Tibetan Archives: A Report from China

The condition of archives in Tibet is not good. Although Western archival thought has made some inroads into archival practice there, the complex history of Tibet and the fact that the vast majority of the documents are written in ancient Tibetan further complicate tremendous backlogs in both arrangement and description. Preservation concerns are also prevalent. All of these factors limit the usefulness of the Tibetan archives for historical research, despite their vast wealth of information on both the political and religious history of the country. Vast amounts of funds would be necessary to begin to remedy the condition of archives in Tibet, however, the earnest intention of archival authorities in both Tibet and China to improve the archives and make them more available for research is encouraging.