Buddha's Word: The Life of Books in Tibet and Beyond

Published to accompany the exhibition Buddha’s Word: The Life of Books in Tibet and Beyond, 28 May 2014 - 17 January 2015. The book charts the story of Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, as artefacts with distinctive social lives, as sacred objects and as Buddha’s relics, with their own potency and agency. It draws on research and collections from across the university of Cambridge, its Museums and the university Library and traces the multiple paths that books have taken as they have spread the words of Buddha, throughout Asia and across the world. The written words of Buddha’s teaching have undergone radical transformations as travelling texts: from manuscript to printing and from palm leaves to digital dharma.