Journey to the West (Sichuan-Tibet Line Chapter) Twenty-Five: Dege Sutra Printing Institute • First Snow

Day34 Derge Bible Publishing House

At 9 a.m., I went to the Dege Bible Printing House in Dege County, which is located in Gengqing Town in the city, which is very convenient.

Known as the “Encyclopedia of Tibetan Culture”, “The Shining Cultural Pearl of the Tibetan Region”, and “The Treasure House under the Snow Mountains”, the Dege Sutra Printing House is known as the “Tibetan Cultural Treasure House, Dege Tashiguomang Dharma Treasure House, Sutra Printing House”. Also known as the "Dege Jixiang Juhui Sutra Printing Institute", it was founded by the 42nd chieftain of Dege Choji Danbazeren. It was first built in the seventh year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty (1729 AD) and has a history of more than 290 years.

Before entering the Bible Printing House, snow started to fall from the sky.

With the blessing of Bai Xue, the Bible Printing House looks particularly beautiful. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to bring a camera inside when visiting, so you can only take photos with your mobile phone.

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Dege Printing House is famous for its rich collection of books, complete categories, and eclecticism of various sects. Although the founder, Danba Tseren, believed in the Red Sect (Ningma Sect), he did not reject the classics of other sects. This made Dege Sutra Printing House unique and superior to several other sutra printing houses. According to the catalog of the Derge Sutra Printing House, its collection of books is second to none among the sutra printing houses in Tibetan areas of my country, including series or series of books on Buddhist classics, astronomy, geography, medicine, history, literature, music, fine arts, crafts and technology, etc. There are more than 200 monographs, including some rare and unique books. For example, the "Origin of Indian Buddhism" collected by the academy has long been lost in India, the birthplace of Buddhism; the book "The Origin of Religion in Han" is also a precious material for studying Buddhism in Han and examining the relationship between Sino and Tibet in history; a 300-year-old book The Sanskrit, Nepali, and Tibetan versions of the "Eight Thousand Psalms of Prajna" are the only ones in the world. In the warehouse of the Bible Publishing House, there are more than 200,000 printing plates stored. Among these printing plates, there are scriptures, historical books, and painting plates, which store 70% of the ancient books in Tibetan culture. They are the Great Wall, epics and miracles of Tibetan culture.

Historically, Dege is an important inheritance place for the "Men" school and the "Gama Gaze" school of traditional Tibetan painting (early called "Gamapa"). In particular, the "Gamagaze" school of painting has been developing rapidly since the 18th century. The formation of a center in Dege and the integration of the "Thangka" art in traditional Tibetan painting into the engravings was a major breakthrough and innovation for the wooden printing plates of the Derge Sutra Printing Institute.

The entire ancient building covers an area of ​​1,632 square meters and has a construction area of ​​5,886 square meters. Sitting north and facing south, it is tall and majestic, simple and solemn. Its style is traditional Tibetan architecture, integrating Derge temples and residential buildings into one, with a strong Dege flavor.

The buildings in the courtyard are divided into a collection library, a paper library, a sutra drying building, a washing platform, a paper cutting room, a Buddhist hall, and a sutra hall.

The Buddha statue is surrounded by exquisite butter flowers‍

The total area of ​​murals is approximately 950 square meters, 95% of which are ancient murals. Among the many murals, except for the "Green Tara" mural in the Sutra Library, which is a work of the early "Men" school, the rest are all works of the "Karma Gaze" school of painting. These works represent the highest artistic achievements and style characteristics of the "Karma Gaze" painting school in Kham. They also make the Printing House one of the places with relatively complete preservation of early murals.

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There are neatly arranged edition racks in the collection library, and the edition racks are filled with book editions in different categories. Each edition has a handle, which is one of the characteristics of "Dege Balkang".

Printing Institute regulations: The Tripitaka must be printed with vermillion ink (cinnabar is ground into fine particles and mixed with glue to form red ink) to show respect, and the rest should be printed with black ink . The paper used for printing books is specially made from the bark of a grass root called "Ajiao Rujiao". This kind of paper has strong toughness and is not eaten by insects, bitten by rats, or damaged after being stored for a long time.

There is a special printing display area in the courtyard for visitors.

Workers are skillfully cooperating with printing

After visiting the Sutra Printing House, walk up the mountain to its main temple, Gengqing Temple. Gengqing Temple is the main temple of the Sakya Sect of Tibetan Buddhism in Kham District, Sichuan. It was originally a temple of the Nyingma sect, but the seventh generation Dege chieftain Laqing Xiangpa Phuntsog converted to the Sakya sect and expanded it, naming it Lunzhuding Temple, commonly known as Gengqing Temple, which means big temple.

The sutra hall is giving lectures

Gengqing Town is even fresher after the snow.

Thank God for opening his eyes and leaving us here on purpose, allowing us to unexpectedly receive such a beautiful Dege!

Day34 Dege Sutra Printing House-Ganzi (180 kilometers, 3.5 hours)-Seda (return halfway)-Luhuo County (200 kilometers, 4 hours)

After seeing the Sutra Printing House, we left Dege at 12 o’clock and headed to Seda. White snow was falling on the road, and the mountains were suddenly dyed white.

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This is the first snowfall this winter in the area, and cattle and sheep are still busy foraging for food in the first snow.

The calf in it is really cute!

The persistent prayer turner in the snow

The prayer stones on the roadside look more colorful

The tall street trees turned into trees full of silver flowers

The blend of autumn colors and winter scenery is really beautiful!

After passing Ganzi, turn onto the S455 provincial highway and drive to Seda. The snow has not stopped all the way, and the surrounding land is white. I thought it would just fall casually for the first time, but I didn’t expect it to fall seriously all day long.

Around 5 pm, just as the mountain was climbing higher and higher and we were enjoying the beautiful snow scenery, a car from the opposite side called us to stop and told us that the road ahead was full of snow and we couldn’t see the road. It is too dangerous to take the mountain road. It is recommended to go back and take a detour to Luhuo before going to Seda. We thought about it and decided to return. Although we brought snow chains with us in the car, while enjoying the scenery is important, safety is even more important!

Walking towards Luhuo County, the surrounding land is even more white, and it feels like it has completely entered winter. Gradually, the sky became a little clearer.

Passing by Lake Casa, it’s so beautiful and like a fairy tale.

There is a Tibetan Village on the hillside to avoid the wind and face the lake view

When we arrived in Luhuo County, the snow became heavy again. I don’t know what the weather will be like tomorrow and whether it will continue to affect our journey. The girl at the front desk of Hall Culture Hotel said that it was snowing all over western Sichuan, and the traffic jam coming from Xinduqiao was terrible. That said, we're pretty good.

Day35 Luhuo County-Seda Checkpoint, 65 kilometers, 1.5 hours

Depart at 9:30 am. It's cloudy today, but it's finally not snowing. There is still snow on the top of the mountain, but it is gone on the roadside.

The colors of the houses here are bright and the windows are spacious.

Continue along National Highway 317 to Seda. Entering the canyon, the snow here has basically not melted. Except for the lack of snow on the road, the mountains are still completely white, and the snow on the trees feels like ice.

On the road, I encountered many herdsmen dragging their families and traveling to other places. There was a heavy snowfall yesterday, and the cattle and sheep had nothing to eat here.

Others are also busy packing their belongings.

A young couple is working together to control a cow, probably preparing it to help out as well.

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Driving through the snowy scenery all the way was a feast for the eyes.

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When there are still 80 kilometers away from Seda, turn from G317 National Highway to G548 National Highway. Immediately there were notifications from the checkpoint: First, Seda County requires Qingdao people to need a nucleic acid test report, no matter how many days they have been away, and the nearest accounting test point needs to return to Luhuo; Second, the Seta Wuming Buddhist College has been no longer open to the public since the epidemic. At this time, I remembered that the navigation did prompt to suspend operation, but I didn’t pay much attention to it (I have since learned that this kind of operational information is actually very accurate in the navigation software).

Well, it seems that I really can’t go to the Seda Wuming Buddhist College that I have been thinking about this time.

If you can't go, then you can't go. I'll come back when I get the chance. And although we didn’t make it, because of Seda we saw the mountain scenery of Western Sichuan under heavy snow, which was worth it!

In addition, this time I also figured out several roads to go to Seda via G317: if you go from east to west, you can transfer to Seda when you reach Luhuo County, which is about 120 kilometers, and you don’t have to climb mountains; if you go from west to east By walking, you can transfer to Sedar when you reach Garze, which is also more than 100 kilometers away, but it is a mountain road and is difficult to walk. If we are unable to walk in snowy conditions like ours, we can also walk nearly 100 kilometers eastward from Ganzi to Luhuo County and then to Seda.

Since we couldn't go to Seda, we turned around on the G317 National Highway and planned to go to Heishui Naizigou along the way. The autumn scenery was a bit out of season when I went there two years ago. I came early this year and wanted to see it again.

Day35 Seda Checkpoint-Markang-Taoping Qiang Village, 170 kilometers, 7.5 hours (there will be a lot of rain this year, landslides, and long road blockage)

At 11 o'clock, we turned around from Seda Checkpoint and returned to National Highway 317. Fortunately, we didn't take many detours today, so we continued forward.

We were in the mountains all the way, and the snow melted away as we went further. We were a little unimpressed after seeing the beautiful scenery.

It was interesting to finally meet a group of wild monkeys, but then we happened to see a traffic police vehicle passing by, and we couldn't stop to take a photo, so we just scanned one.

When I went to Malkang for dinner, I called the Heishui County Tourism Bureau and asked about the current autumn scenery in Miyaro. It will take a week or two to get a reply. I recommend coming back in early November! Well, no need to think about the autumn scenery in Western Sichuan. Like Lhasa, I also considered giving up entering Chengdu on my original itinerary because of the epidemic in Qingdao, so I planned to go straight to Hanzhong to see my mother! But after all, the route is a bit long, so let’s find a spot in the middle to play. Lao Gu dug out his memory and recommended the Taoping Qiang Village in Wenchuan.

We arrived at Taoping Qiang Village along G317 at 6:30 pm. Stay here for one night, visit the village tomorrow morning and then go directly to Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province.