Tibetan Calligraphy

Traditionally very difficult to learn, Tibetan calligraphy is usually done with the brush. This unique book guides the reader step-by-step to using a standard calligraphy pen to create beautiful Tibetan-language calligraphy. It includes many prayers, mantras, and common phrases to copy and is perfect for practitioners, artists, and anyone interested in Tibetan culture and language. How to Write Tibetan Calligraphy is an easy-to-use gateway to this unique and beautiful language.

Amdo Tibetan: A Comprehensive Grammar Textbook is a rigorous one-year college-level textbook for English speakers who wish to learn the Amdo dialect of the Tibetan language. This comprehensive introduction to the language provides dialogues at the start of each new lesson to illustrate the constructions covered in that lesson. Material from previous chapters is recycled within these dialogues to reinforce learning as the lessons progress. Each chapter unpacks the opening sample dialogue and provides an in-depth analysis and technical explanations of the specific constructions presented. Cultural sections are also included in each chapter, as well as a range of exercises and drills to reinforce learning and help students internalize the new information. The book will be of particular interest to linguists and students with some knowledge of either standard colloquial or literary Tibetan.

Agnieszka Helman-Ważny's Archaeology of Tibetan Books provides a comprehensive guide to the making of Tibetan books. Concerned with the relation of papers, inks, and layout to questions of provenance and dating, this work is a must-have companion to any textual analysis.

Learn World Calligraphy has something for everyone. Whether you want scholarly insight, artistic inspiration, classroom projects, or a theme for your next party, this comprehensive, unparalleled full-color book will guide you on a virtual trip around the globe. Covering nearly all of the world’s writing systems—from African to Arabic, Chinese to Greek, Hebrew to Russian, and beyond—Learn World Calligraphy offers a unique glimpse of scripts worldwide and the calligraphers who write them. Lushly illustrated with gorgeous examples of both historical and modern calligraphic designs, this book is filled with practical instruction for how key aspects of each exotic script can be applied to the English alphabet, generating calligraphic hybrids with a distinctly foreign flair. Like a new cuisine that you can’t wait to cook at home, the scripts you meet in this book are sure to infuse your own calligraphy with the flavor of abroad. Bon voyage!

The Tibetan written language is steeped in a rich spiritual and historical tradition that has remained unchanged for over a millennia. Over the last few years, it has become increasingly endangered. In an effort to raise awareness about the value and beauty of this ancient and sacred language, artist Tashi Mannox and photographer Robin Kyte-Coles have sourced mantras and quotes from practicing Buddhists, written them in gorgeous Tibetan calligraphy, and consciously paired those timeless bits of wisdom with photos of Buddhas from around the world. A journey through Eastern symbology,Inspirations from Buddha provides a unique selection of visual and written pairings that invite meditation, thought, and spiritual reflection.

This comprehensive, unparalleled volume covers virtually all the world's writing systems, ranging from Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Hebrew, Thai and Indian scripts to the alphabets of our earliest ancestors in Africa and the Americas. The book features Shepherd's exquisite hand-drawn illustrations, gorgeous full-colour examples of both traditional and modern calligraphic designs, plus modern materials and projects. Readers will also learn how the basics of each exotic script can be applied to the English alphabet in order to create readable calligraphy with a foreign flair.

This collection of folktales provides readers with an extensive overview of the breadth of Tibetan culture, revealing the character of the region and its people as well as their traditional customs and values. • Offers more than 30 folktales—some of which have never before been published in English—that introduce readers to Tibetan cultural traditions and represent a full array of different folktale types • Includes nine recipes for Tibetan dishes specifying alternative ingredients that can be substituted for hard-to-find original ingredients • Supplies craft and game instructions that will enliven a grade school classroom and entertain young audiences as they learn about Tibetan culture and folklore • Includes color images that enable readers to better appreciate the richness of Tibetan culture

A rich and imaginative discovery of how ink has shaped culture and why it is here to stay. Ink is so much a part of daily life that we take it for granted, yet its invention was as significant as the wheel. Ink not only recorded culture, it bought political power, divided peoples, and led to murderous rivalries. Ancient letters on a page were revered as divine light, and precious ink recipes were held secret for centuries. And, when it first hit markets not so long ago, the excitement over the disposable ballpoint pen equalled that for a new smartphone--with similar complaints to the manufacturers. Curious about its impact on culture, literature, and the course of history, Ted Bishop sets out to explore the story of ink. From Budapest to Buenos Aires, he traces the lives of the innovators who created the ballpoint pen--revolutionary technology that still requires exact engineering today. Bishop visits a ranch in Utah to meet a master ink-maker who relishes igniting linseed oil to make traditional printers' ink. In China, he learns that ink can be an exquisite object, the subject of poetry, and a means of strengthening (or straining) family bonds. And in the Middle East, he sees the world's oldest Qur'an, stained with the blood of the caliph who was assassinated while reading it. An inquisitive and personal tour around the world, Ink asks us to look more closely at something we see so often that we don't see it at all.

The myth of Shangri-la originates in Tibetan Buddhist beliefs in beyul, or hidden lands, sacred sanctuaries that reveal themselves to devout pilgrims and in times of crisis. The more remote and inaccessible the beyul, the vaster its reputed qualities. Ancient Tibetan prophecies declare that the greatest of all hidden lands lies at the heart of the forbidding Tsangpo Gorge, deep in the Himalayas and veiled by a colossal waterfall. Nineteenth-century accounts of this fabled waterfall inspired a series of ill-fated European expeditions that ended prematurely in 1925 when the intrepid British plant collector Frank Kingdon-Ward penetrated all but a five-mile section of the Tsangpo’s innermost gorge and declared that the falls were no more than a “religious myth” and a “romance of geography.” The heart of the Tsangpo Gorge remained a blank spot on the map of world exploration until world-class climber and Buddhist scholar Ian Baker delved into the legends. Whatever cryptic Tibetan scrolls or past explorers had said about the Tsangpo’s innermost gorge, Baker determined, could be verified only by exploring the uncharted five-mile gap. After several years of encountering sheer cliffs, maelstroms of impassable white water, and dense leech-infested jungles, on the last of a series of extraordinary expeditions, Baker and his National Geographic–sponsored team reached the depths of the Tsangpo Gorge. They made news worldwide by finding there a 108-foot-high waterfall, the legendary grail of Western explorers and Tibetan seekers alike. The Heart of the World is one of the most captivating stories of exploration and discovery in recent memory—an extraordinary journey to one of the wildest and most inaccessible places on earth and a pilgrimage to the heart of the Tibetan Buddhist faith.

Script and writing were among the most important inventions in human history, and until the invention of printing, the handwritten book was the primary medium of literary and cultural transmission. Although the study of manuscripts is already quite advanced for many regions of the world, no unified discipline of ‘manuscript studies’ has yet evolved which is capable of treating handwritten books from East Asia, India and the Islamic world equally alongside the European manuscript tradition. This book, which aims to begin the interdisciplinary dialogue needed to arrive at a truly systematic and comparative approach to manuscript cultures worldwide, brings together papers by leading researchers concerned with material, philological and cultural aspects of different manuscript traditions.

This unique book reveals the existence of an advanced civilization where none was known before, presenting an entirely new perspective on the culture and history of Tibet. In his groundbreaking study of an epic period in Tibet few people even knew existed, John Vincent Bellezza details the discovery of an ancient people on the most desolate reaches of the Tibetan plateau, revolutionizing our ideas about who Tibetans really are. While many associate Tibet with Buddhism, it was also once a land of warriors and chariots, whose burials included megalithic arrays and golden masks. This first Tibetan civilization, known as Zhang Zhung, was a cosmopolitan one with links extending across Eurasia, bringing it in line with many of the major cultural innovations of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. Based on decades of research, The Dawn of Tibet draws on a rich trove of archaeological, textual, and ethnographic materials collected and analyzed by the author. Bellezza describes the vast network of castles, temples, megaliths, necropolises, and rock art established on the highest and now depopulated part of the Tibetan plateau. He relates literary tales of priests and priestesses, horned deities, and the celestial afterlife to the actual archaeological evidence, providing a fascinating perspective on the origins and development of civilization. The story builds to the present by following the colorful culture of the herders of Upper Tibet, an ancient people whose way of life is endangered by modern development. Tracing Bellezza’s epic journeys across lands where few Westerners have ventured, this book provides a compelling window into the most inaccessible reaches of Tibet and a civilization that flourished long before Buddhism took root.

A rich and imaginative discovery of how ink has shaped culture and why it is here to stay Ink is so much a part of daily life that we take it for granted, yet its invention was as significant as the wheel. Ink not only recorded culture, it bought political power, divided peoples, and led to murderous rivalries. Ancient letters on a page were revered as divine light, and precious ink recipes were held secret for centuries. And, when it first hit markets not so long ago, the excitement over the disposable ballpoint pen equalled that for a new smartphone—with similar complaints to the manufacturers. Curious about its impact on culture, literature, and the course of history, Ted Bishop sets out to explore the story of ink. From Budapest to Buenos Aires, he traces the lives of the innovators who created the ballpoint pen—revolutionary technology that still requires exact engineering today. Bishop visits a ranch in Utah to meet a master ink-maker who relishes igniting linseed oil to make traditional printers’ ink. In China, he learns that ink can be an exquisite object, the subject of poetry, and a means of strengthening (or straining) family bonds. And in the Middle East, he sees the world’s oldest Qur’an, stained with the blood of the caliph who was assassinated while reading it. An inquisitive and personal tour around the world, The Social Life of Ink asks us to look more closely at something we see so often that we don’t see it at all.

This work provides a comprehensive overview of education provision and policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) during the half century since China asserted control over the region. Catriona Bass sets her modern history of education in the TAR against the wider context of the political and educational shifts which have taken place in China since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.

Provides comprehensive information on the geography, history, wildlife, governmental structure, economy, diversity, peoples, religion, and culture of Tibet.

Jamgön Kongtrul’s encyclopedic Treasury of Knowledge presents a complete account of the major lines of thought and practice that comprise Tibetan Buddhism. Among the ten books that make up this tour de force, Book Six is by far the longest—concisely summarizing the theoretical fields of knowledge to be studied prior to the cultivation of reflection and discriminative awareness. The first two parts of Book Six, contained in this volume, respectively concern Indo-Tibetan classical learning and Buddhist phenomenology. The former analyzes the traditional subjects of phonology and Sanskrit grammar, logic, fine art, and medicine, along with astrology, poetics, prosody, synonymics, and dramaturgy. The principal non-Buddhist philosophical systems of ancient India are then summarized and contrasted with the hierarchical meditative concentrations and formless absorptions through which the "summit of cyclic existence" can genuinely be attained. Part Two examines the phenomenological structures of Abhidharma—the shared inheritance of all Buddhist traditions—from three distinct perspectives, corresponding to the three successive turnings of the doctrinal wheel.

The state of Tibetan culture within contemporary China is a highly politicized topic on which reliable information is rare. But what is Tibetan culture and how should it be developed or preserved? The Chinese authorities and the Tibetans in exile present conflicting views on almost every aspect of Tibetan cultural life. Ashild Kolas and Monika Thowsen have gathered an astounding array of data to quantify Tibetan cultural activities--involving Tibetan language, literature, visual arts, museums, performing arts, festivals, and religion. Their study is based on fieldwork and interviews conducted in the ethnic Tibetan areas surrounding the Tibetan Autonomous Region--parts of the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, and Qinghai. Aware of the ambiguous nature of information collected in restricted circumstances, they make every effort to present a complete and unbiased picture of Tibetan communities living on China's western frontiers. Kolas and Thowsen investigate the present conditions of Tibetan cultural life and cultural expression, providing a wealth of detailed information on topics such as the number of restored monasteries and nunneries and the number of monks, nuns, and tulkus (reincarnated lamas) affiliated with them; sources of funding for monastic reconstruction and financial support of clerics; types of religious ceremonies being practiced; the content of monastic and secular education; school attendance; educational curriculum and funding; the role of language in Tibetan schools; and Tibetan news and cultural media. On the Margins of Tibet will be of interest to historians and social scientists studying modern China and Tibetan culture, and to the many others concerned about Tibet's place in the world.