Electronic Catalogues of the Tibetan and Mongolian Collections of Buryatia

Project Representative(s): Symzhit Vanchikova, Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs Buryat Institute of Social Sciences, Ulan Ude, Buryatia
This project is aimed at collecting, categorizing and digitizing the rich repository of Mongolian and Tibetan Buddhist documents which are unique to the Buryat region. Although many works have been lost in recent decades, the oriental library of her institute possesses one of the largest Asian collections of Tibetan, Mongolian and Buryat xylographs and manuscripts. This work is especially vital for reasons of cultural continuity, since, from the time of the establishment of the Soviet Union, Mongolians had been forced to abandon their native language in favor of the Russian cyrillic script. Thus, a major part of their task involves the re-connection of modern Mongolians with their cultural-linguistic heritage. They are presently engaged in the input of both Mongolian and Tibetan texts, taking as a model the techniques used by the Princeton-based Asian Classics Input Project.