SCOTTISH PROJECTS
Samye Ling Stupa
Holy Island Stupas

THE HERITAGE PROJECT IN TIBET
Mani Wall at Simdzi
Holy Mountain of Drakar
Woodblock Printing at Dege

TIBETAN HERITAGE
Introduction
Medicine
Painting
Crafts
Structures and Settlements
Costume
Language
Printing
Dancing

Woodblock printing at Dege

The most recent visit to this project was in October 2005. Rokpa has sponsored a total of 8000 wood blocks for printing texts from the Kagyu lineage which is severely underrepresented in the printing houses. Of the 8,000 4,000 have been corrected and finished.

The process involves going over each text 6 or seven times and correcting them and after this they are stored in the main building.

The Dege Wood block printing house holds 77 percent of all the wood blocks available in Tibet and was built 276 years ago on the foundations of an older building which was built 800 years ago. The oldest wood blocks are over 1,200 years old. There is a separate workshop where designs and images are printed and of these larger wood blocks the oldest is 890 years old.

There are 24 workers divided into teams of three who work closely together supported by porters who supply them with the wood blocks.

Rokpa has sponsored a total of 16,000 pages of copies of original texts some of which are carved from the only existing copy.

Wood block printing