Cataloging of the great Tibetan text collections in Mongolia has been ongoing since 1999. The cataloging work has been undertaken by a staff of Mongolians working together with ACIP Cataloging Supervisor Ngawang Gyatso (who was trained in India). We estimate that the holdings contain approximately 650,000 titles, although a good number of them are, no doubt, duplicates. The Mongolian collections are especially important, since we have discovered many texts there that we have not found anywhere else in the world.
The library of the main Buddhist monastery of the country, Gangdan Tekchen Ling, holds a vast collection of books that, during the religious persecution of the communist era from 1937 until only recently were not properly cared for. We estimate that it will take many years simply to put all the loose woodblock pages of the works back into order and catalog them properly. The efforts by local Mongolian scholars to restore the Library are admirable, although they have a serious lack of material and financial support needed to complete their task.
The collection at the Mongolian National Library is in much better condition; it generally contains woodblock prints and manuscripts that the former communist authorities determined had monetary value, and was better cared for.
We would like to express our thanks to several parties in Mongolia who greatly facilitated our trips there. The senior staff from the Mongolian National Library, including director Chilaajav Haidav and many others, have been tremendously helpful. We are also grateful to Venerable Lama Guru Deva, whose efforts to save Tibetan literature over many decades have been equaled by few. The late Ven. Bakula Rinpoche, Former Ambassador of the Government of India to Mongolia, was a truly great scholar and thinker who took sincere interest in the cataloging work. His assistant and now successor, Mr. Sonam Wangchuk, has been especially helpful to Project staff during our visits.
