This site is a loosely structured tutorial on reading ancient Tibetan manuscripts by Sam van Schaik. All examples are from the Dunhuang manuscripts, dating from the early 9th to the late 10th centuries, the earliest surviving Tibetan manuscripts. New tutorial pages will be added regularly, as the site develops into a complete guide to reading the Dunhuang manuscripts.
Contents
1. Old Orthography
(i) The strong da (da drag)
(ii) The ma attached to ya (ma ya btags)
(iii) The subfixed ‘a (‘a rten)
(iv) The reverse gi gu (gi gu rlog)
2. Punctuation and Ornamentation
(i) The double tsheg
(ii) The mid-line tsheg
(iii) The long tsheg
This site is daughter to my main site, earlyTibet.com.