Forms of Tibetan Buddhist Literatures in the 21st Century

Abstract: With the development of the human society, the forms of literatures have gone through a great deal of changes. From the traditional paper documents to the electronic documents to the current website documents, the forms of documents have gone through changes from hour to hour. It has marked the continuous progress of the human society. This paper makes comparisons among the following three literatures, the paper literature, the electric literature and the website literature. It has elaborated the forms of tibetan buddhist literatures in the 21st century in a simple manner.

Key words: Tibetan Buddhist literatures, types of literatures, paper literature, electronic literature, website literature

The Buddhism has formed Mahayana Buddhism, which is called as Tibetan Buddhism. It is full of the characteristics of the Tibetan culture. The Mahayana Buddhism is formed since the Buddhism has been transferred to the Tibetan area from India and the Han Region. The Tibetan area is fully equipped with special human geography and historical environment. With the introduction of the Buddhism, there have been a great amount of Tibetan Buddhism literatures. Basically, the transformation can be divided into four times. The first one is the hand engraving literature, with the representatives of murals, engraved stele, jian ce, document of goat and sheep skin, the Pattra-leaf literature, paper literatures and so on. The second one is the paper documents that are mainly of printing model, with the representatives of block printing and the current laser typesetting printing. The third one is the electronic documents with the representatives of MARC database and electronic picture books and so on. The forth one is the website literatures with the representatives of documents, database, theme directory database and the hypertext literature and so on. The transformation of the types of the documents has marked the progress of human society. We consider the 21st century as the age of coexistence and complementary of these three kinds of literature forms. It is not the age when the Tibetan Buddhism website literature and the electronic literature replace the Tibetan Buddhism paper literature, not is it the age of that Tibetan Buddhism literature has brought the whole world under its dominance.

1 Tibetan Buddhism paper literature

In the last century, the digital and networking techniques have been developed in a rapid manner. The western experts, with the American representative of Gibraltar, have predicted bravely the development of information technologies would make people walk towards the society with paper documents. However, we still can see the growing trend of the Tibetan Buddhism paper literatures in the contemporary society.

1.1 The current condition and characteristics of the Tibetan Buddhism paper literature

The growing trend of the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents is inevitable. Every year there will be a great amount of the excellent picture books, papers, meeting documents and so on, with the subject matter of the Tibetan Buddhism. Still, the excellent picture books, papers, meeting documents and so on are published as the paper documents that are printing model type. Therefore, in the 21st Century, the Tibetan Buddhism literatures are still playing a leading place. They are using the paper as the carriers.

Tibetan Buddhism paper documents are very convenient to read. They are not at all restricted by the reading places. In addition, when reading the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents, there is no need of any assistant tools or equipments. This advantage complies with the reading habit that is formed in a long time by human beings. The Tibetan Buddhism paper documents that are of printing model have gone through thousands of years. In addition, it has formed into a complete and developed editing, printing and publishing system. In the contemporary society in the Tibet area, there are still a great amount of temples that are fully equipped with the conditions. They are able to publish the Tibetan Buddhism documents. For these Tibetan Buddhism documents, since its production, people have accumulated rich experiences for the storage of all of these Tibetan Buddhism paper documents. In this case, these Tibetan Buddhism documents are convenient to be kept for a long period of time. In addition, there are a few special functions that are equipped by these Tibetan Buddhism papers. In this case, they are free from the infestation of animals.

1.2 The digitalization and economic aspects of the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents

The Tibetan Buddhism paper documents are still the oriented form of the Tibetan Buddhism documents. It is hardly possible for Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents and networking documents to take the place of the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents. In the first place, the new Tibetan Buddhism picture books, papers, and materials are all mainly printed as paper documents in the current age. In the second place, there is a great deal of precious things are all stored in the paper documents, such as what has been learnt from the Tibetan Buddhism and the academic study results and creations. They are mainly stored in the form of the paper documents. In addition, what has been learnt from the Tibetan Buddhism and the academic study results and creations are accumulated from thousands of years. In the last place, although there are a lot of places that have already had the internet and digitalized libraries, the computers and networks cannot be promoted to every family and every temple in the Tibetan area in a long time. This is because the Tibetan area lags behind and there are limitations for the Tibetan language.

On the matter of economics, there are a lot of things to do for the electronic documents and network documents. These documents are equipped with high technology content. In order to develop them as well as to make full use of them, a great amount of professional technology personnel are in urgent need for the development and fabrication of such things as the wed paper in the previous stage and the retrieval systems of website and the database. At the same time, it still needs to rely on expensive reading software and hardware equipments. Currently in the Tibetan area, the economic condition is still not developed and the information basic equipments are in urgent need. In this case, there are still a great amount of difficulties for the whole Tibetan area to popularize the computer technologies for a short period of time. Therefore, it is an inevitable result for human beings to acquire information mainly through the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents.

1.3 The limitations of the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents

In the first place, the amount of information for the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents is quite limited. The society is developing day by day. With the increasing development of the society, the amount of information for documents is on the increase hour by hour. In this case, there is the consideration of the storage space for the paper documents. The storage space for paper documents are being influenced in a very severe manner. In the second place, with the passing of the time, the paper documents are easy to go bad and get natural aging. This feature of the paper documents make it inconvenient to make a great deal of copies. In the third place, it is not easy for people to make information search for the documents easier. In the last place, the paper documents will result in environmental pollution and environmental destruction and so on during the fabrication of paper. All of the environmental problems need to capture our special attention.

2 Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents

2.1 Electronic document is called the electronic publication as well

There are a great amount of the electronic document products. They are the document resources that are of great importance. The amount of Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents is as vast as the smoke and sea. The circulation and publication of the Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents has made important contributions. It not only is equipped with the reading feature, but also is equipped with the feature of vision and listening. These features have provided an important information way in order to make study and get to know the important Buddhism documents.

2.2 The excellent points of the Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents

Specifically speaking, there are the following points: in the first place, they have low weight and little volume. In addition, they have provided a great deal of information amount to store the documents, which has saved the space. In the second place, the digitalized manner can be changed into the materials such as pictures and sound video and so on. In this case, it has provided relatively accurate and perfect copies. It only takes a few seconds to copy a piece of disc. In the third place, there are a lot of resources. They are very cheap and are able to save the resources. In the fourth place, it has connected the text, the pictures and the sound. In this case, the sound, the picture as well as the words appear at the same time, which is very vivid. It has strong readability. In the fifth place, it has strong function of searching. There is a great deal of searching points and it is able to be searched from multiple ways.

2.3 The limitations of the Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents

As for the Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents, they have both limitations and weak points. They are mainly shown as the followings: in the first place, it is the matter of life span. There is limited life span for the storage medium of the electronic documents. Only by copy renewably again and again can it keep the stability of the stored information. In the second place, it is the matter of the authenticity of the information. Digital transformation technology is easy to have the information mistakes. In addition, the carrier for the digital transformation technology may be rewritten easily. Moreover, the digital transformation technology does not have the strict editing systems as the paper documents have. In this case, the authenticity and reliability of the content cannot be made sure. In the third place, it is matter of reading. The people living in the Tibetan area have accustomed to read the paper documents. They have formed a kind of reliability of the paper literatures. Under this circumstance, the Tibetan Buddhism information that has been stored in the form of digitalization cannot be read in a direct way. It can only be read through a set of special installation. However, in the Tibetan area, which is remote and does not equip with the reading machine, it has no guarantee even on the electrical source. In the fourth place, it is the matter of storage. The Tibetan Buddhism information is stored in the form of digitalization. In this case, it is very easy to be interrupted by the exterior world and to be destroyed.

3 Tibetan Buddhism network documents

Network document refers to document information unit or document information set. The document information unit or document information set is stored in form of the electronics. The carriers are the light disk or the magnetic disk and so on. It makes use of the computer, telecom as well as the multimedia ecologies to distribute and transfer with the center of the panel points on the Internet. In addition, it is able to reappear in the terminal place of the network.” The production and the development of the network documents have played an important role in influencing the traditional documents.

3.1 The excellent points of the Tibetan Buddhism network documents

In the first place, through the connection of the computer technology and the modern technologies, Tibetan Buddhism documents can enter the network so as to transfer rapidly. It has impacted the paper documents and the electronic documents through the internet. In this case, it can transfer its information on line so that it can be transferred in a wider and more rapid manner. In the second place, the information resources related to the Tibetan Buddhism can realize information sharing. Under this circumstance, we can get to know the spirit of the Tibetan Buddhism even when we have never come to world of the Tibetan Buddhism. This feature has a great and profound impact on the promotion and study of this special culture, Tibetan Buddhism. In the third place, compared to the paper documents and the electronic documents, the Tibetan Buddhism network documents have smaller volume and require less physical space. They have less being influenced by the temperature, the humidity as well as the other physical factors.

3.2 The limitations of the Tibetan Buddhism network documents

In the first place, the safety of the Tibetan Buddhism network documents is closely related to the safety of the network for the documents on the network carry out on line storage. If there is someone who misappropriates the word of commands through hacker and destroys the system, it will bring great loss to the documents. Therefore, the matter of safety is an important element that has restrained the network for the moment. It can better solve this kind of problem by the cooperation of all parties, which include the network manager, the users as well as the technical methods and so on.

In the second place, the Tibetan Buddhism network documents are in need of the scientific examination and verification. In addition, the Tibetan Buddhism network documents are lack of an efficient organization management. The Tibetan Buddhism network documents can hardly be compared to the traditional paper documents at the moment.

In the third place, the Tibetan area is located in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. It has severe differences compared to the advanced areas in the country or outside the country. In the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the popularity rate of computers is low. In this case, the networking cannot be realized. Therefore, the Tibetan Buddhism network documents have been transferred and popularized among minority groups. This has restricted the transmission of the network documents to a large extent.

After the above analyses, I think that the 21st Century is the age in which the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents, electronic documents, and networking documents exist with each other. They complement to each other and the proportion of the whole structure is adjusting gradually. The Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents and the network documents have represented the development trend of the scientific technologies. They have gradually got into the lives of the people ling in the Tibetan area as well as their learning environment. With the progress of the science and technologies, the weak points that they are equipped with will get promoted step by step. In this case, the Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents and the network documents can play a more important role in the collection systems of the Tibetan Buddhism documents. In addition, the Tibetan Buddhism paper documents would not die out under the impact of the Tibetan Buddhism electronic documents and the network documents. Instead, it will continue to play its influences and effect with its own advantages so that it may have the scene of renaissance.

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