The recent writings on Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the founder of Vishva Bharti University (Shantiniketan) reveal that the 1913 noble laureate in literature was enticed by Tibetan literature. In 1921, at the very beginning of introducing an academic curriculum at Vishva Bharti University, he invited a French Tibetologist, Sylvain Levi, to the university in order to study Indo-Tibetan literature. Rabindranath Tagore seized on this opportunity himself by enrolling as a student in Professor Levi’s Tibetan classes along with two other eminent scholars of the time, M.V. Shastri and P.C. Bagchi. Tagore favored studying Buddhism through languages like Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese and Tibetan.  On this point, it is pertinent to mention that beginning in the year 1822, the great Hungarian and the pioneer of  Tibetan studies in the  west, Csoma de Koros,  resided  for four  years in the petty kingdom of  Zanskar  in Ladakh  and studied the Tibetan language with a  Zanskari  teacher named Sangey Phuntsog. During that time he compiled the first Tibetan-English dictionary.  After completing his research in  Zanskar, Csoma moved to Calcutta and  published the dictionary in 1834.He also deposited the texts he procured from the Kingdom of Ladakh with the Asiatic Society. In 1837, Csoma  became the librarian of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a scholarly institution established by Sir William Jones,  a linguist and  scholar of Indology, in 1784.This  assignment  provided Csoma with access to the journals of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. The scholarly writings of Csoma on Buddhism may have influenced Rabindranath Tagore to  introduce Tibetan language  as an  indispensable part of Indo-Tibetan literature at the university. In or around 1920, the University of Calcutta introduced the teaching of Tibetan by appointing a Tibetan monk, Skarma Sum-dhon Paul, as a lecturer in Tibetan.

 In 1920, a Dutch scholar named Johan van Manen (1877-1943) became the General Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, holding the post until his retirement in 1939.During that period,  Manen engaged a Ladakhi Geshe named Ye-she Don-grup (1897-1980) as a research scholar at the monthly stipend of Rs. 50 in the Asiatic Society. He also delegated him to write his autobiography relating to his twenty years of study at Tashi Lhunpo monastic university and his travel experiences between Leh and Tashi Lhunpo on foot. Manen left India as a result of the Second World War and the autobiography written in Tibetan, along with five other autobiographies of scholars obtained by Manen during his stay in Calcutta, remained unpublished. He carried these prized possessions back to his native country and with his death they were acquired by the Dutch Government and placed in the National Museum of Ethnology at the Kern Institute in Leiden. During my attendance of the 9th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, held at Leiden in 2000, Peter Richardus of Leiden University presented me with a photocopy of the autobiography of Ye-she Don-grup. Later, with the due permission from the Kern Institute, I published the autobiography with an introductory note under the aegis of the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, Leh in 2005. In the autobiography, Ye-she Don-grup narrates his travels from Leh to Lhasa by foot via mountains, ravines, and grasslands. He makes a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar , and after reaching Tashi Lhunpo monastic university, details the curriculum of the monks  and  his eventual  attainment of the Kachen Degree with  distinction, which was  presided  over by the  Sixth Panchen Chos-kyi-Nyima (1883-1937) in the presence of 3,800 monks, of whom some 200 were eminent scholars. 

Beginning in 1819, the Christian Missionaries began paying regular visits to the Northern parts of India, including Ladakh and the region now known as Himachal Pradesh, in the hope of spreading their gospel in the region. They showed a keen interest in spreading Christianity among the Tibetan races residing in Keylong, Lahul-Spiti and Ladakh. They first established a station at Keylong and the well-known Tibetologist and one of the pioneers of Moravian missionary activities in the kingdom of Ladakh and Lahul-Spiti, A. William Heyde, resided in Ladakh starting from the year 1855.  A. William Heyde and another Tibetologist Graham Sanderberg undertook the revision of the well-known Tibetan Dictionary that Sarat Chandra Das had worked on for some decades. At Keylong, the Moravians opened schools and instituted social activities in addition to publishing much Christian literature in Tibetan, in the traditional Tibetan religious book format, for distribution among the Tibetan script reading peoples in Keylong and Ladakh. Along with the missionary works they helped the locals cultivate new vegetables and flowers. The Moravian missionaries became enticed by the rich culture and historical legacy of the region. Therefore, along with their missionary activities they also engaged themselves in studying local history and folklore.  The foremost among them was Dr. A.H. Francke, the Moravian Missionary who lived in Ladakh from 1896 to 1908 and on whose credit goes the writing of   the history of Ladakh in English under the title: A History of Western Tibet (1907) and Antiquities of Indian Tibet (1915) in two volumes besides a number of research paper relating to Ladakh’s history and folklore. Francke, after returning back to Germany, was appointed Professor of Tibetan at Berlin University. Commenting on the prevailing religion and art of Ladakh,  A. H. Francke writes, “But we must not forget that the inhabitants of Western Tibet have to be grateful to Buddhism for one important acquisition, the art of reading and writing. Long before the commencement of Lamaism in the first centuries before Christ, the Indian Brahmi alphabet, used for Sanskrit, entered the deserts of Western Tibet as the first script.” He further writes, “The most important alphabet was the Tibetan alphabet, which in its present form may have been introduced during the eighth or ninth century”. 

After A.H. Francke,  several other well-read Moravians visited Ladakh and following in the footprints of Dr. Francke, carried on studying the language and culture of the area. Among the well-known researchers on Ladakh’s history and folk lore were   S.H. Ribbach, Dr.Karl Marx (1891) and Heinrich August Jaschke, the compiler of the second Tibetan-English Dictionary (published in 1881). Later H. Ramsey, a British Joint Commissioner to Ladakh, compiled a dictionary of colloquial Ladakhi, entitled: Western-Tibet: A Practical Dictionary of the Language and Customs Included in the Ladakh Wazarat in the year 1890, from Lahore.

The Moravian Missionaries engaged the young and talented educated Buddhists to better realize their missionary works. The missionaries opened schools in the Buddhist populated areas of Himachal and Ladakh and engaged young Buddhists to assist in translating the Bible into Tibetan. In this connection, two Ladakhi Buddhist converted to Christianity namely Joseph Gergan (1878-1914) and Tsetan Phuntsog, who translated the Bible into Tibetan language. Tsetan Phuntsog was a member  of an aristocratic Buddhist family from Sabu village, near Leh,  and  later moved  from Ladakh  to Dehradun in present-day Uttarakhand in the year 1962, and   established the Moravian Institute at Rajpur to bring modern education to the students  belonging to the Himalayan  region. On this point, it is pertinent to mention that the missionaries stationed in Leh besides doing other works introduced publication of a newspaper called Ladakh Kyi Akhbar in Tibetan language to acquaint the local population and the resident of Western Tibet with the happenings in the world. Thus the paper seizes the honour of first paper appearing in the Tibetan language world. 

On a similar line, the well-known Tibetologist and founder of the Tibet Mirror Press in Kalimpong,  Gergan Dorje Tharchin, converted to Christianity. He was born in 1890 in the village of Poo and obtained an education from the Moravian Missionary. From there he moved to Kalimpong. In order to better spread modern education among the Tibetan and  with the happenings of the world, he  started  publishing a news paper  called Tibet Mirror or Yulphyogs so so’Igsar’gyur me long in Tibetan in 1925. With the introduction of the news paper and his becoming the pastor of the local Church at Kalimpong,  he became known by the local population as Babu Tharchin. With the passage of time his printing press and residential place turned into a meeting point for Tibetan and Tibetan speaking peoples. Geshe Ye-she Don-grup wrote in his autobiography, that  he had  availed himself of the opportunity  to work in Babu Tharchin’s press to edit the Tibet Mirror for some months. The publication of the Babu Tharchin press includes dictionaries and the books, including modern writings on Tibetan nationalities and reformists who were anxious to modernize their country which was facing imminent threat of occupation by China. Babu Dorje Tharchin contributions in the field of  Tibetan language is    worthy of praise  on the  ground  that  prior  to his  starting the Tibet Mirror press,  no  printing press for Tibetan existed in the country. 

In or around 1940, the well-known Indian scholar Rahul Sanskirityan, who was well versed in Tibetan language and Buddhism and who earlier made journeys to Tibet, disguised himself as a Tibetan monk in quest of learning the essence of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan language, and brought books of the Tibetan canon and scrolls (Thanka) from Tibet and deposited them with the Patna museum. Prior to that, while Rahulji  resided  in Lhasa, he persuaded a certain reputed Geshe of Drepung monastic university  having conversant with Sanskrit, to visit India where he proposed to initiate a project to reinstate  lost Buddhist  Sanskrit texts from Tibetan and  Gedun Chosphel, a well known Tibetan scholar  and historian visited India on the invitation of Rahulji in the sixties  and  Gedun Chsphel during his  stay in India  and Sri Lanka  did some  commendable job by translating certain Sanskrit and Hindi texts  into Tibetan. 

Since Rahul Sanskityan’s  interest  in Tibetan language was immense, he paid a visit  to Ladakh in the year 1939  and encouraged the youth of Ladakh to study Tibetan more vigorously for preservation and enrichment of the  rich culture and civilization which is akin to Ladakh   and for fulfillment of the objective,  he  along with a young Ladakhi scholar of the time, Tsetan Phuntsog produced  a Tibetan Primer for class 1^st to 4^th under the  aegis of Youngman’s Buddhist Assoiciation, Leh  (presently known as Ladakh Buddhist Association) in  1942. With that, the teaching of Tibetan in the schools of Ladakh was boosted and after the independence in 1947, the Directorate of Education of the  Jammu and Kashmir Government  published Tibetan text books  for Ladakhi students from first to eighth classes in 1964. Later the Tibetan or Pot-Yik text books  up to class ten were also published. In the preface to the text book for class eight, the compiler of the text books committee writes that  while compiling text  from class 1^st to eighth,  the compilers  have taken  utmost  care  to give space to the learning of modern subjects  by  avoiding  obsolete Tibetan  words  in the texts to make the books lucid and understandable  to lay  solid foundation among the students in the indigenous language  at the primary level.  They   further  write that in the  text  for class ninth and  tenth, the students  will find the writings  of the exponent  of Tibetan  literature  included which  would be difficult   to understand due to the use of classical  or unconventional  words, but the same  are required   for preparation of learning  high literary books of Tibetan literature at the higher level.  Prior to that,  Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of Letter published Tibetan-English Dictionary compiled by Rahul  Sanskirtyan in the year 1956.

In the year 1957, All India Radio (New Delhi) formally started broadcasting news and programs both in Tibetan and Ladakhi. Among the first Tibetan broadcasters from the Radio were Lobzang Lhalungpa and Rakra Tethong and for the Ladakhi  section, Samstan Dolma and Tashi Wangdus.  With the  successful   broadcasting of  these programmes in Tibetan from AIR, Delhi,  the  Kursang station of All India Radio in Darjeeling  also  started producing and broadcasting programmes  in Tibetan through  a  Ladakhi broadcaster Nono Rinpoche in Tibetan and from 1995 the Leh station of All India Radio also broadcasted in Tibetan.  Recently Voice of America also joined in. 

In 1959, the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (formerly known as Buddhist Philosophy School, Leh) was opened in Leh and soon started receiving financial aid from the Department of culture, government of India. The opening of the institute was a far sighted step of  the then Ladakh’s temporal and  spiritual leader Kushok Bakula, who realized that after the occupation of Tibet by China, there was going to be a big set back  in the study of Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy within Tibet and Ladakh. On this  point it is pertinent to mention that with the occupation of Tibet by China, the visit of Ladakhi monks to Tibet  for higher learning  ceased, a  tradition  initiated  by the pious Ladakhi King Dnos-grup-mgon (1300-1325),  Kushok Bakula accordingly placed  the issue before  the then Prime Minister of India Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a great sympathizer of  Buddhists  in general  and the Buddhist residing in the laps of Himalaya in  particular, conceded  the proposal of Bakula  and soon the Philosophy school was adopted  as an organ of the Department of Culture. Prior to that, in 1956 on the occasion of the celebration of 2500 Buddha’s Parinirvana,  the Prime Minister Nehru invited the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama to India.   Following the takeover of Tibet by China in the year 1959, Ladakh saw renewal of Tibetan influence as Tibetan refugees began pouring in the region.  In fact, the Buddhist Philosophy School, Leh was first made functional only after assumption of teaching posts by two eminent Tibetan Geshe, namely Ye-she Thup and Ye-she Thap-mkhas in the year 1959 and inaugurated by the senior tutor of 14^th Dalai Lama Yong-Zin Ling Rinpoche, who paid a visit to Ladakh immediately after his departure from Tibet.  Prior to that, the facility of availing teaching in higher philosophical studies in Ladakh region was nonexistent. After this the prestigious Namgail Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok came into being in the year 1962. In fact the Institute was inaugurated by none other than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India along   with the then Royal Eminence King Tashi Namgail of Sikkim. With Sikkim emerging as an Indian state in the year 1975, the Institute started receiving grants from the department of culture, government of India.  With that, a number of Tibetan scholars got employment as teachers and research scholars. Prior to that , while Sikkim was an Indian protectorate kingdom, the  Government of India opened Press Information Bureau at Gangtok to  cater  modern learning’s  in Tibetan language by publishing a  journal known as Yar-rGyas-Gong-pfel on a monthly basis and huge  copies of the journal were supplied  to Tibet particularly  to Lhasa containing news  regarding development activities in progress in India and  to enlighten the people  residing in the bosom of  Himalaya including  Ladakh.

The flight of Tibetans to India took place both from western borders of Tibet into  Ladakh and eastern border into Sikkim and Assam. A majority of them first landed at the place called Baxar in Assam near  Arunachal Pradesh.   A philosophy Institute  for monks was  established at  Baxar  by enrolling around one hundred monks  at the beginning and  the same,  got affiliated  with Sanskrit University, Varanasi,  presently known as Sampurnanand  University. In the year  1970, the Institutes  was shifted  from Baxar  to Sarnath in Varanasi  and temporary arrangements were made  for housing the staff and teachers at Sarnath  by taking  certain Dharamshalas  or rest houses on rent in  absence of school buildings etc. at Sarnath  and a bus shuttle service introduced to ferry  the  monk students  between Sarnath to the University. Later the department of Culture, Government of India became benevolent for the cause of promotion of Tibetan studies in the country and accordingly provided financial support to establish the Central Institute of Tibetan studies presently known as Central Tibetan University, Sarnath. With that, the Government of India sanctioned a number of Central School for Tibetan on the pattern of Kendriya Vidhalayas in the country to impart teaching to Tibetan students in their mother tongue up to class 12^th standard and since then teaching of Tibetan in the schools has become a part of curriculum of the Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi. The Lamdon Model Senior Higher Secondary School, a primer institution to cater social and scientific education to the students of Ladakh, also grants teaching of Tibetan language up to class 12^th standard.

A milestone in promotion of Tibetan language began with the establishment of Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (Centre for Tibetan Studies) at Dharamshala in the year 1970. The library being a primer institution in the country to promote teachings and research in Tibetan language possesses a huge collection of manuscript, books, xylographs, documents and illuminated scriptures in Tibetan language and has recently started publishing a journal containing the writings of the emerging and known scholars of the language. The department of Education of the exiled government at Dharamshala recently  brought out a Comprehensive Tibetan language dictionary  besides publishing a journal called Sheja along with some other daily, fortnightly and monthly newspapers for almost five decades  which helped to nourish the language. 

Hinayana and Mahayana are the two vehicles to study and grasp the essence of Buddhism. According to the historical records Lord Buddha delivered his discourses primarily in the local language of Shakya clan in which he was born, known as Prakrit or Pali.   A few weeks after Buddha’s Parinirvana, the first Buddhist council was held at Rajgrih in about 487 B.C. The discourses of Buddha were collected, classified and adopted as authoritative canonical texts by an assembly of 500 monks representing the various Sanghas. The teachings of the Buddha were divided into two parts called the Vinaya Pitaka and Dhamma Pitaka. The second Buddhist Council was held at Vaishali, nearly a hundred years after the death of Buddha in about 387 B.C. to sort out certain controversies regarding the monastic rules. The third Council was held at Patliputra during the reign of Emperor Ashoka, the most powerful Buddhist king to ever appear on the Jumbhidiva. Buddhism is essentially an Indian religion. Asoka died in 232 B.C. after ruling strenuously for forty one years. Of him H.G. Wells says in his ‘Outline of History”: ‘Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of History, their majesties and graciousness and serenities and royal highness and the like, the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan his name is still honored. China, Tibet and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness. More living men cherish his memory to-day than have ever heard the name of Constantine or Charlemagne.’

 During the Kushan period, Buddhism split into two sections known as the Hinayana and the Mahayana. According to the historian this crucial assembly was held in Kashmir which was in those days had the credit of being an important Buddhist centre as well as important centre of the Kushan Empire. The ancient learning centre of Taxila was located not far from Kashmir.  Nagrajuna, a great South Indian Buddhist philosopher and a towering personality of the religion took the side of Mahayana and because of him,  the Mahayana triumphed in India. With that, Mahayana doctrine reached to China and Tibet, while Ceylon, Burma remained adhered to Hinayana.  With the passage of time, Buddha’s original teachings were enshrined in Tripitaka,   (the three caskets written in Pali) and bKa-gyur in Tibetan. Nowadays, nearly every Buddhist temple and universities are in possession of 108 volumes of bKa-gyur and 208 volumes of bstan-gyur books in addition to a number of canonical literature, particularly in Tibetan language. In India, the Shantarakshita library of Central Tibetan University, Sarnath and the Shes-rab-rgyas-tsal library of Central Institutes of Buddhist Studies possess  maximum  number of canonical  literature in Tibetan language. And in the United  States of America, around 20 reputed universities  including Harvard, Wisconsin, Chicago, Columbia, Indiana,  Seattle and   University of California possess almost same number of Buddhist canonical literature. All this became possible due to the heroic   approach undertaken by two eminent American Tibetologists , namely Prof.  Turell Wylie and  E. Gene Smith.  Prof. Wylie coined a standard system of Tibetan transcription populary known as Wylie system while E. Gene Smith took a job in the New Delhi Field Office of the Library of Congress,  when under the PL 480 programme, India paid back loans to the United States in the form of books, which were then distributed to the participating libraries in the U.S.  Prior to that,  both of them studied the  Tantric Tradition and various Tibetan lineage of schools in the inner Asian Department of the University of Washington, Seattle under an eminent Saskya scholar Deshung Rinpoche. When E. Gene Smith took job at Delhi, he recognized an unprecedented opportunity to exploit the PL 480 programme to preserve and publish the massive and often unique copies of virtually Tibet’s entire literary heritage then coming out of Tibet.  Apparently, I had the occasion to meet Prof. Wylie at the Columbia University during the Tibetology conference in New York and at the University of Washington, Seattle in the year 1982 and with E.Gene Smith in New Delhi in the year 1983, and later at the Tibetology Conference at Namgyal Institute of Tibetology in Gangtok in the year 2008.  As in America,  in Europe ,St. Petersburg, Paris, Oxford, Bonn, Heidelberg, Vatican Propaganda Library, British Museum Library, India Office Library, London University possess perfect series of both bka-gyur and bstan-gyur texts of different edition with teaching staff in Tibetan.  Similarly a dozen of Universities in Japan and Australia and Scandinavian countries has created appreciable facilities for teaching Tibetan.  A voluntary academic association, The International Association of Tibetan studies, which was first set up at Oxford University in the year 1980, is convening its biannual conference at different academic institution or universities by involving scholar’s world over working in the field of Tibetan studies.  

Similarly, in India a number of Buddhist studies and Pali departments are functioning at a number of universities such as Kolkata, Shantineketan, Nalanda, Gorakhpur, Banaras, Lucknow, Delhi, Chandigarh, Jammu, Chhattisgarh, and Noida. But unlike in the universities of the western world, here the universities primarily impart teaching in Buddhism through the medium of Pali or Sanskrit, while the Buddhists residing in the   bosom of the Himalayas study Buddhism through Tibetan.  On this point, the author of the article submitted a memorandum to the Chairperson, University Grant Commission, New Delhi and the   extract of the letter is quoted below for the information of the reader of this article.

The Chairman,                                                                                       CRL-2012

University Grant Commission,                                                           Dated 27-04-2012

New Delhi 

More than 2550 years ago, the Lord Buddha appeared on the soil of India, preaching message of compassion, morality, and mastery over the mind. The teachings of the Buddha are found bounded in the Tripitaka, in the Hinayana tradition, and in the Kah-gyur and Stan-ghur in the Mahayana tradition.

For India, Buddhism has a very special significance. This religion has greatly contributed to nourish and strengthen the centuries old cultural and religious traditions of India’s rich soil. The Buddhist world knows and respects the country as a holy land and today, people are seeing a revival of the great Buddhist tradition of India’s past. From the ancient universities such as Nalanda, Vikarmashila and Taxila, the wings of Buddhist leanings and teachings spread far and wide, and in the country at present time Buddhist studies has a special place at the secondary and university levels.

In the year 2007, the Government of India commemorated the 2550^th anniversary of the mahaparinirvana of Lord Buddha and similarly in the year 1956, the country observed the 2500 years of mahaparinirvana with the same zeal and devotion. In order to promote Buddhist studies in the country, a number of Buddhist institutions were instituted in the country in the form of university departments of Buddhist studies. 

Here I would like to point out, that the University Grant Commission aided or sponsored universities or added Buddhist Studies Departments primarily impart teachings in Buddhism through Pali, Parkirit and Sanskrit languages while the majority of Buddhist residing in the Himalayan States stretching all the way from Arunachal Pradesh to Jammu and Kashmir study and follow Buddhism through Tibetan language. The absence of facilities for teaching of Mahayana Buddhism through Tibetan medium is creating vacuum at the university level here in India, while in the rest of the world great strides have made in teaching of Buddhism through Tibetan. Hence, I would like to take the liberty to draw the attention of the Chairman of UGC to this important issue.

On this point I would like to give an example. In the year 1990, on the demand of the people of   Ladakh, the Jammu and Kashmir’s Governor, in his capacity as the Chancellor of two universities of the state i.e. Srinagar and Jammu directed the authorities to start Ladakh studies department in their two respective universities. The university of Jammu however opened the department of Buddhist Studies at the University by adopting the guidelines of the UGC and appointed three Pali-Prakirit and Sanskrit as Assistant Professor/ Professor and the department is now functioning now for the last two decades but it is not meeting the wishes and aspirations of the aspirant students from Ladakh.

It is therefore, requested that a high level committee may be constituted to find ways and means to teach Mahayana traditions of Buddhism, along with the Hinayana through Tibetan language  in the UGC sponsored universities in the country.

Regards,

Yours faithfully,

Nawang Tsering Shakspo

Director

Copy for information and necessary action to:-

1. Hon’ble Minister for Culture, J&K Government, Srinagar.

2. The Chief Executive Councillor, LAHDC, Leh-Ladakh.

3. The Vice Chancellor, University of Jammu.

4. The Vice Chancellor, University of Kashmir.

5. President, Ladakh Buddhist Association, Leh-Ladakh.

6. President, Gonpa Association, Leh-Ladakh.

The Gupta period of Indian history in the 4th and 5^th Centuries A.D. is noted for its artistic and cultural activities. During that period India’s contact with West Asia particularly with Iran in the field of art and craft reach to its zenith. Kabul and Kandahar became the central point of amalgamation of different forms of art, culture and civilization and the Gandhara style of art  not only took firm shape in the area  but also  influenced the Buddhist art of the time,  which with the passage time became a part  and parcel  of Mahayana Buddhism. The influence of the same are visible on the rock arts built at many places in Ladakh and are considered the off shoot of the Gandhara form of art along with indigenous art.  With that, two-way traffic between India and Chinese developed and many Chinese scholars came to India. Foremost among them was Fa Hien and Hsuan- Tsang who came across the Gobi Desert and passing Turfan and Kucha, Taskhand and Samarkand, Khotan and Yarand, crossed the Himalayas into India. At that time the Nalanda University was in full bloom. It is said that that in those days as many as 10, OOO students and monks were in residence there.  In the 6^th century A.D., at  Nalanda University,  besides imparting teachings in the  five major and five minor learnings, performing  of ritual  ceremonies was in vogue. Among the foreign  students, who were in residence  at the university, were mainly Chinese  and Tibetans who after studying there for a long time  carried back with them several hundred Sanskrit texts which later translated into their  respective languages for posterity and at present the Buddhist texts which were once  available  at the Buddhist centers  such as Nalanda written in Pali or Sanskrit  are currently found  in its original form only in Tibetan. On this point it is pertaining to mention that during the reign of pious king Lha-bla-ma Ye-she-od in Western Tibet the second revival of Buddhism started in Tibet and Ladakh.  Unfortunately the tempo of revival of Buddhism in Central Tibet could not go further in that period.  In the 9^th Century A.D.  The King gLang-dar-ma ruthlessly suppressed Buddhism in Central Tibet and to subside the disturbance a tantric Lama called Lha-lung Pal-gi-Dorje disguising himself as dancer shot the king and the action of the tantric monk paved the way to reinstate the banished priesthood and make it more effective than ever.

Ratna-Bhadra known in Tibetan as Lo-tsa-wa Rin-chen-bZang-po (968-1054 A.D.) and Suprajna, known as Lo-chung-legs-pa-shes-rab and a number of brilliant students were deputed to Nalanda and Kashmir for studying Sanskrit. On return to motherland they translated a number of outstanding Buddhist texts into Tibetan from Sanskrit. For doing the job it is said that Ratnabhadra  is known to have been assisted by Pandit Shradhakarvarma, Padmakargupta, Buddha Shrishanta, Buddhapala and Kamalapala all hailing from Nalanda or Kashmir. The King of Western Tibet to strengthen the religion in the country invited the great scholar of  Vikarmashila University  popularly known as   Atisha Dipankara while appointed Lotsawa Richen Zangpo as the spiritual advisor in his country.   It is said that in the 11^th Century A.D.  Atisha had brought the primary  creative  teachings of the Buddha from India to Tibet and  with that Buddhism had been given a great boost in the “land of  snow”. Among the well known teachings of Atisha are Boudh Pradeep, the Chang-chub-lamdon. With that Buddhism got deeply rooted on Tibetan soil  and hence forth the indigenous mode of religious and philosophical thought flourishes in Tibet. Unfortunately from the 13^th century onward a trend of decline of Buddhism in India started and with that, the original Buddhist texts which were earlier composed in Sanskrit were lost and at present, the bKa-gyur and bStan-gyur, the Tripitaka translation in Mahayana Buddhism particularly of Tibetan Buddhist texts remains the main source of revival of lost Indian Buddhist texts.

  The ancient Buddhist University Nalanda, the university which drew  pious Buddhist from China and Tibet are in ruin but  at present this holy university is   contributing towards shaping the  bilateral contact between India and China both through diplomatic channels  and  Association of South East Asian Nations ( ASEAN). Particularly during the visit of  Premier of the People’s Republic of China to India from  15-17 December, 2010 had announced a contribution of US Dollars one million for revival of Nalanda University for building a Chinese style library in the Nalanda University . On the similar line, India signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Australia, Cambodia, Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand, Lao PDR, Myanmar and now with Bhutan to rebuild the Nalanda University which is now in ruin to bring back the glory it was in ancient time.

Though Hinayana tradition of Buddhism is doing well in the respective countries such as Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, at the same time, Mahayana form of Buddhism on which Tibet has sway along with China and Japan. After its occupation by China, a huge number of Tibetan scholars along with followers took refuge in India in the year 1959. Thanks to the generous assistance by the government of India to the Tibetans, now most of them who first entered in the country got settled at various points of India particularly  in Karnataka, in  South India the land with which in the past Tibetan people had little contact  except of their knowing that certain Siddhas and  exponent of the religion  came  from South India, particularly renowned  philosopher  like of Nagarjuna, the exponent of Madhyamika philosophy  and  whom the Tibetan Buddhist address as second  Buddha. Now with the permanent settlement of the Tibetans in South India and establishment of the four great learning places such as Drespung, Galdan, Sera and Tashi Lhunpo monasteries, regular contact has been established with the Buddhist of particularly the followers of Tibetan form of Buddhism in North of India. Not only that in the year  2006, the  14^th Dalai Lama delivered his 30^th Kalachakra initiation at the place  called Amarvati near Guntur town  which  is  considered to be the  place where Lord Buddha gave the teachings of Kalachakra at the place  called  DhanaKosha or PaldanDraspung.  Not long ago, by realizing South India as the holy site of the exponents of Buddhism in the past the Government of  Andra Pradesh erected  a  huge  stone  Buddha statue in the centre  of  famous Husain Sagar in the heart of Hyderabad city. Hence  with the  passage  of time, it is  expected  that more  Buddhist activities  carried  in the   region of  South India,  where in the past hardly existed any Tibetan speaking people  has  become the home of about a lac of Tibetan speaking people.

Tibetan is the religious as well as socio-cultural language of the people residing all the way land stretching from Arunachal Pradesh in the east upto Ladakh in the north of the country.  Person having well  versed in its literary traditions are  visible in large number in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, West Bengal, Orissa, Uttrakhand,  Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Karnataka in South India besides it is  the official language of Bhutan and China, the two immediate  neighboring countries of India. In addition, it is the the spoken language of a large number of populations of Mongol or Tibetan stock people residing in Nepal and Pakistan. In the changed geo-cultural scenario and coming into existence of Association of South East Asian Nations) ASEAN, Tibetan language is going to play vital role  particularly taking the issue of revival of  ancient Buddhist University, Nalanda as an international institution of excellence and its centuries old  socio-cultural traditions.  On this point, the speech delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao of China at the Tagore International School on 15^th of December, 2010 worth mentioning. “India and China are two very populous countries with ancient civilizations, friendship between the two countries has a time honored history, which can be dated back 2,000 years, and since the establishment of diplomatic ties between our two countries in particular the last ten years, friendship and cooperation has made significance progress.”

 Having said so time has ripen India to accept Tibetan as well as Indian language as per of Nepali language to which the status Indian languages in accordance with   the eight schedule of Indian constitution after the formation of the State of Sikkim. This submission of mine may help to strengthen Sino-India relations not only in defence, trade and economic sphere but also on socio-religious-cultural ties on the ground that Tibetan is an official or standard recognized language of China.