I.1 The rescue and preservation of the ancient Tibetan books is conducive to enhance ethnic solidarity and maintain national unity and social stability which can help to create a harmonious social environment for the implementation of the strategy of the development of the western China.

The accumulation of ancient Tibetan books has experienced a very long history. As an important carrier of Tibetan traditional culture, these ancient books possess distinctive ethnic features and have become an emblem that distinguishes Tibetan people from other ethnic groups. They also serve as the historical information helpful for resolving outstanding issues left by the history and safeguarding the unity of the country. They are evidence of border lines of China, as a unified country with many ethnic groups. The rescue and exploration of ancient Tibetan books is an indication that the central government fully respects religious beliefs, customs and sentiments of ethnic minority peoples, which is not only in conformity with the principle of national equality, but also helps to maintain ethnic solidarity, national unity and social stability.

I.2. The rescue and preservation of ancient Tibetan books and documents is conducive to promote the socialist spiritual civilization in Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited areas. Since China's reform and opening-up, the economy and people's living standard have had remarkable changes in the areas of ethnic minorities. With the development of the economy and the improvement of people's living, the level of culture and education in Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited areas has also improved remarkably. Accordingly, people of all ethnic groups expect a higher level of spiritual civilization while pursuing the material civilization. There is an immense size of spiritual treasures in ancient Tibetan books. By rescuing, arranging and exploring these books, we can obtain the spiritual power indispensable to the development of the western China. And the integration of this kind of drive and the development of the western China will become an invisible cohesion of irreplaceable importance.

I.3. By collecting and rationally utilizing ancient Tibetan books, we can preserve and pass down the outstanding ethnic cultures and further transform numerous cultural advantages into resource advantages, which is one of the important ways to promote the development of the western China. Ancient Tibetan books with diverse knowledge contain the records of colorful cultural relics and unique ethnic customs. In recent years, Tibetan people have fully explored the potential of economic development and they have achieved some success in taking advantage of unique cultural resource to construct the tourism economy with ethnic features. However, there are still many categories of knowledge resource available. During the exploration process of the ancient ethnic medicine books, a rough statistics made by researchers shows that, in The Four medical Tantras(Rgyud bzhi) alone, there are 911 categories of individual medicine materials and 3,456 medicine formula for various kinds of illnesses. In this way, the researchers have studied and written many works with either theoretic or pragmatic value on one hand; and the pharmaceutics companies have developed and manufactured medicines with special effect, such as the 70-ingredient Pearl, 25-ingredient Coral, and Riench Drangior, etc., by making use the unique features of the medicine materials on the Tibetan plateau, which have gained social and economic efficiencies and showed great potential to use these resources.

I.4. By collating and cataloging ancient Tibetan books and documents, we can fully explore the outstanding educational thoughts of different ethnic groups which can help to cultivate all types of talents for the leap-forward development of Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited areas. In the process of arranging and exploring ancient Tibetan books and documents, we should fully explore the excellent educational thoughts and cultural achievements within the ethnic traditional cultures so as to attract more attention to culture, science and technology from Tibet and the other Tibetan inhabited areas. Thus it will be helpful for the cultivation of the new-type talents with ethnic characteristics and solution to the problem of talent shortage during the development of the western China. The development of the western China calls for the support from outside world, but fundamentally speaking, its success still relies on the local talent resource.

II.1. Since the task of collecting, collating, cataloguing and publishing ancient Tibetan books was initiated in Tibet Autonomous Region in 1985, a number of great works have been successively collated and published, including History of Buddhism by Diwu, a historical book with unique copy written during the 12th century, Antholoty of Works by Gendun Chopel(1-3), a book never collected and printed in history The General History of Tibet, a newly-edited Tibetan history monograph, Kangyur, and the Tibetan Tripitaka of Bon religion, which was collaboratively collated and published by the non-governmental forces outside Tibetan inhabited areas. In addition, nearly 50 types of multi-volume ancient Tibetan books of great academic importance on history, literature, philosophy, traditional Tibetan astrology, medicine, arts and crafts, complete works of famous writers, the legend of King Gesar, rules for scripts and grammars, costume and musical instruments., totaling 150,000 copies, have been collated and published. Since the enlarged meeting of the leadership group for ancient Tibetan books was hold in 1999, seven prefectures (cities) in the Region have reported 14,428 pages of catalogues in collating and cataloguing ancient Tibetan books and documents, including 10,501 pages of book category, 3,280 pages of inscription category, 109 pages of correspondence category and 538 pages of balled category. In addition, the catalogued entries of abstracts of ancient Tibetan books and documents in Tibetan language have been finalized and translated into Chinese.

II.2. Since the office for ancient books and documents of ethnic minorities of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of Qinghai Province was set up in 1984, over 20 ancient Tibetan books have been collected, collated and published. All these ancient Tibetan books available have been catalogued in a simplified manner. According to a rough statistics, the experts have catalogued 125 sections, 448 volumes and 1,872,000 leaves of anthology category; and 3,016 sections and 1,243,233 leaves of non-anthology category. Among all these books, 90 volumes and 32, 238 leaves were written by authors originated from Qinghai. In addition, the literature of Oral category in 3000 entries.

II.3. The office for ancient books and documents of ethnic minorities of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of Gansu Province made a general survey and catalogued the relevant ancient books throughout the province. According to the statistics, there were more than 80,000 volumes (copies) of ancient Tibetan books of various periods, such as Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing Dynasties, and Republican Period etc., covering many branches of learning, such as, medicine, astronomical calendaring, cultural relic, language, history, economy, religion, literature, and translation etc. So far, 25 of ancient Tibetan books had been collated and published. Prefecture-level leadership group and compilation committee for ancient book cataloguing have been set up by the ancient book office of Ethnic Affairs Commission of Gansu Province to organize the relevant personnel to carry out general survey and cataloguing. According to the survey, there were more than 28,1000 entries which need to be cataloged in a simplified manner. As of today, more than 166,000 have been catalogued.

II.4. Office for Ancient Books and Documents of Ethnic Minorities, Ethnic Affairs Commission of Sichuan Province started to catalogue ancient Tibetan books in 1981. According to incomplete statistics, there were over 290,000 sets (volumes) of various categories of ancient Tibetan books in the Tibetan inhabited areas of Sichuan, and a many oral literatures need to be collected, collated and cataloged. After more than 20 years of efforts, more than 1.05 million and 120,000 pieces of printing blocks of ancient Tibetan books had been rescued, collected and preserved. 4,900 pieces of Tibetan painting were preserved, 8,581 sets (volumes) of ancient Tibetan books were collated, 41 volumes of rare and uncommon works were rescued and reinscribed, and 346 varieties were published. As to ancient books cataloguing, the simplified entries for over 5000 volumes of Sichuan Tibetan Pats, for more than 4,000 volumes (copies) of Bon scriptures, and for more than 900 volumes of scriptures of Jonang sect were selected and examined according to relevant requirements, among which, those for books of Sichuan Tibetan Pats was finally approved in Chengdu in January 2002.

II.5. The office for ancient books and documents of ethnic minorities of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of Yunnan Province started collating ancient Tibetan books in 1979. According to the distribution and collection of ancient books and documents in the province, with emphasis on Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the office set out from collection and collation of Legend of King Gesar and the general survey on folk literature as well as various ancient Tibetan books and documents concerning history, religion and culture in the region. So far, Diqing Tibetology Institute had collected and preserved more than 30 copies of Legend of King Gesar in hand-written version and woodcut version; monasteries in the region collected more than 30 copies of Tibetan Tripitaka written in gold juice, silver juice and chinabar, other ancient books and documents in handwritten version and woodcut version, Catholic sutra in Tibetan, literature and history works etc., and over 1,400 copies of relevant documents and files. Several dozens of Tibetan books have been collated, translated and published, such as Legend of King Gesar etc. As to ancient Tibetan books cataloguing and collating, about 2,000 sheets of brief bibliographical entry have been compiled.

II.6. Beijing is the political, economic and cultural center of China. With the advance of times, especially after the founding of the People's Republic of China, study of Tibetology has been further strengthened. Many libraries and relevant units in Beijing have collected and preserved a large numbers of ancient Tibetan books. Since cataloguing of ancient Tibetan books started at the beginning of 2001, the Editing and Collating Department of Ancient Tibetan Books of Beijing Region has invited relevant cataloguing experts and catalogue researchers and professionals to form the backbone team for the cataloguing task in Beijing based on the existing cataloguing team. Up till now, they have completed the task of collating and cataloguing ancient Tibetan 7 books collected by China Tibetology Research Center and other organizations. Nearly 20,000 volumes (books) of ancient Tibetan books have been collated and catalogued, and about 20,000 pages of simplified entries have been compiled. As to collating and publishing of ancient Tibetan book, since the Management Board for Planning of Collating and Publishing for Tibetan Ancient Books was established in 1984, ancient Tibetan books have been tapped and rescued, Lamas' Commentaries and a dozen of other ancient Tibetan books have been collated and published thanks to support from the people of all walks of life.

III. The rich resources of ancient Tibetan books and documents have important significance in the construction of ethnic cultures, while China western development sets higher requirements for Tibetan ancient books' salvage, preservation, development and application, and provides more favorable social and policy environment for preservation and exploitation of ancient Tibetan books. Therefore, the departments concerned should make use of this opportunity of China western development and strengthen manpower and financial input for exploitation and utilization of major ancient Tibetan books and documents.

III.1. Being fully aware of the urgency of rescuing and preserving ancient Tibetan books and documents, expanding collection channels and strengthening rescue efforts. During collating and compiling the brief bibliographical entry of ancient Tibetan books and documents, we were fully aware of the urgency of rescuing and preserving ancient Tibetan books and documents. So far, many precious ancient Tibetan books and documents are still held individually by local people without being properly protected. Some scripts that have never been printed are eroded and damaged by insects. They are at risk of disappearance. So it is an imperative task to collect and rescue these documents. In expanding collection channel, (1)we should investigate into folk stories, family trees and choreographies by visiting monasteries and communicating with religious workers to make clear real information on individual collections; (2)we should pay attention to a broad range of disciplines rather than limited to literature, history and philosophy, with equal importance needed to be attached to documents in natural science; (3)while keeping their original forms, we should collate various ancient Tibetan documents with Tibetan ethnic style; (4)for the collected hand-written copies and unique copies etc., those selected and identified by experts that are valuable in academic research and in use should be timely collated and published to bring into full play their special role.

III.2. Leaders at all levels, the departments concerned and all social forces should attach adequate importance to the task of compiling combined catalogue of ancient Tibetan books and documents. Leaders at all levels should not only be full aware of the importance of this task, but also greatly support this task. Besides rescue and preservation, it is also an imperative task to catalogue existing ancient Tibetan books and documents. The objective of collecting and collating ancient Tibetan books and documents is to make full use of them. All social forces in Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited regions should be fully mobilized to make clear the distribution and quantity of ancient books and documents and then compile combined catalogue for them by regions and disciplines. So far, a total of 195,542 pages of catalogue for ancient Tibetan books from Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Beijing etc. and 6,927 pages of brief bibliographical entry for other documents have been complied. Since 1988, over 600 kinds of ancient Tibetan books and documents from the six provinces and regions have been collated and published.

III.3. Strengthening rescue, preservation and collation of ancient Tibetan books and documents using advanced scientific management methods and modern technical processes. While implementing the strategy of China western development, with informationization construction in western regions gathering pace, the task of rescuing and collating ancient Tibetan books and documents also face the challenge of this information era. The departments concerned in western regions should make use of this favorable opportunity, improve their awareness and provide instructions in the full process of rescuing and collating ancient Tibetan books and documents using the methods and theories of newly emerging disciplines such as systematic and operational research etc. If possible, modern video recording, micro-duplication and disk writing techniques can be used to perform full-text storage for all ancient Tibetan books and documents with various carriers to realize their rescue. Based on the existing work results, modern techniques can be used to establish a database for ancient Tibetan books and documents so as to provide online research, enquiry and exchange for researchers and realize the objective of exchange and resource sharing of ethnical traditional cultures.

III.4 Selectively exploiting and making full use of their potential value based on collating and compiling catalogues of ancient Tibetan books and documents. Rescue and collation of ancient Tibetan books and documents aims to (1)preserve valuable cultural relics; and (2)exploit and utilize ancient Tibetan books and documents. Western regions should grasp this favorable opportunity of China western development to integrate rescue and exploitation of ancient Tibetan books and documents into local economic and cultural construction so as to fully bring into playing the special functions and potential value of ancient Tibetan books and documents. While performing rescue and preservation, emphasis should be laid on their exploitation and utilization. The ancient Tibetan books and documents should be classified and collated, and then utilized according to existing successful experience to contribute to social and economic development in Tibet and other Tibetan regions, with some economic benefit having been achieved. This task will have its potential value and practical significance only after these ancient Tibetan books and documents are converted into effective resources for social and economic development of Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited regions.

In China western development, an honorable historical mission and arduous task of researchers for Tibetology and ancient books is to effectively rescue and utilize ancient Tibetan books and documents. This has a special significance in coordinating the construction of the Two Civilizations in Tibet and other Tibetan inhabited areas and promoting preservation of all ethnic cultures and construction of new cultures.

A' Hua, Senior Researcher of China Tibetology Research Center