Dege Press Printing House


Dege Barkhang Scripture Printing Press is a magnificent three-story wooden building stores more than 217,000 hand-carved wooden blocks of Tibetan scriptures and Thangka paintings, which houses 70 percent of the Tibetan literary heritage.

The collection covers the wide range texts of Buddhist scripture, Tibetan medicine, astronomy, geography and music. Most of the woodblocks were made in during 17th to 18th century and now are still used to make out texts in traditional ways by hand. In the second storey, many workers hand-produce them at the lightning speed. They work in pairs, one just coat the ink on a plate while another presses the paper.