During his stay in Munich, on January 20, 2009, His Holiness paid a visit to the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) to examine some precious old and very rare manuscripts relating to Himalayan and Buddhist studies. The Bavarian State Library holds approximately 16.700 Oriental manuscripts in 45 languages written on a wide variety of materials such as papyrus, paper, leather, parchment, palm leaf, dluwang, birch bark, bamboo, wood, cloth, ivory, bone, stone, gold, silver and other metals. Part of this collection are some important works concerning the Tibetan culture.

As per the request of the Garchen Stiftung (Garchen Foundation) a meeting was organized on January 20, 2009 in the Library’s Oriental and East Asia Department. After a welcoming speech by the Deputy Director General of the Munich State Library, Dr. Klaus Ceynowa, the Head of the Department of Oriental and East Asian Manuscripts, Dr. Helga Rebhan, proceeded to present to His Holiness a carefully selected choice of documents. Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche studied the manuscripts in the presence of Tibetologists Prof. Jens-Uwe Hartmann and Prof. Franz-Karl Ehrhard. Also present were Prof. Franz-Theo Gottwald from the Schweisfurth Foundation, and Dr. Liane Pitsos and Dr. Elmar R. Gruber, board of directors of the Garchen Foundation.

As His Holiness is currently working on the history of Tibet relying mainly on ancient documents found in the famous Dunhuang Caves in the Taklamakan Desert along the Silk Road, he was especially interested in the manuscripts from Dunhuang stored in the Library’s collection. Among those is a very ancient scroll of the Diamond Sutra dating from the year 673, and two scrolls containing part of the Lotus Sutra in Chinese, most probably the translation by Kumarajiva.

One unique item presented to Kyabgön Rinpoche was a text written in an impressive calligraphic style on a large piece of yellow silk. It is an interesting document for cultural history as for the history of religions likewise, as it contains a permission issued right after the Capuchin missionary Francesco Orazio Olivieri della Penna’s (1680-1745) last trip to Tibet in 1741 allowing the Capuchins’ Christian mission in Tibet during the period of the 7^th Dalai Lama (1708–1757).

The Library holds two manuscript copies of the Secret Autobiography of the 5^th Dalai Lama (1617-1682) describing the visions and mystic experiences he had between the age of six until 1680, two years before he passed away. One of these texts dates from the 19^th century and is richly illustrated, similarly to the famous copy from the donation of Lionel Fournier to the Musée Guimet in Paris. More impressive though is the second copy presented to His Holiness, which was written during the lifetime of the 5^th Dalai Lama and bears his thumbprint on each onset of a chapter as a mark of his personal authorization.

After viewing a manuscript of the famous royal chronicles rgyal rabs gsal ba'i me long (The Mirror Illuminating the Royal Genealogies) written in the 14^th century by Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen, His Holiness examined a document containing a history of the Drikung Kagyu Order. At first glance Kyabgön Rinpoche and professors Hartmann and Ehrhard agreed that it should most probably be attributed to the surroundings of the Karma Kagyu, as the author states that his Root Lama was one of the Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoches, a Karma Kagyu lineage of Rinpoches, the first of whom was recognized by the 7^th Karmapa during the late 15^th century. His holiness found this text quite worthy of note, but there was no time to study the content of the document in detail.

The preservation of a language’s richness is an expression of the abundance of a people’s cultural, intellectual, and spiritual achievements. Kyabgön Rinpoche is keen on preserving the richness of the Tibetan language by collecting expressions that are unknown or forgotten, or have fallen into disuse. Therefore His Holiness was very impressed by a manuscript of 1859 containing a statutory notice of the Tibetan government concerning the types and amount of taxes to be collected in the provinces and the border regions. He pointed out many detailed descriptions of provisions, flora and fauna, household items etc., many of them described in terms which are no longer in use in the Tibetan language. Of similar interest to His Holiness was a 19^th century block print comprising a materia medica. It is remarkable because of its many colored illustrations of minerals, trees and their fruit, flowers, plants, animals, as well as medical instruments and anatomical tables. What makes this work especially precious for linguistic studies is the fact that besides the Tibetan terms presented for all the items shown, in many cases their Chinese and Monglian designation is given too.

Other treasures presented to His Holiness included a set of mandala paintings in gold and silver on indigo-dyed ground, dating from the 14^th century, manuscripts of mantras and dharanis written on birch bark and a few very large and outstanding Tibetan carved wooden book covers depicting Siddharta Gautama cutting off his hair after leaving his palace, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and Tantric deities, among those one most impressive gilded piece with a depiction of Hevajra in the center surrounded by other Tantric deities.

Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche left the Library quite impressed and continued his journey to the Aachen Drikung Center to revise translations of sadhanas and other Drikung texts to be published by the Drikung Kagyu Verlag and subsequently to Frankfurt, to deliver a lecture on the history of Tibet .