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Focus on manuscripts

LHASA: Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has launched a two-year project to study and preserve a bundle of Buddhist scriptures that were written on leaves more than 1,000 years ago and brought to the region from India. There are some 4,300 "pages" of the rare tree-leaf Buddhist Sanskrit scripture in 426 volumes, said Hu Chunhua, a top official of the autonomous region. The documents were brought to Tibet from India between the 7th and 13th centuries and have remained quite well preserved. The scriptures are inscribed on stripes of leaves of the pattra tree which is native to tropical climates and similar to a palm tree. The tree's leaves, which are easily transportable and durable, were used. A steel pen was used to etch the Sanskrit letters directly on to the leaves.

Xinhua

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