No one yet grabbed on to this, at least on this list, but ...
>> my professor found in Lhasa some large volumes of books in which there are many photographs of South Asian manuscripts. These books belong to a big project of an official committee in Lhasa which aims at preserving palm-leaf manuscripts
in Tibet. <<
if this means what it seems to say, this means that someone, at least, namely your professor, has (some?) access to the near-legendary volumes produced a few years ago, a set of 61 if memory serves, in which --again, as I recall--excellent
color photos were reproduced of palm leaf manuscripts ( those in good condition, and thought to be complete? I am not certain about this, but anyway apparently not paper MSS), and of which only a very small number of sets were produced, those inaccessible
even to scholars in the PRC, much less abroad.
**IF** someone now has actual access to these volumes ... well, I dare say it is not a big exaggeration to say that this signals a sea change, and I am far from alone in eagerly panting for access to these photos.
Can you provide any more details?
(In the plates you offered, on 1b-4b the volume itself is visible, and the color of the binding agrees with what I remember from seeing several years ago a CCTV segment on the publication of these volumes, so I would guess that your
professor [I am quite eager to know who this is] seems to have held in his/her hands one at least of these very volumes.)
Jonathan Silk
--
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands
copies of my publications may be found at