Rare Tibetan Buddhist canons restored

LANZHOU -- Experts in Northwest China's Gansu province announced Wednesday that they have restored more than 3,000 pages of some rare Tibetan Buddhist canons, which were severely damaged by floods in the 1970s.

The canons have more than 100,000 pages in total and were held by several Buddhist temples located in Wuwei city, or Liangzhou in ancient times, which is a vital town along the ancient Silk Road. Floods in the 1970s caused severe damage to the artifacts.

The restoration project commenced in 2013 and was carried out by the Museum of Wuwei City and Northwest Minzu University. Experts said about 98 percent of the canons were scriptures, which trace back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

More than 60,000 pages have been separated to date, and 3,069 pages have been restored.

Liang Jihong, deputy curator of the museum, said some of the scriptures contained bright and colorful paintings. Materials for writing included ground gold, silver, pearl, sea snails and cinnabar powder. Liang also mentioned that paper was of very high quality with insect and corrosion prevention materials, which would be very helpful for the research of Tibetan's paper making technology.

The restoration will be also very important for Tibetology studies and the history of ethnic groups relations in northwestern China, Liang added.