Sanggedajie

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Sanggedajie, Male, Tibetan, from Guoluozangzuzizhi, Qinghai, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Cangwenshufa (Ⅶ-64). The tradition is documented in Guoluozangzuzizhi, Qinghai. Within the regional tradition and school record of Cangwenshufa in Guoluozangzuzizhi, Qinghai: Golog De'ang Sazhi, that is, the De'ang Sazhi style of calligraphy, is an art of Tibetan writing practiced in De'ang Township, Darlag County, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, and parts of the surrounding area. It takes its name from De'ang Township, where it originated, and its founder was the monk Sa'an Danzeng, a native of De'ang. To this day it has been transmitted essentially in a single line, through seven generations in succession; the elder Bazhi of De'ang Monastery was once the sole inheritor of this exclusive calligraphic tradition. It takes its name from De'ang Township, where it originated, and its founder was the monk Sa'an Danzeng, a native of De'ang.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Tibetan ethnicity, born in March 1972 in Dari County, Qinghai Province. He entered monastic life in childhood and assiduously studied the traditional Tibetan calligraphy of the De'ang Sazhi style, acquiring a fairly comprehensive command of Tibetan calligraphy and its related skills. Over many years he has engaged in continuous creative practice, collecting and studying Tibetan calligraphy ancient and modern, and has achieved breakthroughs and innovations. His calligraphy is vigorous and rounded, clear and elegant, with a pronounced personal style and high aesthetic and practical value. He has independently written more than twenty works running to tens of thousands of pages, including “The Life of Padmasambhava” and “Wen Jie (Liberation through Hearing)”; he continued another two hundred-odd pages of “Wen Jie” left unfinished by the elderly Cha Bazhi, and transcribed the Tibetan medical classic “The Four Tantras”. His works have been published in the journal “Zhangqar”. He is devoted to popularising and transmitting De'ang Sazhi, and taught Tibetan calligraphy for a full year to nearly three hundred pupils at the Golog Tibetan Senior Middle School and other primary and secondary schools. Within the documented technical tradition of Cangwenshufa in Guoluozangzuzizhi, Qinghai: The Tibetan people have always attached great importance to the art of calligraphy. Tibetan calligraphy is world-renowned for the great variety of its script styles. As the quickest practical script to write, the Qiuti style, with its beautiful, flowing form, is widely used in regions where Tibetan culture prevails. According to the traditional Tibetan classification of learning, calligraphy is a minor branch of the science of craftsmanship, one of the Five Great Sciences. Tibetan calligraphy has three forms: the standard (zhen), the running (xing), and the cursive (cao). The standard script is used for carving and inscriptions, the running script for official documents and other relatively formal handwritten texts, and the cursive script for everyday notes and letters. Tibetan calligraphy is written with a hard pen; the pens are mostly made of bamboo, though iron pens are also used. Golog De'ang Sazhi, that is, the De'ang Sazhi style of calligraphy, is an art of Tibetan writing practiced in De'ang Township, Darlag County, Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, and parts of the surrounding area. Golog De'ang Sazhi belongs to hard-pen calligraphy: its lines are simple and fluent, close in appearance to a carved seal style. Its writing employs mainly the Uchen style (regular script) and the Ume style (running script), together with the large and small black styles, the round style, the Lantsa style (an ancient Indian Sanskrit script), and various decorative styles. The style of Golog De'ang Sazhi is distinctive: uprightness and firmness are felt within its warmth, and suppleness shows within its hardness, displaying a beauty akin to that of music and dance. This calligraphy looks simple but is in fact not easy to master; it requires the practitioner to possess deep skill and profound cultural attainment. The writing implements of Golog De'ang Sazhi are also highly refined: pen, ink, and paper are all subject to strict specifications, and the bamboo pen is the most important writing tool. The implements of Golog De'ang Sazhi are made according to a rigorous technical process, showing considerable scientific merit in pen-making, paper-making, printing, and ink-grinding. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Archival Record of Process Steps": The implements of Golog De'ang Sazhi are made according to a rigorous technical process, showing considerable scientific merit in pen-making, paper-making, printing, and ink-grinding. "The founding monk": The hand takes its name from De'ang township where the monk Sa'an Dainzin founded it, and has passed by single line through seven generations. "Uchen and ume together": It writes chiefly in the upright and running hands, also drawing on great and small black scripts, round and Lantsa forms, in a crisp near-epigraphic line. "Strict standards for pen, ink and paper": Pen, ink and paper are all strictly specified, the bamboo pen above all, and each is made by a rigorous process with its own technical logic.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Tibetan Calligraphy (Golog De'ang Sazhi), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Sanggedajie · National Representative Bearer Archive