Dege Sutra Printing House in Kham Tibetan Area

July,28 2016 BY Master Catherine Jigme 0 COMMENTS

Dege Sutra Printing House in Kham Tibetan Area, also called Dege Auspicious and Wisdom-Gathering House, is reputed as the treasury of Tibetan culture, which stores up over 70% Tibetan ancient books. With a history of over 260 years, the printing house is located in the Gonchen Monastery, Derge County of southwest China's Sichuan Province. It is noted for rich Buddhist scripture collection in a variety of Buddhist sects, housing over 200,000 pieces of woodblocks covering Buddhist scriptures, ancient books and painting blocks.

Its full Multi-Auspicious Gate of the Great Dharma Stack-Room of Dege Sutra-Printing House of Tibetan Cultural Treasures, is located in Gengqing Temple in Dege County on the east bank of the Jinshajiang River northwest of the Ganze Tibetan Nationality Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. It is built in the 7th year of Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty by Chokyi Tenpa Tsering (1687-1738), the 12th headman and 6th dharma-raja of Dege.

There are more than 200000 blocks of religious, historical, literature and art, medical, astronomical and calender-arithmetical book edititons in Tibetan, of which the Dege block edition of the Great Scriptures cut in the Qing Dynasty is expectably well-known. The Printing house is the largest of the three big Sutra-printing houses in the Tibetan regiongs of China (Lhasa Sutra-printing House in Tibet, Lhapuleng House in Gansu and Dege Parkhang in Sichuan). It was designated as a major unit of cultural relics under provincial protection in 1980 and as a major unit under state protection in 1996.

Dege, meaning "land of benevolence" in Tibetan, is derived from the "ten benevolences of the 4 orders" of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dege clan and the toponym of Dege both began to appear in the early period of the Yuan Dynasty and the year of 1913 saw the establishment of Dege County. It is the seat of Dege County, and was once the center of the kingdom of Dege, one of the largest and most important of the regional kingdoms in Kham.

Related Tour:

Kham Tibet Tour

About the Author - Master Catherine Jigme

With exceptional passion and outstanding leadership, Mrs. Catherine has dedicated herself to Tibet inbound tourism and China tour for 15 years. As one of the handful females who see great potential of Chinese inbound tourism, Catherine has made great contribution to promoting Tibet tourism and enhancing the employment of Tibetans and prosperity of local Tibetan community.

Over the years, she travelled overseas with Tibet Tourism Bureau many times to promote Tibet tourism. Currently, Catherine works as the marketing director of Tibet Vista, an opinion leader behind the whole team of Tibet Vista.

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