120 
E. H. C. Walsh —Tibetan books from Lhasa. 
[No. 2, 
the leaf is numbered and not the page. I have also, to make the des¬ 
cription more complete, given in each case the number of lines of print 
that go to the page in each book, which number is always uniform 
throughout the book. All Tibetan printed books are xylographs and each 
page forms a separate woodblock. In most cases if a book is required 
the intending purchaser goes to the printing press, generally attached 
to a Monastery, where its woodblocks are kept, and has it printed to 
order. Mr. Ekai Kawa Gochi obtained most of his books in this way, 
and he told me that he found it necessary to check the numbering of all 
the leaves very carefully to see that the printer had actually printed 
everyone ; as otherwise it is a very common form of fraud to leave a 
large number of leaves out. 
Some books for which there is a general demand are printed ready 
for sale and can be bought at book-shops other than the actual printing 
press, and wherever this is the case I have noted it in column 3. 
In ordering a book to be printed the purchaser can either purchase 
the paper at the printing press, or, as is very often done he procures his 
paper elsewhere and makes it over to the press and in that case pays 
for the actual printing only for which the ordinary rate is two Tangkas 
( = 12 annas) a day for the printer, without food, or one Tangka ( = 6 
annas) a day, and food. The printer works from about 8. a.m. to about 
4 p.m. and can print about 200 pages a day. The general rate, including 
paper is two Tangkas per fifty pages and an extra half tanka ( = 3 
annas) more for a special order. I have given in each case the price at 
which the book is obtainable in Lhasa. The price is given in “ Tangkas 
the Tibetan standard silver coin, equivalent to six annas (-T.), and I 
have given the equivalent in Indian money. 
From columm 3 it will be seen that 14 of the books were printed 
at the Depung Monastery Press, 8 at the Press attached to the Palace 
at Potala, the Dalai Lama’s residence, 7 at the Chief Printing Press 
and book-shop in Lhasa at Paljor Rabdan, 4 at the Pulunka Monas¬ 
tery, 3 at the Tengeling Monastery, 3 at Meru, 1 at Sera, and 1 at 
Chos-tse-ling, all monasteries in or near Lhasa. 
Of the remainder, 28 are procurable ready printed, at any book-sel¬ 
lers. They are chiefly ( e.g ., Nos 35 to 52) cheap Religious or Devotional 
books, costing a few annas each, and used mostly by the Lamas, but 
also by the Laity. Many of these latter are written in Sanskrit, which 
is printed in the old form of the Sanskrit letters known as “ Lan-tslia, ” 
which is the old Svayambhu character of Magadha and always employed 
in Tibet, and in such case the Transliteration in Tibetan is printed, 
usually above the Sanskrit line and the Translation in Tibetan below 
the Sanskrit. 
