Tibetan calligraphy

BuddhistmantrainTibetan script

Six different Tibetan script styles traditionally and commonly used by Tibetans

Tibetan calligraphyis thecalligraphictradition of writing theTibetan language.As in other parts of East Asia, nobles, high lamas, and persons of high rank were expected to have high abilities in calligraphy. However, unlike other East Asian calligraphic traditions, calligraphy was done using a reed pen as opposed to a brush. Tibetan calligraphy is at times more free-flowing than calligraphy involving the descendants of otherBrahmiscripts. Given the overriding religious nature ofTibetan culture,many of the traditions in calligraphy come from religious texts, and most Tibetan scribes have a monastic background.

Styles

A variety of different styles of calligraphy exist in Tibet:

• TheUchen(དབུ་ཅན།,"headed"; also transliterated asuchanordbu-can) style of theTibetan scriptis marked by heavy horizontal lines and tapering vertical lines, and is the most common script for writing in the Tibetan language, and also appears in printed form because of its exceptional clarity. It is believed to have been carved on wooden slabs.The Uchen system was developed in the 9th century by scholar Khyungpo Yutri.The Clear, Precious Box(Yi-ge'i thig-ris gsal-ba'i rin-chen sgrom-bu) written by Yutri's student, Rongpo, was a handwriting manual of the Uchen style.Desi Sangye Gyatsowould later write a commentary onThe Clear, Precious Box,which established the basis of the use of Uchen script.Uchen was designed as a formal script used by scholars and members of educated society to record important documents.
  • Ngatar (སྔ་དར།) development
    • Toad - the initial Thonmi Sambhota edition
  • Qitar (ཕྱི་དར།) development
    • Sarqungorchung(standard ujain;གསར་ཆུང༌།)
    • Sugring
    • Sugtung
    • Sarqên
• TheUmê(དབུ་མེད།,"headless"; orume) style is a more cursive script which can be seen in daily correspondence and in other day-to-day life. The feature which distinguishes it the most fromu-chanis the lack of the horizontal lines on the top of letters.
• Thebêtsug(དཔེ་ཚུགས།;orbetsu) style is a narrow, cursive variant ofumêin squarish shape.
• Thedru-tsa(འབྲུ་ཚ།;ordrutsa) style is a variant ofumêbut withujainvowel symbol.
  • curve-leg zhuza
  • straight-leg zhuza
  • short-leg zhuza
• Thetsugtung(ཚུགས་ཐུང༌།;ortsugtung) style is shortened, abbreviated variant ofu-me,traditionally used for commentaries.
• Thetsugring(ཚུགས་རིང་།) style
• Thekyug-yig(འཁྱུག་ཡིག།,"fast letters"; orchuyig) is a highly abbreviated, fluid, cursive version ofu-me.It is a common form of handwriting for notes and personal letters.
  • general cursive
  • extremely cursive
• Thetsug-ma-kyugyig style — a style halfway betweencug'yigandkyug'yig
• Thegyug-yig(རྒྱུག་ཡིག།) style

Other related styles

The verticalPhags-pascript is known ashoryig(ཧོར་ཡིག་hor-yig,"Mongolian letters" ). A more ornamental version of thehoryigstyle was used in the past to make personal seals. It is often found written vertically as opposed to horizontally.

These styles are not fixed, and are not limited to those listed above. By mi xing features of various styles, and adding various ornaments to the text, the number of styles becomes quite large. Whileujainmay be used to write entireSutrasor Buddhist texts, the rest of the styles are more frequently used to write a single phrase or saying.

Notable examples

The world record for the longest calligraphy scroll is held by Jamyang Dorjee Chakrishar, who penned a 163.2 meter scroll containing 65,000 Tibetan characters. The scroll contains prayers for the14th Dalai Lamacomposed by 32 different monks.

See also

• Tibetan script
• Tibetan typefaces
• Tibetan literature

External links

• Interview with Tsering Phuntsok,a Tibetan calligrapher living in Germany.
• Andrew West,Phags-pa scriptArchived2008-09-27 at theWayback Machine