416 klaus sagaster
adherents certainly did not only serve to accumulate religious merit,
but also served those who did not know Tibetan, i.e., above all, the lay
people, by allowing them to have access to the texts in their mother
tongue. Far more economical than the multiplication of manuscripts,
was the block print technique. As a great amount of starting capital
was needed for procuring the printing blocks, the nancial assistance
that the Manchu rulers provided was very welcome.
Very soon Beijing became the most important location for printing
Mongolian texts.^159 Already in 1659, i.e., under emperor Shunzhi the
“S tra of the Golden Light” (Altan Gerel) was printed. Not all texts had
to be newly translated. Often, one could rely on previous translations.
These were, as a rule, revised. This was also the case for the printed edi-
tion of the Mongolian version of the bKa’-’gyur, literally the “Translation
of the Words (of the Buddha)”. Already in 1700, a Tibetan woodcut
of the bKa’-’gyur had been made in Beijing, as the imperial promotion
also included the printing of works in the “church language” Tibetan.
In 1717, Kangxi ordered that the bKa’-’gyur should also be printed in
Mongolian. Thereupon, an editorial committee of thirty- ve Tibetan
and Mongolian scholars was convened. In a surprisingly short time, by
1720, they revised the 113 volumes of the Mongolian bKa’-’gyur of the
time of Ligdan Khan, rearranged them in 108 volumes, and prepared
them for printing.^160 A short time later, the same treatment was given
the second great collection of canonical writings, the bsTan-’gyur, the
translation of doctrinal texts of the Indian “church fathers”. Already in
1724, shortly after the enthronement of the new emperor Yongzheng
(1723–1736), the Tibetan printed edition of the bsTan-’gyur was
completed. In 1741, Yongzheng’s successor Qianlong (1736–1795)
issued the order also to print the bsTan-’gyur in Mongolian. Once again,
a great number of Mongolian and Tibetan scholars were convened
in Beijing. This time one could only partially fall back upon already
existing translations. A greater part of the texts had to be retranslated.
The work on the 226 volumes lasted from 1742 to 1749.
The Beijing edition of the bsTan-’gyur has a remarkable particular-
ity both in its Tibetan and Mongolian versions: it has an appendix
which is extremely unusual. The “canonical” collections bKa’-’gyur
and bsTan-’gyur consist only of translations of works of the Buddha
(^159) About the printing activities of Mongolian texts in Peking, see Heissig 1954.
(^160) Heissig 1954, pp. 39–42, 84–85; Sagaster 1967, p. 25; Kämpfe 1976, p. 192.