Central Asian manuscripts

The Central Asian collection encompasses over 1,700 manuscripts in the Manchurian, Mongolian and Tibetan languages. From point of view of quantity, the over 1,200 manuscripts from Tibet constitute the largest group, followed by almost 500 Mongolian manuscripts. The five Manchurian manuscripts held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek are a fairly manageable collection in comparison.

Further information

Mongolian manuscripts – Cod.mongol.

Qutuġ-tu včir-iyar oġtaluġči bilig-ün činadu kiȟjaġar-a kürügsen neretü yeke kölgen sudur  (Cod.mongol. 76)

Further information

Tibetan manuscripts – Cod.tibet.

The Codices tibetici are manuscripts predominantly from the time between the 11th and the 19th century. In addition, this collection group also encompasses various printed works (block prints), for example within the range of classification marks Cod.tibet. 82 – 102.

A special feature of the Tibetan collection is on the one hand the collection of over 100 artistically crafted, predominantly carved, wooden book covers of Tibetan provenance (e.g. Cod.tibet. 58 and Cod.tibet. 1005), which has been compiled since the 1970s. The collection is one of the largest of its kind outside of Tibet. Among the further collection focuses of interest there are numerous Red Hat texts from Sikkim and ritual cards, for example. Some of the texts were written on birch bark.

Early west-Tibetan book cover (11th/ 12th century)  (Cod.tibet. 58)
Gilded Tibetan book cover with Tantric representations  (Cod.tibet. 923)
Mahāmokṣa-sūtra  (Cod.tibet. 922)

Overview of digitized manuscripts  |  Further information