Analysts, however, say the claim is a strategic effort to assert state authority over Tibetan Buddhism to be able to eventually influence matters like the Dalai Lama’s succession.
Chinese state media Global Times on June 19 reported that the project involves hands-on restoration work, monitoring the storage of the manuscripts, and digitising them to extract Tibetan text through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which is a key focus in the third phase.
Since its launch in 2019, the project has created digital copies of 115 volumes from its target of 465 volumes, which is about 29,380 pages called ‘leaves’, according to China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration. China has initiated similar projects in the past, including a two-year project in 2006 to study and preserve rare Buddhist Sanskrit scriptures.
Sriparna Pathak, professor of China Studies and International Relations at OP Jindal Global University, believes it is no coincidence that the restoration project – dubbed ‘Palm-Leaf Manuscripts and Ancient Literature Protection Project’ – is being carried out inside the Potala Palace, the main residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government, in Tibet’s capital Lhasa. It has remained under Chinese control since China occupied the country in 1959.
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“Potala Palace is of immense significance in Tibetan Buddhism,” she said. Sriparna added that the promotion of the project should be viewed in continuation of President Xi Jinping’s meeting with the CCP-recognised Panchen Lama, the timing around the Dalai Lama’s birthday, and the Chinese government’s attempt to appropriate Tibetan Buddhism as “Chinese Buddhism”.
Tsewang Dorji, Research Fellow at Tibet Policy Institute in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, called it yet another attempt by the Chinese government to claim Tibetan Buddhism as their own.
“While this is not new, China’s wish is to show that they are the authoritative figure when it comes to matters of Tibetan Buddhism, so they can interfere in the Dalai Lama’s succession,” he said.
The state media report “used the Chinese term Xizang to Sinicise Tibet, and placed Potala Palace within it, thereby trying to Sinicise the importance of the palace to Buddhism. All of these events, one after the other, around His Holiness’s birthday, are to normalise China’s choice of the Dalai Lama,” Pathak added.
In Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, the Tibetan spiritual leader’s residence since he escaped into exile, preparations are in full swing to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday on July 6. He had said that the next Dalai Lama will be born in a free world in his latest book, Voice for the Voiceless, published in March this year.
More recently, Penpa Tsering, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration (formerly Tibetan Government-in-Exile), said the Dalai Lama will name his successor on July 2, according to The New Indian Express.
Pathak remarked that China’s latest promotion of their work in Tibetan Buddhism also reflects their broader efforts to sinicise Tibetan culture and language — notably by replacing the term Tibet with Xizang, a move that began appearing in official Chinese documents in October 2023. It has since influenced other Asian countries like Pakistan and Bhutan into adopting the term that Tibetans say is an attempt at erasing Tibet’s identity.
