For
Dege Sutra-Printing House, from its founding to late 1950s, the printing
materials like printing-blocks, ink, paper are all taken from the local
place except cinnabar which comes from other places. Its manufacture
technology is very fastidious and highly traditional. Materials for
printing-blocks are selected from the knotless red birch produced in
Dege. Baiyu and Jiangda counties, which is processed through cutting
into sections, drying by fire-cure, soaking in water, boiling, baking
and planning, and made ready for use. The writing of the printing-blocks
is done strictly in accordance with The 40 Standards of Tibetan Calligraphy
written by Chionpo Yuchyi and Rongpowa the two famous Tibetan calligraphers
of Dege and based on the size of the blocks while the cutting of blocks
is done by skilled artisans who have gone through strict examinations.
And the cut blocks must be proofread and revised to prove absolutely
correct before entering the process of printing. The whole process from
writing to cutting has to go through 12 times of proofreading. For this
reason the printing-blocks of Dege Sutra-Printing House enjoy the reputation
of " the most standard classic block e dition
in the Khampa (Kham) region". Materials for printings are mainly
two kinds of smoke-ink, of which one is burnt from large azalea barks
to be used for printing and another is burnt from large-leaf willow
to be used for writing. The paper is made of the root-hairs of "AGyiaoRuGyiao"
(Stellera chamaejasme L.), which consist of three layers, namely, the
inner layer, the middle layer and the outside layer. Paper made of the
middle layer is fine and smooth and very white, being first-class paper
specially used as official document paper by the Dege headman. Paper
made of the inner and outside layers belongs to the second class to
be mainly used for printing in the Dege Sutra-Printing House. And paper
made of all the three layers of root hairs is thick and coarse called
the third-class paper which is usually used for making packing-papers
fo r
Sutra-volumes or Prayer Flags paintings. After 1979, the above smoke-ink
and root-hair paper were replaced by Chengdu-made prepared ink and Ya'an-made
paper and the whole printing technological process includes paper-cutting,
paper-soaking, ink-blending, grinding, cinnabar-mixing, edition-taking,
printing, air-drying, block-washing, storing, page-dividing, proofreading,
bookbinding, polishing, edge-coluring and packing. The whole work is
both streamlined and intersected, all in an orderly way.
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