On December 27, 2009, a group of 58 students from the Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV), Dharamsala, accompanied by four teachers came to Dehra Dun to have an audience with His Holiness Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang. As per their request, His Holiness kindly provided an overview about the Songtsen Library and a brief introduction to rare Dunhuang manuscripts.

During the audience His Holiness stated that this Library was named after the 33^rd Dharma King of Tibet, Songtsen Gampo (617-650 CE). It was built for the preservation of the Dharma, the culture and tradition of Tibet and the Himalayan region. The Library is a center for learning and research for Tibetan and Himalayan studies. Songtsen Library presently offers a Tibetan Language course for foreigners, and will improve the standard of language education in the near future.

The Library houses many invaluable Dharma texts from Tibet and the Himalayan region, and especially a collection of the rare Dunhuang manuscripts. The original manuscripts dating from around the 6^th to the 12^th century were discovered in the early part of the 20^th century in various caves along the famous Silk Road in Central Asia.

His Holiness threw light on various important issues concerning the Pugyal Dynasty and provided details on the history of the Great Emperors of Tibet based on chronicles and historical writings from the Dunhuang manuscripts. In the light of new the evidence from Dunhuang texts, His Holiness started his lecture with a reassessment of the reign of Nyatri Tsenpo (gnya' khri btsan po), who lived from 417-345 BCE and also revised the generally held opinion of Langdarma (glang dar ma), who reigned from 838 to 841 CE, as being a great persecutor of Buddhism.

The students were very interested on this new perspective shed on Tibetan history, and they were also delighted about the benevolent conduct of His Holiness with them. In the end, Kyabgön Rinpoche had a group photo taken outside the Library and tea was served for all the students.