the active theaters for Nian Gengyaos machinations in the region, at least as early as 1720. In addition, we may note that the response of the Derge kings to yet another shift in the power balance among its mighty neighbors was again handled with political savvy and uncanny prescience. The ability to sense the shifting political winds and react to them wisely was surely one of the most crucial skills for a leader in a liminal area such as Kham. That the
both as abbot of Derge Gonchen and as king. Kolmas, citing directly a passage from the Sde dgei rgyal rabs, states that Bsod nams phun tshogs died in 1714, meaning that it would have been Tenpa Tsering who collaborated with the Qing troops in 1719; see Kolmas, A Genealogy, 36. Divergences of chronology plague the history of the Derge kingdom, and suggest that precisionat least within the five year-levelis not always possible during this period. In any case, we do know that the 1710s were the final years of Bsod nams phun tshogs life, and that Tenpa Tsering, who by then was already in his mid-thirties would certainly have played some role in the decision. The Yongzheng emperor uses one of the archaic Chinese transliterations for Derge: Deergete . See Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui (The compiling committee of the gazetteer of Dege County, Sichuan Province), Dege Xian zhi (Dege County Gazeteer) (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 1995), 444.
139 138

Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Dege Xian zhi, 444. The emperors eulogy is somewhat unclear, but given the context in which it is used by the authors of the Dege County Gazeteer, I take it to refer to the Derge kingdoms asylum of the Seventh Dalai Lama in 1714 and the allocation of Derge resources to support the Qing conquest of Zunghar-controlled Lhasa. The passage could also be interpreted as meaning that, by supporting the Qing action to retake Lhasa, the Derge people were serving the Dalai Lama. It is not clear when the eulogy was written (within the thirteen year rule of the Yongzheng emperor, 1722-1735); unfortunately, following standard editorial practice for Chinese gazetteers, the editors of the Dege County Gazeteer do not cite the source of the emperors pronouncement. For more on the Derge kingdoms involvement in the 1719-20 Qing conquest of the short-lived Zunghar administration in Lhasa, see the extended discussion below of Tenpa Tserings 1723 correspondence with the Sichuan provincial government.

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Derge kings seem to have exercised this ability so welland for so many centuriesis remarkable indeed. Outright Annexation of Kham under Nian Gengyao.140 After the Qing defeated the Zunghars and drove them from Lhasa, they found their western borders to be in a peaceful state for the first time in decades. Nian Gengyao, along with other Chinese officials, memorialized the throne, recommending to the newly ascended Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1722-1735) that he seize the opportunity to make the peace permanent by annexing Eastern Tibet. Nian recommended a three-faceted approach: first, Chinese postal stations along the southern route between Dar rtse mdo and Ba thang be made permanent; second, a detachment of one hundred soldiers be transferred from their temporary location in northwest Sichuan to a permanent post in a trading town near the Kokonor to keep a close eye on the movements of Mongols groups there; third, tusi status be conferred on as many Khampa rulers as possible, diffusing the base of power among the many small kingdoms of Kham. Nian Gengyao and those of his colleagues along the border who supported the annexation of Kham were dismayed to realize that the Yongzheng emperors inclinations were decidedly less expansionist than his fathers. Nians initial three-point proposal arrived in Beijing at exactly the wrong time, just as the Yongzheng emperor began to pursue a more disengaged policy in the area of Tibetan affairs, not only ordering the dismantling of the Chinese garrison that had been built in Lhasa after the defeat of the Zunghars, but also mandating the retreat of Qing forces from points west of Dar rtse mdo.

140

The following section is based primarily on Herman, National Integration, 135-148.

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But in 1724 word came from the northwest frontier that a group of Khoshote Mongols, unhappy that the Qing had established themselves as the dominant external force in Central Tibetan affairs, was gathering strength in the Kokonor and fomenting an antiQing message among the local population. The leader of the would-be revolt was one Lobjang Danjin, grandson of none other than Gushri Khan (and, as will be discussed below, again the small Derge kingdom was involved in this affair). Yongzheng was again confronted with the political-strategic dynamic that motivated his fathers aggressive expansion into Tibet and mDos-Kham: a politically reliable Tibet and secure, stable northwestern borders.141 The Chinese emperor was required to send in a significant force of troops to suppress Lobjang Danjins revolt, and by 1724 the Khoshote uprising had been entirely quelled. This episode was sufficient to convince Yongzheng that a Qing presence had to be maintained the regions of Amdo and Kham. The Lobjang Danjin revolt persuaded Yongzheng that Kham and Amdo had to be watched carefully by forces on the ground, but it was ultimately events in Central Tibet that would push Yongzheng to annex Eastern Tibet outright. In 1725 when Khan che nas was murdered in Lhasa, Yongzheng moved his forces back into Kham in the hopes of gaining some intelligence on the tumult in Lhasa. Just one year later, in 1726, the Yongzheng government declared a new official political geography in Eastern Tibet, formally amending the 1677 borders agreed to under the Dalai Lama. The new Yongzheng border ran along the upper Yangtze, essentially along the current-day border between Sichuan Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region. 142 Derge fell just to the
141

Herman, National Integration, 144. Ibid., 147-8.

142

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east of the border, and so was newly incorporated, at least on paper, within the jurisdiction of the Qing empire. DIRECT LINKS BETWEEN TENPA TSERING AND THE QING GOVERNMENT Tenpa Tserings 1723 Correspondence. In 1723 Tenpa Tsering penned a letter to Nian Gengyaos most senior colleague in the Sichuan Provincial administration, the Provincial Military Commander Yue Zhongqi. 143 Tenpa Tserings correspondence must have found its way in front of Yue some time just after the Yongzheng emperors ascension to the throne, when it was becoming clear to officials in Sichuan that Yongzheng intended to reverse the expansionist policies of the Kangxi reign. This was a time of great stress for officials along Chinas western border who for the last several years of Kangxis sixty-year reign as emperor had been working toward expanding the scope of Qing powers along the frontier. In this context, Tenpa Tserings letter arrived at just the right time for Yue Zhongqi and his colleagueswhen they were in the midst of trying to dissuade the emperor from removing Qing forces from Kham and Amdo. The ability to point to a tribal head144 in Kham whose correspondence directly supported their position must have been a great boon for Yue and like-minded officials, as evidenced by the fact that Yue took the effort to put the letter before the emperor himself.

Cited in Herman, National Integration, 138. Reproduced in Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Gong zhong dang Yongzheng chao zouzhe (Secret palace memorials of the Yongzheng period), Vol. 1 of 6 (Taibei: Guo li gugong bowuguan, 1977-), 343-4.
144

143

In his explanatory preface to Tenpa Tserings letter, Yue refers to Tenpa Tsering, whose name is rendered in Chinese as Danba Celun , as a tumu , or tribal head. The tumu was a sort of proto-tusi designation in Qing official discourse, referring to a leader along the border who had not (yet) been granted official status by the empire.

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The original correspondence from Tenpa Tsering to Yue Zhongqi was presumably written in Tibetan, for Yue variously refers to Tenpa Tserings letters as fanxin and fanwen , both generic terms for documents written in a foreign language.145 We must assume that it was translated by a Tibetan-speaking functionary within the Sichuan Provincial administration. It is interesting to note that the translator of the letter rendered it into Chinese in a childlike and choppy style, almost as if it had been written originally in Chinese by a non-native speaker. It is unclear whether this tone was due to the translators incapacity for the Tibetanor perhaps Chineselanguage, or a deliberate attempt to cast Tenpa Tsering as a simple tribal head, incapable of elegant speech.146 It is of course remotely possible that the translators rendering of Tenpa Tserings letter in Chinese accurately conveys the character of the Derge kings Tibetan writing, but this is unlikely indeed, given the lofty cultural accomplishments of the Derge kingdomand its kingduring this period. Whatever the translators reason for rendering Tenpa Tserings letter in the fashion that he did, the result is no doubt one the emperor would have been comfortable with: an inelegant plea for protection from a coarse barbarian of the wild frontier.

The term fan is a generic and not altogether un-derogatory term used to canvas large groups of nonChinese peoples, generally to the west of the empire. The terms fanxin and fanwen could be translated as foreign letter and foreign writing respectively. These Tibetan letters are not extant to my knowledge. There is some possibility that the translator of the letter employed by Yue Zhongqi was actually a native Tibetan speaker whose non-native Chinese may account for some of the quirks in this translation, for in addition to the choppy style there are some misused characters, for instance hen (cruel, ruthless) in place of hen (very, extremely). A simple error such as this would never have been made by a native speaker of Chinese. My thanks to Hao Sheng for pointing out this peculiarity to me. This explanation for the translations inelegance nevertheless does not explain the Yongzheng emperors decision to leave the correspondence in such a state when submitting it to the emperor.
146

145

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Tenpa Tserings letter opens:147 I saw that you, great sir, gave me a written letter and a piece of brocade.148 I liked them very much. When you, great sir, were stationed at Batang, I wanted to send forth troops.149 I cannot permit outsiders to ravage my people. You, great sir, moved into Tibet, but I did not send forth [my troops.] Now, the letter you gave me arrives, asking me to put forth efforts [on behalf of the Qing]. If the day arrives when I shall have rendered such distinguished service, I politely request that the Great Emperor invest me with the seal and charter of investiture [of a tusi.] If the emperor calls upon me to put forth efforts [on behalf of the Qing dynasty], I will certainly put forth efforts and handle affairs.150 The first section of Tenpa Tserings letter confirms that he was aware of the 1719 expeditionary force Yue led to Ba thang, though it does not clarify the extent of Derges involvement in the Qing march to Lhasa. Of particular interest is Tenpa Tserings implication that his letter was written in reply to correspondence from Yue Zhongqi asking him to chuli , or put forth (likely military) efforts on behalf of the Qing dynasty. Here we can see evidence of Nian Gengyaos long-term plan to cultivate relationships with local rulers in Kham at work, as it appears that contact between Derge and the Sichuan provincial government was initiated by Yue Zhongqis office. 151 Further, Tenpa Tserings letter indicates that the Sichuan Provincial administration during this

In translating Yues rendering of Tenpa Tserings correspondence, I have tried to preserve the awkwardness of the Chinese. Though certain phrases are elegant, the flow of the letter is very stilted. It is possible that the letter arrived at Tenpa Tserings court wrapped in brocade, or that a separate gift of brocade was included in the package sent by the Sichuan government.
149 148

147

Tenpa Tsering is likely referring here to the 1719/1720 Qing imperial action to wrest control of Lhasa from the hands of the Zunghars. Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Gong zhong dang Yongzheng chao zouzhe, 343; English translation mine.

150

The need for Tibetan-speaking employees within the Sichuan provincial administration makes sense when we consider that Yue Zhongqi and Nian Gengyao must have contacted many local rulers in the same way they contacted Tenpa Tsering during this period.

151

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period seems to have employed some graciousness in their communications with rulers of small Khampa polities, as evidenced by the written letter and brocade mentioned by Tenpa Tsering in his opening remarks. A further point of interest is Tenpa Tserings request for investiture of tusi status. The Derge kings use of the proper imperial nomenclaturereferring to the seal (yinxin ) and charter of investiture (haozhi ) granted by the Chinese empire to a tusi indicates a familiarity with the machinery of the tusi system. 152 This familiarity might have come from residual knowledge from earlier Derge kings who had been considered tusi by the Ming emperors, but it is also possible that Yue Zhongqis initial letter to Tenpa Tsering offered the prospect of tusi status as reward for cooperation. If this was the case, it would shed significant light on the tactics used by Yue and Nian Gengyao to entice local rulers to cooperate with them during the 1719/1720 campaign through Kham to Lhasa. In either case, it seems clear from the excerpt quoted above that even as early 1723 Tenpa Tsering recognized that the Qing dynasty was beginning to assume the preeminent role among the external forces in the region, and their presence was not to be trifled with. Yue Zhongqi included a second letter from Tenpa Tsering in his 1723 memorial to the Yongzheng Emperor, one that he received just a few months after that described

152

The charter of investiture operated like any certificateits function was simply to memorialize the investiture of tusi status in a particular individual and his kingdom. The seal granted to a tusi was more dynamic. The seal was adapted from Chinese bureaucratic practice, in which a red seal mark was taken as the official signature of a particular office or individual. The granting of such a seal to a tusi was part of a larger effort to bring his kingdom within the bureaucratic process. The tusi, in theory, would then be able to issue edicts and orders to other polities and offices with the official backing of the Chinese dynastic government; with the red seal mark declaring the rulers tusi status, his Qing ties would be known to the reader. See John Herman, Empire in the Southwest: Early Qing Reforms to the Native Chieftain System, The Journal of Asian Studies 56, no. 1 (1997): 51.

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above; the second letter was translated in the same unique style as the first. In his second missive to Yue, Tenpa Tsering proffered information concerning the machinations of certain anti-Qing Mongol elements massing in the Kokonor. In order to clarify whispers he was hearing about planned military actions on the part of the Mongols, the Derge king had sent spies to collect intelligence on the uprising in the Kokonor. As John Herman has pointed out, the disturbance documented in Tenpa Tserings letter corresponds to the early stages of the Lobjang Danjin revolt of 1723-4, the anti-Qing Khoshote-Tibetan uprising described above.153 It is not known whether Derge troops participated in the suppression of Lobjang Danjins would-be revolt, but we do know that Tenpa Tserings intelligence arrived in front of Yongzheng in time to be of use, for the emperor, in his interlinear rescript to the memorial, testifies to corroborating intelligence coming in from the Kokonor and warns Yue to be ready to move on the Mongol forces. 154 To Yue Zhongqi, Tenpa Tserings letters must have seemed too good to be true, for they provided him with evidence of the willingness of prominent local Khampa tribal heads to pledge allegiance to the Qing dynasty. In commentary following his translation of Tenpa Tserings letters, Yue proclaims the importance of Derges submission for the stability of Kham affairs: [On the basis of] my investigations of Dege and the entire great Tangut155 tribe, if Dege submits now, then Batang and Litang can altogether be counted among the stable regions.156 Further, the correspondence from
153

Herman, National Integration, 138-40.

Herman, National Integration, 138; Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Gong zhong dang Yongzheng chao zouzhe, 344.
155

154

Chinese: Tanggute . This is an archaic Chinese term used to refer to Tibetans during this period. Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Gong zhong dang Yongzheng chao zouzhe, 344. English translation mine.

156

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Derge also provided real intelligence on important events occurring on the ground in Kham, a commodity that Qing border officials had been desperately seeking for some time, thus proving that tribal heads could provide crucial help in maintaining peace in the border regionstheir primary purpose, as far as the Qing rulers were concerned. For an official seeking to convince the emperor not to disengage from his region along the border, Yue Zhongqi could scarcely have hoped for a more convincing testimonial from the frontier itself. The Yongzheng Emperors rescript to Yue Zhongqis memorial seems to evince genuine respect for Tenpa Tsering and an enthusiasm for incorporating his kingdom into the Qing empire. Yongzheng praised the Derge kings bravery in providing such sensitive information to the Qing government, pointing out to Yue Zhongqi that when Tenpa Tsering sent his letter, he had no guarantee that the Qing would shelter his kingdom: if [his correspondence] had been seized by some other people, you [Yue Zhongqi] would have been powerless to protect him [from the Mongols].157 In a passage that testifies to Yongzhengs sensitive approach border affairs during this period, the emperor went on to address Tenpa Tserings appeal for tusi status in the following fashion: Now Danba Celun sincerely desires to submit to the Qing,158 and he does not lack in [his willingness] to perform assignments for you. If he does receive the charter of investiture and seal from the Heavenly Court and becomes one of the people of our hinterlands, who would dare to trespass and make trouble [in his kingdom]? If criminals do come again [to his kingdom], the Heavenly Army would go forth and rescue him; of this he can be sure. By way of this [example], thoroughly explain to him the advantages and disadvantages [of becoming a tusi], and obtain
157

Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Gong zhong dang Yongzheng chao zouzhe, 344. English translation mine. Literally return to the truth (guicheng ).

158

80 a letter stating whether he would rather or not [become a tusi], then if what you receive from Dege is appropriate, you and Nian Gengyao, after careful analysis and planning, may go forward [with granting tusi status to Dege].159 The modern reader is struck by the emperors delicate tone, which is undoubtedly paternal but nonetheless lacks the authoritarian command one might expect from the emperor in correspondence, private or public. In particular, Yongzhengs instruction that Yue thoroughly explainthe advantages and disadvantages of becoming a tusi to Tenpa Tsering seems anachronistically gentle for imperial correspondence of this period. Given the emperors wholehearted support for granting tusi status to Tenpa Tsering, we must assume that Nian Gengyao and Yue Zhongqi took Yongzhengs demand for careful analysis and planning to heart, for six years were to elapse between Yongzhengs rescript and Derges receipt of the seal and charter, an event that will be discussed below. It is relatively clear what this memorial meant to Yue Zhongqi and to the Yongzheng Emperor. For Yue, it was corroboration for his position on border policy. For Yongzheng, it was a valuable nugget of intelligence from a remote but pesky border region. Discerning the importance of these letters from the Derge perspective is a more tenuous project, for governmental machinations were not recorded on a day-to-day basis as they were in Chinese official memorials during this period. Nonetheless, I will hazard some suggestions as to the letters significance to Derge. Taken in the context of the preceding narrative of Derges history amongst its powerful neighbors, the 1723 correspondence seems to mark a new moment in Derges management of its relationships with its powerful neighbors, capping a century of tumult
159

Guoli gugong bowuyuan, Gong zhong dang Yongzheng chao zouzhe, 344. English translation mine.

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amongst these groups. By 1723 the pendulum of power in Kham, at least in the eyes of Tenpa Tsering, seems to have shifted away from Central Tibetan and Mongol groups and toward Chinathe Qing empire was now the dominant external force that required heeding. 160 To understand this shift, we need only remember that less than a decade before Tenpa Tsering wrote his memorial, the Derge royal family had collaborated with Khoshote Mongols from the Kokonor to harbor the Seventh Dalai Lama in contravention of the stated positions of the governments of Lhasa and Beijing. Just nine years later, Tenpa Tsering was turning to the Qing for protection from marauding Mongols. In a time when Mongol and Central Tibetan influence in Kham were waning, Tenpa Tsering seems to have been one of the first to appreciate these changes, and one of the first to act upon them to ensure the survival of his kingdom. In this rare document from the office of Tenpa Tsering we see the dawn of a new eraone in which the Qings power in the area superseded that of the Mongols and the Central Tibetan administration alike. Tenpa Tsering, it seems, inherited from his ancestors the uncanny prescience to sense shifts in the geopolitical tectonics of his time, for in three years his kingdom was incorporated outright into the Qing empire.

One of the great tragedies of Yue Zhongqis transmission of Tenpa Tserings correspondence to the Yongzheng emperor is that entire sections that were considered less than crucial by the translator were rendered in Chinese simply as dengyu , roughly equivalent to the English etcetera. One section in particular seems as if it would have had significant light to shed on Tenpa Tserings perception of the shifting balance of power in Kham, yet it is truncated with the dreaded dengyu before it truly develops. In the section in question, which directly follows the Derge kings request for tusi status, Tenpa Tsering begins to explain to the emperor that he had until recently been engaged in a relationship with a Mongol ruler in the Kokonor that required him to perform certain tasksnot unlike the tusi relationship he was requesting to enter into with the Qing. It is my sense, based on speculation alone, that Tenpa Tserings description of this Mongol-Derge relationship might have originally been followed by an account of its dissolution, by way of contrasting the rising power of the Qing and the declining power of the Mongols in the region. Sadly, what was omitted will probably never be known.

160

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Investiture of Tusi Status. Tenpa Tsering did not receive tusi status until almost six years after he had requested it from the Yongzheng emperor. In 1728, Tenpa Tsering was given the title Pacification Commissioner of Derge (anfusi ), a title which was changed in 1733 to Tranquilization Commissioner of Derge (xuanweisi ), a promotion of three degrees in rank. Because earlier rulers of Derge had been recognized as tusi by the Ming dynasty government, Tenpa Tsering came to be known as the 12th Derge tusi, and all previous Derge kings between Ming and Qing, none of whom had actually exercised any relationship with the Chinese empire, were retroactively recognized as tusi. It is likely that even after the investiture of tusi status, Tenpa Tsering operated with a great degree of autonomy from the government in Beijing; the tusi system was, after all designed specifically for the purpose of indirect rule. Unfortunately, very few documents exist that could shed light directly on the extent of Qing involvement in the operation of the Derge kingdom in the wake of the kingdoms receipt of the seal and charter of investiture in 1728. John Herman has documented the Qing adaptation of the Ming tusi system during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in his excellent study Empire in the Southwest: Early Qing Reforms to the Native Chieftain System, pointing out that under early Qing reforms, some Chinese border officials established Confucian schools in tusi-ruled areas in an active attempt to transform savage man into civilized man.161 In addition, during the middle part of the seventeenth century, attempts were made to establish strict rules of patrilineal succession among tusi in an effort to control

161

Herman, Empire in the Southwest, 49.

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and monitor the succession of power from generation to generation.162 By the 1720s and the ascension of the Yongzheng Emperor, however, many of these reforms had run their course, and there is no evidence that such intrusive actions were ever taken in Derge. Succession appears to have continued according to the conventions of Derge society, and if Chinese schools were set up in the region, their presence did not leave enough of a lasting impression to have been recorded. What effect, then, did Tenpa Tserings receipt of tusi status from the Qing dynasty actually have on life on the ground in Derge? It is perhaps deceiving to view the 1728 investiture itself as a singular watershed event in Derge history, one which marked the period that followed inseparably from that which came before. I would suggest rather that the period of courtship between the Derge kingdom and the Qing government, beginning to our knowledge with Tenpa Tserings request for tusi status in 1723 and culminating in 1728 with investiture of same, be viewed in the context of the foregoing discussion of the shifting nature of power in the liminal areas between China, Tibet and Mongolia in the 18th century. While life in Derge may or may not have changed significantly from the years before tusi status to the years after, Tenpa Tserings act of requesting this status and its subsequent bestowal by the Qing indicate that by the late 1720s, it was clear that a power shift had taken place yet again in Kham, and China had emerged as the new absentee landlord in the region. These shifts in strength among the external powers operating in Kham may have effected little change on the ground in a kingdom like Derge, but we may suggest that in the cases where that was soDerge

162

Ibid., 53-55.

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includedthis stability was due primarily to the power of those kingdoms rulers to adapt to and manage the shifting seas of power lapping at their shores. A TUMULTUOUS CENTURY Tenpa Tserings receipt of the Qing imperial seal and charter of investiture in 1728 capped a chaotic century in Eastern Tibetan affairs, one in which the power triangle formed by its imposing neighbors shifted repeatedly and rapidly. The intrigue and instability that plagued Lhasas governments in the period following the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama provoked the concern of the Qing dynasty; this concern was heightened by the involvement of anti-Qing Mongol groups in some of these administrations. As might be expected, Qing anxieties about Central Tibetan instability led to direct Chinese action in and around Lhasa, even to Qing involvement in Tibetan government at certain points. Perhaps less intuitive are the great changes Central Tibetan instability indirectly wrought upon Eastern Tibet by way of changing Qing attitudesand accompanying actionstoward the border region. Under the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, the semiindependent kingdoms of Kham had a clear idea of which foreign power held primary sway in their region, for it was the Central Tibetan government that collected their taxes and exerted the significant influence of the Dalai Lama in their regions. The Qing and, where applicable, the Mongols, remained secondary and tertiary concerns. The years following the death of the Great Fifth were something of a free-for-all, and kingdoms in Kham may have felt some sense of expanded freedom from the three powers around them, none of whom displayed overweening power in the region during this period. Governments in Lhasa were established and fell, Mongol groups massed strength and had it taken from them by others, and through it all the Qing showed varying degrees of

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interest and involvement. Certainly there were times when the Mongols power in the region had to be respected as paramount by local rulers; the Seventh Dalai Lama episode in Derge is one such period. During the late years of the Kangxi reign period, however, Qing influence clearly began to expand in Kham, thanks in part to the expansionist bent of the Kangxi Emperor during the twilight of his life. By 1723, when Tenpa Tsering responded to a communication from the Sichuan Provincial Military Commander Yue Zhongqi, China had clearly superseded both Lhasa and Mongolia as the dominant external force in the region. In this sense, Tenpa Tserings communication with Beijing may be viewed as an inverted form of border affairs management, in which a small kingdom on Chinas periphery actively sought to appease the great power with an eye toward its own preservation. These years of tumult and chaos, which required the kings of Derge to negotiate an ever-shifting matrix of external pressures, served as the immediate prelude to the initiation of the Derge Printing House, which was founded just one year after Tenpa Tsering was invested with tusi status by the rulers of Qing China. Clearly, Derge fits firmly into the trend evident in the histories of printing and canon-making discussed in Chapter One, both in the Chinese and Tibetan context, whereby grand canonization and printing projects were often employed by rulers in the very early stages of their establishment of power. The Derge Printing House must be viewed in this light, for it was founded at the dawn of a new era for Derge, when a new power was collecting taxes, running the post stations, operating militarily, and establishing its presence in the region. Taken in this context, the nature of the Derge Printing House begins to take shape, for we can position it within our preceding discussion of canonization, printing, and power in

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China and Tibet; the connections between printing and power in the Derge milieu begin to come to light. In the chapter that follows I will turn to an in-depth examination of the printing house itselfits architecture, its administration, and its seminal canonical collection, the Derge Kanjur. As will become apparent, the printing houses emergence from an age of tumult is not its only connection the long tradition of printing in China and Tibet, for in the operation of the institution and its edition of the Kanjur some of the marks of text petrifaction are evident as well.

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CHAPTER THREE THE DERGE PRINTING HOUSE AND ITS KANJUR It is clear from the discussion in the preceding chapter that the Derge Printing House fits within the most characteristic trend of text petrifaction projects throughout historynamely, it was produced during a time of great tumult. Having discussed in detail the specifics of the tumultuous period that lay the framework for the establishment of the printing house, I will now turn to a discussion of the printing house itself, along with an investigation of its seminal canonical collection, the Derge Kanjur. In so doing, I will highlight specific aspects of the printing house and its Kanjur that bolster Derges connection to the legacy of text petrifaction outlined in Chapter One. I will first discuss the independent architectural structure that was designed to house the blocks and printing operations of the institution. Second, I will outline the system of management instituted by the Derge kings for the administration of their printing house, an arrangement which demonstrates the politically charged nature of the institution. I will also introduce the Derge Kanjur, paying particularly close attention to the ways in which it was printed and distributed. Finally, I will offer some comments about the notion of direct Chinese imperial involvement in the Derge Printing House. ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF THE PRINTING HOUSE Legend has it that the site of the printing house was chosen not by Tenpa Tsering, his royal family, nor by any of Derges great intellectual luminaries, but rather by a weary yak who simply wanted to rest. The story goes that some time during the early years of Tenpa Tserings reign period a peasant named Laweng (Tib. Ngag dbang?) prepared a set of scripture printing blocks as an offering to the Derge king. He packed

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his yak down with the precious cargo and traveled from his home to the seat of the Derge kingdom. As they were approaching the residence of the king, the yak suddenly became startled, and in her fright she shook from her back the printing blocks, which fell in disarray to the ground on a small hillock some thirty meters south of the kings residence. It was this spot, chosen by Lawengs yak, that later came to house the Derge Printing House.163 A second legend also attests to the sacrality of the printing houses location and its identification. This legend states that one evening when Tenpa Tsering went out from his residence he walked down by the hillock that would later become the site of the printing house, and as the king passed by the sacred spot he could hear the sound of children chanting scriptures echoing through the night air. 164 Tenpa Tsering is generally aggrandized as the great patron behind the Derge Printing House (this study does not deviate from that trend), but it is important to note that the building known today as the printing house was not constructed until after Tenpa Tserings death in 1738. The architectural structure originally built by Tenpa Tsering to house the printing apparatus was a more humble building than its grand successor. In 1729, with the initiation of the massive editing project of the Kanjur under the supervision of Si tu Pan chen, Tenpa Tsering commissioned the construction of a repository designed specifically to house the blocks of the sacred canon. Ground was broken on the project following a series of rituals performed by thirteen eminent monks, and before long the small building had been constructed.165 Once the repository was
163

Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Dege Xian zhi, 422. Ibid., 422. Yang, Dege Yinjingyuan, 20.

164

165

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completed, Tenpa Tsering commissioned the construction of a Hall for the Protection of the Dharma, which was built next to the first structure.166 Tenpa Tserings son Phun tshogs bstan pa assumed both his fathers abbacy of Derge Gonchen and the titles of king and tusi in 1740. Over the next few years finishing touches were put on the new structure and by 1756, some twenty-seven years after Tenpa Tsering broke ground on the original building, the Derge Printing House was complete.167 The Derge Printing House as expanded upon by Phun tshogs bstan pa is an imposing structure executed in the common Khampa monastic architectural style. The buildings most observable characteristic from the exterior ground level is its fortress-like appearance, an effect achieved by the buildings complete eschewal of fenestration on all but one side. Even on the one side that does have windows, the front (south-facing) elevation, their presence does not give the building an inviting feel. The walls, made of compacted earth set upon a stone plinth, are as thick as one and a half meters at points, and are painted deep red on the outside.168 The entire building runs roughly fifty meters in length (north to south) and roughly thirty meters in width (east to west). It is over fifteen meters tall, and the roof is accessible. The facilities within the building include the stacks of printing blocks, a library of printed books, paper storage facilities, drying area, an area for washing blocks, workers quarters, and two large halls decorated with

166

Yang, Dege Yinjingyuan, 20. Ibid., 21.

167

168

Wong How Man, Patrick Troch, Jiaming Yang, Pamela Logan, and Ildiko Choy, Buddhist Monasteries of Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Western Sichuan, China (Los Angeles: China Exploration and Research Society, 1992), 52.

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murals and statuary on the first floor.169 Printing block stacks are spread throughout the second and third floors, while most printing activities take place on the third floor. A special section of the third floor is reserved for picture blocks, generally oversized blocks depicting images of deities or eminent teachers which are printed and sold individually on large sheets of paper. A full circumambulatory path cobbled with large stones rings the entire building. This is a particularly important feature of the structure, for circumambulation is the way most Tibetans interact with the printing house and, by extension, with its sacred contents. Present-day visitors will find large crowds of Tibetans circumambulating the printing house at all times of the day. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE PRINTING HOUSE The administrative structure of the printing house began to take shape under Tenpa Tsering during the 1730s and was formalized under the rule of Phun tshogs bstan pa during the 1740s.170 Even in the printing houses infancy, the Derge kings recognized its importance as an institution, and so they were sure to maintain the ultimate power over its administration and management. The printing houses operation was overseen by a three person executive team, consisting of the Chief Officer (Ch. yuanzhang ), the Director of General Affairs (Ch. zongwu guanjia ) and the Secretary (Ch. mishu ). The responsibilities of the Chief Officer the oversight of the totality of the printing houses affairs, both internal and external. The Chief Officer answered directly
169

Wong et al, Buddhist Monasteries, 49.

Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Dege Xian zhi, 434. The following is based on the account of the printing houses administrative structure as recounted by the editors of the Dege Xian zhi. Regrettably, as the source is in Chinese, terms for the posts of various functionaries within the printing house are rendered only in Chinese without Tibetan translations. The inclusion of Tibetan terms for the positions within the printing houses management structure remains a desideratum.

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to the Derge king, and at established intervals he was required to report to both the king and the committee on the state of affairs in the printing house. The Director of General Affairs had more defined and material responsibilities than the Chief Officerhe was in charge of financial matters, the procurement and use of printing materials, the sale of books, and the compensation and care of workers. The Secretary oversaw the accounting of the printing house, the drafting of contracts with external parties, the pricing of books, and correspondence. 171 An executive team was appointed for a three-year term of office; at the end of the teams term, if their management had been effective, they could reappointed for successive terms. Promising candidates from among the monastic population of Derge Gonchen Monastery for the printing houses executive posts were recommended to the king by the abbot of Gonchen on the basis of literary talent, moral character, and management skills. 172 The abbots recommendations were then put before the highestranking secular political committee in the kingdomthe Council of Ministersfor consideration before being passed along to the king for his final decision.173 The importance of the printing house as a part of Derges socio-political machinery is evinced

171

Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Dege Xian zhi, 435.

172

Ibid., 434. When the powers of Gonchen abbot and Derge king were vested in one person, the authority over the appointing of the printing houses management began and ended with that person.

173

Ibid., 435. The composition of this committee, referred to by the editors of the Dege Xian zhi, is not explicated in the text. The Chinese name of the committee is nieba huiyi , which likely corresponds to a committee of gnyer chen, or great ministers, mentioned in Hartley, A Socio-historical Study, 19. The Chinese transliteration of the Tibetan must have been rendered from the less honorific term gnyer pa, simply minister, which corresponds sufficiently closely to the Chinese nieba to be plausible. The Council of Ministers, as described by Hartley, was the highest secular political body in the kings courtwhich was comprised of the chief or head official from each of the four designated districts: Yidlhung in the east, Sga-rje in the south, Brong-pa in the west, and Ser-shul in the north.

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by the status of its executive administrators within the Derge kingdom. According to the editors of the Dege County Gazeteer, the Chief Officers political stature within the kingdom was on par with that of members of the prestigious Council of Ministers.174 The involvement of the abbot of Gonchen Monastery and the ultimate authority of the king, as well, demonstrates how the printing houses management was wholly integrated into Derges socio-political structure. THE DERGE KANJUR As discussed in the first chapter, xylographic printing was known and practiced in Tibet long before the technology was ever applied to Kanjur and Tanjur collections. Likewise, in Derge, long before the kings ever considered founding (or funding) a dedicated institution solely for the printing of books, texts were being xylographed under the roof of the Derge Gonchen Monastery under the sponsorship of the royal family. Under Sangs rgyas bstan pa, member of the thirty-eighth generation of the royal family and abbot of Derge Gonchen Monastery around the turn of the eighteenth century, a number of works were xylographed. These include the Prajpramit Stra in 8,000 Stanzas, a work that was xylographed in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and archaic Tibetan, 175 complete with illustrations of twelve manifestations of Sakyamuni Buddha and a dkar chag volume. 176 Also printed during this period was a treatise on Tibetan grammar, the colophon of which attests to Sangs rgyas bstan pas sponsorship and to a first printing at Derge Gonchen

174

Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Dege Xian zhi, 435. The language I refer to here as archaic Tibetan is rendered in Chinese as Wuduer wen . Yang, Dege Yinjingyuan, 21.

175

176

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Monastery in 1704.177 The xylograph blocks for this work, along with others carved before the inception of the printing house itself, have been preserved inside the printing house; in total, the blocks for such works number roughly 1,500. Xylographic blocks that predate 1729 can be so identified often on the basis of explicit information in their dkar chag volumes attesting to earlier sponsorship; they can be perhaps more securely identified on the basis of their quality, which does not meet the high standards that were instituted under Tenpa Tserings supervision with the carving of the Kanjur blocks in 1730.178 The fact that printing was taking place in Derge before the founding of the Derge Printing House elucidates the very nature of the printing house in the Tibetan conception: it is a place where the Kanjur (and perhaps also the Tanjur) is printed. An institution that prints books but does not have its own xylograph edition of these canonical texts is simply one among many places where books are printed. This distinction seems to echo the Chinese example of text petrifaction somewhat, wherein authority over canonical texts constituted a very different, and greater, kind of power than the ability to print other, non-canonical books. Likewise, it points to the momentousness of the decision being made by Tenpa Tsering by commissioning an edition of the Kanjurby making the leap into canonical printing, the king of Derge was undertaking a quantitatively different enterprise from what had to that point been taking place in Derge.

177

Yang, Dege Yinjingyuan, 21. The Chinese title for the text in question is Zangwen wenfa . The author is listed as Guoyishi Quezhu . I have been unable to find a corresponding Tibetan author name and title for this work. Ibid., 21.

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With the initiation of the Kanjur project in 1729the very same year that Tenpa Tsering received the tusis seal and charter of investiture from the Yongzheng emperor the Derge Printing House was truly born as such, for it entered the fray of institutions in Tibet (and China) printing the canonical texts of Buddhism in Tibetan. The textcritical work of editing the Derge Kanjur was overseen by Si tu Pan chen, who had at his disposal copies of the Tshal pa Kanjur, the Li thang/ Jang sa tham xylographic Kanjur, and possibly even a copy of the Old Narthang manuscript Kanjur, along with various index volumes.179 Si tu Pan chen took as his general organizing principle the order set forth by the editors of Tshal pa some four centuries earlier, as did the editors of Jang sa tham and even the New Narthang xylographic Kanjur on the other side of Tibet.180 In terms of textual readings, the Derge editors took the Jang sa tham Kanjur as the base text for their own edition, but as Paul Harrison has noted, they also borrowed readings from the lHo rdzong bKa gyur, a descendant of the Them spangs ma, as well as from a bKa gyur produced by A gnyen pa kshi.181 Harrison notes that the approach of Si tu Pan chen and his editorial team represents the ideal of Tibetan editorial practiceby consulting as many examples of Kanjurs and dkar chag volumes as possible, the Derge editors were attempting to ensure that their text was as sound as possible.182 The result
Though Yang Jiaming maintains that the Derge editors had access to a copy of the Old Narthang manuscript, this claim is not to be found in any of the English language sources on Kanjur history available to me, so I present it with circumspection. See Yang, Dege Yinjingyuan, 22. Eimer, Some Results, 17-18. Eimer points out that although the textual readings of specific texts differ between the New Narthang and the Derge editions of the Kanjur, their arrangement within the canon remains generally the same. In Eimers estimation, this is likely due to the fact that the editors of the NN may have employed a dkar chag stemming from the Tshal pa tradition for organizational purposes, while using a manuscript stemming from the ON tradition for the textual readings themselves.
181 180 179

Harrison, A Brief History, 82. Ibid., 82.

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of their labors, from the perspective of modern textcritical studies, is that the Derge Kanjur is a contaminated text, for it incorporates readings from multiple lineages of the Kanjur tradition, making it more difficult to ascertain the ultimate source of its parentage. The compilation that Si tu and his team of editors ultimately arrived at comprises one hundred and three volumes, one hundred and four including Si tus dkar chag.183 In reorganizing the texts found in the Jang sa tham edition of the Kanjur, Si tus editorial team decreased the numbers of volumes from the auspicious one hundred and eight-part arrangement of Jang sa tham. For the task of preparing and carving the blocks a huge effort was required in the areas of human and material resources. Some sixty calligraphers, ten copy-editors, and over four hundred wood-carvers were employed over the course of the projects duration, from 1730 to 1734.184 Under rules established by Tenpa Tsering, a three-step process of copy-editing was instituted to ensure the accuracy of the sheets before they were transferred to woodblocks, thereby reducing the amount of labor wasted from the printing of inaccurate blocks.185 In addition, the Derge king instituted measures to ensure a high level of quality in the carving of blockssome sources claim that he achieved these high standards by mandating that one worker only be allowed to carve on block per day, thereby increasing each workers attention to each block. 186

183

Harrison, A Brief History, 82. Yang, Dege Yinjingyuan, 22. Ibid., 22. Ibid., 32.

184

185

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Initially, the Derge Kanjur was printed quite sparingly, a testament to the great resources required to produce imprints of even one complete set of the collection. We may also see in the practice of limiting imprints an echo of Chinese imperial printing projects, wherein the authority and power vested in both the blocks and the imprints were raised simultaneously by dint of the scarcity of imprints. In the case of Derge, the restricted printing practices did not compromise the widespread publication of the collection, for the first few sets of imprints were strategically distributed to the great lineage holders of Tibet.187 We know that one of the recipients of this extravagant offering was the Thirteenth Kar ma pa, one of Si tu Pan chens young protgs.188 These inaugural sets, known as the First Fruit Printings(par phud), must have instantly raised the profile of the small Derge kingdom Tibet-wide, for the occupants of the monasteries receiving sets of this lavish gift had probably never seen a printed Kanjur before. It is notable that the First Fruit Printings were granted not to the important monasteries of Derge but to lineage holders lying without the sphere of Tenpa Tserings political power. The method of distribution suggests that Tenpa Tsering sought to announce to the entire Tibetan cultural sphere his power, wealth, and patronage of Buddhism, a further indication that the Derge Kanjur bears some trace of the great text petrifaction projects of Chinese history.

187

TBRC website, http://www.tbrc.org/news/#kangyur, 2/13/2005. Ibid.

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QING IMPERIAL INVOLVEMENT WITH THE DERGE PRINTING HOUSE Some scholars have suggested that there was direct collaboration between the Derge Printing House and the Qing dynasty imperial government, a subject I will treat briefly here. I have been unable to find reliable information on direct Qing involvement, so I present the following with circumspection. Obviously, firm evidence of Chinese involvement in the Derge Printing House would provide an extremely compelling episode in the story of Chinese influencedirect and indirecton the canonical printing practices of Tibet, and thus would greatly enhance the current study. Further research into this subject must remain, for now, a desideratum. In her study of the Derge kingdoms ris med movement, Lauran Hartley states that: financial support from the Manchu court assisted in the construction of the Sdedge printery in 1729, and the subsequent printing of the entire Bka-gyur (Kanjur) and Bstan-gyur (Tanjur), as well as the complete works of five Sa-skya teachers.189 Hartleys study is generally quite thorough and accurate in its citations, but in this case the cited work, Prague Collection of Tibetan Prints from Derge by Josef Kolma, does not support the above claim. 190 If in fact direct Qing assistance did aid in the establishment of the Derge Printing House and the printing of its canonical collections, this would be a monumentally important fact that would likely require significant reworking of the present study. For now, this claim remains unsubstantiated and therefore must be countenanced with the utmost skepticism.

189

Hartley, A Socio-historical Study, 10.

See Kolma, Prague Collection of Tibetan Prints from Derge, Bulletin of Tibetology vol. VII, no. 2 (1971): 13-19.

190

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Whether the Qing imperial government supported the founding of the Derge Printing House or not, there is strong suggestion that by the late 18th century they were well aware of the institution, the fame of which was by that time growing rapidly both inside and outside Tibet. The authors of the Dege County Gazetteer maintain that in the penultimate year of his fifty-nine year reign, 1795, the Qianlong emperor of the Qing dynasty commissioned several sets of Kanjurs to be printed and distributed to foreign governments.191 Because the capacity of the Chinese imperial printing apparatus was insufficient to produce the sufficient numbers of Kanjur/Tanjur sets quickly enough to satisfy the Qianlong emperor, additional sets were commissioned from the Derge Printing House by way of the Sichuan Provincial Government. This claim is confirmed by Li Anche, who worked with the same original source material as the editors of the Dege County Gazetteer. 192 These sets of texts were then distributed as official imperial gifts by the Qing court to important monasteries and to various Mongol rulers. As our discussion of Chinese imperial printing and canonization demonstrated, a gift of canonical literature from the imperial government was a highly charged gift that often had diplomatic implications. If indeed the Qianlong emperor did so collaborate with the Derge royal family to produce the 1795 impressions of the Kanjur and Tanjur, then the importance of the Derge Printing House is further underlined: it was one of a range of factors that allowed the Derge kings to raise the profile of their kingdom both inside and outside Tibet, and thus it was one crucial factor in their ability to preserve their kingdoms independence and existence.
191

Sichuan sheng Dege Xian zhi bianzuan weiyuanhui, Dege Xian zhi, 437. Li An-che, Dege: A Study of Tibetan Population, 282.

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CONCLUSIONS THE DERGE PRINTING HOUSE AND TEXT PETRIFACTION The preceding study of the Derge Printing House was inspired by a desire to understand the connections between a great cultural project and the environment that produced it. The observer of Derge is everywhere beset by lauds of Tenpa Tsering and his great accomplishmentshis scripture printing house, his cultivation of a relationship with the Qing dynasty, his expansion of the kingdoms land holdings, his encouragement of intellectual vibrancy within his jurisdictionto the extent that these oft-repeated eulogies begin to take on the character of tropes. Likewise, the reader encounters grand eulogies for the Derge Printing House itselfmost notably Treasure House of Tibetan Culture, an appellation seen often in Chinese literature which serves as the title of this study. Such terms do much to impress upon the reader the importance of the institution, but do little to elucidate the multifariousness of its significance. Surely Tenpa Tserings celebrated accomplishments, some cultural, some political, some military, must be connected in important ways, for they are all crucial pieces of the puzzle of Derge history in the eighteenth century. It is a puzzle that has light to shed not only on one small kingdom, but on the larger history of Tibet, China, Mongolia, and the small polities that lay in the interstices between them. It is my contention that the establishment of a printing house in Derge is an event that must be understood within the context of the dual histories of printing and canonmaking in Asia and Tibet more specifically. In outlining these histories, I have foregrounded the Chinese examples with some apprehension, for I do not mean to imply that Tibetan literary or material culture is generally derivative of Chinese culture. I

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understand well the powerful ways in which such arguments can and have been used to justify Chinas actions in Tibet over the last half century, and I would strongly discourage readers from seeing the foregoing study in such a light. However, in the specific case of the subject at handprinting, canon-making, and powerany study which does not treat the looming shadow of Chinese influence on Tibet would be woefully inadequate. As I argue in Chapter One, Chinese influence upon Tibet in matters of canon-making and even more so in matters of printing seems not only to have been significant, but also to have been persistent throughout time. Chinese technology and ideas in canonization and printing have several plausible points of transmission throughout Tibetan historythe Old Narthang manuscript Kanjur, the Yongle xylographic Kanjur and the early printing projects of Tsong kha pa that it likely inspired, the New Narthang Kanjur and even the Derge Printing House itself. It is for these reasons that I begin with the history of printing and canonization in China. As was discussed in Chapter One, the technology of xylography was born in China, and it was in China that it was first employed it to the end of text petrifaction. Text petrifaction, as a concept, has much light to shed on the nature of printingfrom early Chinese printing right through Derge and perhaps beyondfor it provides us with a tool for understanding the connections between printing and power. The first step toward this understanding is the direct link between xylography and the ancient Chinese practice of stone inscriptions. The stone inscriptions of canonical texts undertaken during Han and Tang were overt monuments of power through which the rulers of these dynasties attempted to establish imperial authorship/authority over the most sacred books of the Chinese moral-philosophical tradition, petrifying as eternally correct their sanctioned

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versions. That the first large-scale, imperial printing projects of Chinese history took as their explicit antecedents these acts of text petrifaction lays bare the nature of woodblock printing at the point of its widespread acceptance in China. Xylography, in the context of its native land, was not adopted officially as a technology of convenience; rather it was first valued as a method of petrifying imperially sponsored editions of important books. I believe that the nature of the Derge Printing House is best understood if we view the institution as an example of text petrifaction in the Eastern Tibetan context. Perhaps the first clue that the Derge Printing House has some connection to the legacy of text petrifaction is the way in which its first canonical collectionthe Kanjur was printed and distributed. Like so many of the imperial printing projects of Chinese history, the Kanjur was printed sparingly and distributed strategically, to important lineage holders throughout Tibet. To be sure, the Derge Kanjur was not a project designed to increase literacy within the Derge kingdom or even within Tibet more generally. Likewise, it seems not to have been a simple machinery for the production of merit on behalf of the Derge kings.193 If the Derge Kanjur was, at its root, designed for either of these functions, we would expect to see profligate printing practices on the part of it administrators. Instead, we see a highly calculated approach, one which seems designed to heighten, not lessen, the value of imprints.194 The First Fruit Printings of the
As discussed in Chapter One, patrons of some Buddhist printing projects over time have used the technology for the convenient and expedient production of merit, for with every imprint struck merit accrues to the patron. Especially in a society making the shift from manuscript to print culture, one can understand the allure of this merit-producing technology to Buddhist patrons. This notion seems to have been especially prevalent in early Chinese Buddhist printing, resulting in plentiful low-quality works. The extremely high quality and spare printing practices of Derge suggest that we look elsewhere for rationale for the printing houses establishment. The administrative structure of the printing house reinforces the notion that the institution was intimately tied to the apparatus of power in Derge, for the ultimate authority over the printing houses operation lay in the hands of the king himself. It also demonstrates that whatever decisions were being
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Derge Kanjur and their method of distribution call to mind projects such as the Kaibao Chinese Buddhist canon and the Yongle Kanjur, in which the very few imprints struck made their way to strategically chosen important institutions both at home and abroad. As suggested in the first chapter, conservative printing practices such as these, which were often hallmark of text petrifaction projects, had the effect of enhancing the power of the printing blocks themselves, for the blocks status as the locus of authority was not undermined by a profusion of imprints. In this way, imperial xylograph blocks retained some of the petrified normative power that had been invested in their stone forebears. The grand manner in which the xylograph blocks of the Derge Printing House were stored testifies to their centrality and importanceeven in the original structure designed by Tenpa Tsering the blocks were situated in an independent structure outfitted with its own Prayer Hall. In the expanded structure built by Tenpa Tserings son, the power of the blocks is even more evident, for the printing house building must have been as imposing as any structure on the grounds of the Derge Gonchen Monastery. It is important to note that no such structure was built in Derge to house the blocks for the small-scale, non-canonical printing projects that took place prior to the commission of the Kanjur. Surely, the sheer space needed to store so many new blocks must have in necessitated the new construction in part, but the very power contained within the blocks themselves must have dictated the type of structure built. Here, another mark of text petrifaction is evident in the Derge Printing House.

made about printing and distribution practices ultimately had to be cleared, if not initiated, by the Derge king.

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Finally, and perhaps most suggestively with regard to its links to text petrifaction, the Derge Printing House was produced during a time of great instability. The most striking observable pattern from the history of text petrifaction that occupied the first chapter was the correspondence of great printing and canonization projects to times of political upheaval. Even accepting the notion that text petrifaction was tied intimately to power, one might suspect that such projects were generally undertaken by rulers who had already established their political legitimacy and engendered widespread stability within their jurisdictions. On the contrary, example after example show the opposite was true. In Confucian East Asia, numerous cases testify to this trend: the heightened urgency of the Tang Stone Classics during the period after the An Lushan rebellion, Feng Daos transmutation of stone inscriptions into xylographic classics during the tumultuous Five Dynasties period, the frenzied effort by the Koryo Kingdom to complete the Tripitaka Koreana ahead of the impending Liao invasion. The trend continues on the Tibetan plateau: Tsong kha pas printing of the Guhyasamajamula Tantra during the early years of the Dge lugs power consolidation in the Lhasa area, the production of the Jang sa tham Kanjur during the Central Tibetan civil war by some of its primary combatants, Pho lha nass sponsorship of the New Narthang xylographic Kanjur even as he was rebuilding the basic infrastructure of Central Tibet.195 The lesson seems to be that text petrifaction was not only inextricably linked to power, but that it was often employed by

It is unfortunate that more is not known about the political circumstances that underlay some of the other great canonization and printing projects of Tibetan history, such as the Old Narthang Kanjur and the Them spangs ma and Tshal pa Kanjurs. Surely, at least for the ON, compelling suggestions may be made about Chinese influence upon the project, but how the project may have been intended to affected the balance of political power locally in Tibet is unknown. An understanding of these projects links to power would greatly enhance the current study.

195

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rulers during the very earliest stages of their establishment of power. Text petrifaction was more than just a way to bolster legitimacy that had already been established, it was one of the primary methods of establishing that legitimacy in the first place. The Derge Printing House fits unmistakably into the aforementioned pattern. The century, and even more to the point the decade, leading up to the establishment of the Derge Printing House was one of significant flux for the Derge kingdomone in which alliances with outside powers shifted repeatedly with very real consequences on the ground. The Derge kings went from paying homage to Lhasa as the dominant external force in Eastern Tibet in 1677 to declaring their loyalty to the Qing in 1723, with interludes of alliance with Kokonor Mongols during the early 18th century. Tenpa Tserings 1723 communications with Yue Zhongqi of the Sichuan Provincial Government, in which the king requested tusi status from Yue and asked to be brought under the official umbrella of the Qing, demonstrates just how much had changed for Derge during the preceding fifty years. Also apparent is the extent to which the mid1720s mark a new era for Derge, one in which a new dominant outsider had emerged in Khampa affairs, one which absolutely had to be heeded with skill and savvy. Tenpa Tsering appears to have done just that, for by 1728 he was invested with tusi status, and formally brought under the mantle (and indirect supervision, and protection) of the Manchu Qing dynasty. The founding of the Derge Printing House, which took place scarcely one year after this major shift in the political life of Derge, must be understood within this context.196
196

It is unfortunate that, to this point, no source has emerged in which Tenpa Tsering himself testifies to the connections between his receipt of tusi status and his commission of the Derge canon and a printing house to hold its woodblocks. Given the detailed nature of the correspondence between the Derge king and the Sichuan government outlined in Chapter Two, the notion that such materials might exist somewhere is not

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In 1729 Tenpa Tsering was, like so many of the rulers who oversaw great text petrifaction projects throughout history, in a position where he must have felt required to establish his legitimacy as a ruler. Albeit, the Derge royal family had ruled over their kingdom uninterrupted for centuries, but the tectonics of power had shifted greatly from the turn of the eighteenth century through the 1720s, and as we know from Tenpa Tserings proactive attempts to establish links with the Qing court, these shifts and their significance were felt acutely and apprehended correctly by the Derge King. The commission of an edition of the Kanjur that would bear Derges name seems to have been one part of Tenpa Tserings comprehensive response to the new political environment he found himself in during the late 1720s. But whom was the king attempting to impress, and vis--vis what group(s) was he attempting to establish political legitimacy? Compelling cases can be made that, as in all matters in Derge during this period, the Big Three of Qing China, Central Tibet, and Mongol groups to the north were foremost among the kings concerns. Perhaps Tenpa Tsering felt compelled to solidify the authority of his rule in the face of looming Mongol violence; if this was the case, the founding of the printing house would seem to echo the example of the Tripitaka Koreana, in which the rulers of Koryo attempted to fend off attack by another Buddhist polity by demonstrating their ability to

entirely outlandish. Being less familiar with the scope of similar Tibetan-language materials, I am unable to gauge the likelihood of such a document surfacing in Tenpa Tserings native language. I would conjecture that, given the scarcity of archived Tibetan documents from this period, however, that the chances of finding such correspondence in Tibetan is less likely than in Chinese. In the absence of such firm evidence testifying to Tenpa Tserings actual intentions, it is impossible to say with certainty what the Derge king intended when he founded the printing house. Nonetheless, on the basis of the history of text petrifaction and its links to power that formed the foundation of the current study, we may put forth some suggestions as to the significance of this act.

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print the sacred words of their shared deities. Or perhaps Central Tibet was the primary concern driving the king to bolster the strength of his kingdom. We may once more echo David Jacksons suggestion that in Tenpa Tserings founding of a printing house there may have been some element of competition with the newly established ruler in Lhasa, Pho lha nas, who himself was engaging in a strikingly similar project of text petrifaction simultaneously. It is possible that the Derge king, sensing an opportune moment during which Lhasas preeminence in the Tibetan cultural sphere seemed to be waning due to protracted instability, was attempting to put forth Eastern Tibet as what David Jackson calls a center of religious culture independent of the great courts of Lhasa and Tashilhunpo.197 Or third, in light of Tenpa Tserings 1723 letter to Yue Zhongqione of the very few documents purporting to be from the hand of the Derge king himselfa very compelling argument could be made that the founding of the printing house was part of a larger program to establish political legitimacy in the eyes of the Qing dynasty. After all, we know for certain that Tenpa Tsering had already gone to great lengths risking his life, in factto prove to the Qing that he was a worthy ally. Perhaps some element of Tenpa Tserings decision was affected by his desire to prove to the Qing that his kingdom was a robust and vibrant polity, capable not only of funding the printing of canonical texts, but also of producing scholars of the first order to edit those texts. Ultimately, as plausible as all these conjectures might be, Tenpa Tserings direct motivations in this instance are unknowable. Most likely, some conglomeration of these concerns was at play for the king in 1729. What we can say with some certainty is that some combination of the specific political pressures of the historical moment in Eastern
197

Jackson, A History, 312.

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Tibet spurred Tenpa Tsering to re-establish the legitimacy of his political authority anew, and that the founding of the Derge Printing House seems to have been a crucial part of this process. The indelible marks of text petrifaction upon the institution and its canonical printing projects suggest this conclusion strongly. Though much remains to be accomplished on this subject, it is my hope that the current study may serve as a stepping stone for myself and for other scholars interested in Derge, printing, and the connections between power and the canonization of literature. Full access to Tibetan sources which I have been unable to utilize due to language limitations, would greatly enhance the value of this study. Likewise, there are surely Chinese sources that have escaped my attention. As Leonard van der Kuijp has suggested, Chinese archives may yet yield troves of information concerning Derges communication with the Chinese governments in Chengdu and Beijing, documents that would of course enrich our understanding of the nature of power in Kham and the shifts it underwent in the eighteenth century. Finally, a more robust knowledge of Mongolian history would surely improve this studys treatment of the regions north of Derge, which is admittedly weak. Nonetheless, it is my hope that the observations I have made in the preceding pages may contribute in small way to the body of scholarship which seeks to elucidate the nature of printed literary canons and their place in the matrix of power that undergirds the societies that produce them.

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