Cangwenshufa
01 · Historical Records
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 · Core Techniques & Process
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.
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.
Sanggedajie and the Four Medical Tantras
Sanggedajie has copied more than ten thousand pages of Lotus Birth and the Commentary on Meaning, completed two hundred pages begun by the elder, and written the Four Medical Tantras.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
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.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Cangwenshufa · Cangwenshufa.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The richly varied art of Tibetan calligraphy possesses high artistic value and contains abundant cultural substance, offering broad space for research into Tibetan literature, philosophy, medicine, music, painting, and other fields. Golog De'ang Sazhi has a developmental history of more than two hundred years and has been transmitted essentially in a single line to the present day, through seven generations in succession; Bazhi, an octogenarian of De'ang Monastery, is currently the sole inheritor of this exclusive calligraphic tradition. Golog De'ang Sazhi is an important achievement of Tibetan culture, art, and social history, possessing considerable research value in ethnology, art theory, and historical culture. Cha Bazhi (official archive record of the associated inheritor): From the age of seven to sixteen, he studied the fundamentals of the Tibetan script and calligraphy under his maternal uncle; from seventeen to twenty-five, he took Luolagada as his teacher, studying Tibetan Buddhist doctrine, Tibetan literature, and the art of De'ang Sazhi. The bamboo pens he made wrote well and were highly practical. The De'ang Sazhi he wrote is fluent and refined in its stroke work, uniting the vigorous strength of the Derge style of Kham with the suppleness of the U (central Tibetan) style of Tibet: uprightness within mildness, resilience within hardness. Male, Tibetan, born in February 1925, died in January 2009, from Darlag County, Qinghai Province. Representative inheritor of Tibetan Calligraphy (Golog De'ang Sazhi), an intangible cultural heritage project of the third national-level batch. Seventh-generation inheritor of the Golog De'ang Sazhi Tibetan calligraphy. Over the years he devoted himself to the study of De'ang Sazhi calligraphy and trained nearly thirty students. Sangge Dajie (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Tibetan, born in March 1972, from Darlag County, Qinghai Province. He became a monk from childhood and diligently studied the traditional Tibetan calligraphy of the De'ang Sazhi style, acquiring a fairly comprehensive command of Tibetan calligraphy and related skills. Over the years he has continually carried out creative practice, collecting and studying Tibetan calligraphy ancient and modern, and has achieved breakthroughs and innovations. His calligraphy is vigorous yet mellow, clear and elegantly refined, with a marked individual style, possessing high aesthetic and practical value. He has independently written more than twenty works totaling over ten thousand pages, including the Biography of Guru Padmasambhava and the Wenjie; he continued more than two hundred pages of the remaining volumes of the Wenjie written by the elder Cha Bazhi, and copied the Four Medical Tantras of Tibetan medicine. His works have been published in the journal Zhangqar. Eager to popularize and transmit De'ang Sazhi, he taught Tibetan calligraphy for a full year to nearly three hundred students at the Golog Prefecture Tibetan Senior High School and a number of other primary and secondary schools. Representative inheritor of Tibetan Calligraphy (Golog De'ang Sazhi), an intangible cultural heritage project of the fourth national-level batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chabazhi 03-1283
- Sanggedajie 04-1807
- Zhaxidunzhu 05-2676
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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