THE TIBETAN CULTURAL PRINTING PRESS

When the first Tibetan Text-book committee compiled its initial study books in the year 1960, it ran a significant problem-no Indian printer had sufficiently good knowledge of the Tibetan written scripts to print them. So, with help from the private office of His Holiness the Dalai lama, the council set up a cultural Printing press in1961. Its first staff members were two clerks trained for six months in printing techniques in New Delhi. In the beginning they did the composing work and used the machines of the local Indian Press to print the books.

By late 1962, the Tibetan press had purchased basic machines and increased its staff to ten members, and in 1966 it could boast of printing machine, binding and perforating machines and proof-reading hand machine. Now there are fifteen members of staff, covering all areas of the printing process from compositor to dispatcher.

The press is under our direct supervision and its principal duty is supply all the schools in exile with Tibetan text-books through our Head Office. But as the press is a self supporting enterprise, it also takes on contract work for the Tibetan Government in exile offices and for individuals, and prints and publishes in Tibetan works on Buddhist philosophy and religion, poetry and grammar, and medical books . Until 1979 the press was housed in rented premises in lower Dharamsala; this year it purchased its own plot of land and property and is preparing to move to the new building once the renovation work is complete. It also has plans to buy a photo-offset printing press and to set up a branch press in New Delhi in the future.