Historical and religious inscriptions in Western Tibet

The project (2013–2018) built directly on the FWF project “Tibetan Inscriptions”, which was conducted at the University of Vienna from January 2007 to June 2013 as part of the National Research Network “The Cultural History of the Western Himalaya from the 8th Century”. In the framework of this predecessor project, two field trips to Western Tibet could be carried out in co-operation with the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences in Lhasa, resulting in the first detailed documentation of a considerable number of inscriptions. ’Khor chags, sKyid thang (both in sPu rang), mTho lding, rTsa pa rang and Dung dkar (all in rTsa mda’) turned out to be particularly important and high-yielding places.

Within the present project, selected historical and religious inscriptions found in various temples at these sites were made available by means of a diplomatic edition with a critical apparatus and an annotated translation. Thus the project contributed to our still rudimentary knowledge of the history of Western Tibet from the 10th/11th century onwards. Moreover, specifically the work on the religious inscriptions provides a basis for future art historical studies on the murals with which most of these inscriptions are combined.