This fascinating 1792 monastery houses one of western Sìchuān’s star attractions: an ongoing printing operation that still uses traditional woodblock printing methods and maintains more than 320,000 scripture plates, an astonishing 70% of Tibet’s literary heritage.
The wood blocks are engraved with scriptures from all of the Tibetan Buddhist orders, as well as Bön (苯教), a religion that predates the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet. These ancient writings cover astronomy, geography, music, medicine and Buddhist classics, including two of the most important Tibetan sutras. A set of 555 woodblock plates written in Hindi, Sanskrit and Tibetan, describes the history of Indian Buddhism and is the only surviving copy in the world.
Within the monastery, dozens of workers produce more than 2500 prints each day, as ink, paper and blocks fly through the workers’ hands at lightning speed. In a side room, you’ll find the senior printers making larger and more complex prints of Tibetan gods on paper and coloured cloth.
You can also examine storage chambers, paper-cutting rooms and the main hall of the monastery itself, protected from fire and earthquakes by the guardian goddess Drölma (Tara). There are some nice murals in the two ground-floor chapels, so bring a torch.
You aren’t allowed to take photos of the library shelves or the main hall, but ask the printers if it is okay to snap away as they meditatively fill customers' orders.
To get here, turn right out of the bus station, then left over the bridge and keep walking up the hill.
