History of Tibet: The Blue Annals

Object specifics

• Type
  Writing
• Culture
  Tibetan
• Artist/Maker
  Unknown or unrecorded
• Place made
  Asia: Central Asia: Tibet [China]
• Date made
  1792 - 1810
• Materials
  Ink; Brass; Paper Plant; Wood; Textile Cotton; Lacquer
• Location
  Item not currently on display
• Acquisition
  From the Collection of Sir Charles Bell
• Collector
  Charles Alfred Bell
• Place collected
  Not recorded
• Date collected
  1919 before
• Measurements
  120 mm x 605 mm x 110 mm; 4 3/4 in x 23 13/16 in x 4 5/16 in
• Note
  Curator's note: The descriptions and page translations found in the inscriptions field have been provided by Dr Karma Phuntsho, during cataloguing for, 'The Tibetan-Mongolian Rare Books and Manuscripts (TMRBM) project', University of Cambridge. Other copies can be found in the Tibetan Book Resource Center, TBRC: W7494.
  There are two duplicate copies of the title page.
  Inventory card notes that this is a Kundeling edition. A white label is attached to the pecha cover, on one side is the title of the volume in uchen script, on the other, in Bell's handwriting, the name of the volume in English and, 'A20' and 'badly printed'.
  This is one of two copies that Bell owned of this text, both came from well known sources. Bell records in his book, Religion of Tibet, 'My friend, 'Great Minister' Shatra, the wise old statesman who died in 1919, gave me one of my copies of this valuable work. The print, however is often indistinct, and so the Dalai Lama gave me another copy from the same block, and it is on the whole clear. That it is not quite so distinct as the numerous other volumes that he sent me is due, as His Holiness explains in his letter, to the block being old'.
  
  Written by Emma Martin
• Related people
  Charles Alfred Bell (Collector); Paljor Dorje Shatra (gifted by)