A bio­graph­ic­al essay about

Dieter Schuh

Pos­i­tion & Affil­i­ation: Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us of Tibet­o­logy at Bonn Uni­ver­sity, Depart­ment of Mon­go­li­an and Tibetan Studies

This bio­graph­ic­al essay was writ­ten by Karl-Heinz Everd­ing as part of the pub­lic­a­tion “Cüp­pers, Chris­toph, Karl-Heinz Everd­ing, and Peter Schwieger (eds). 2022. A Life in Tibetan Stud­ies: Fest­s­chrift for Dieter Schuh at the Occa­sion of his 80th Birth­day. Lumbini: LIRI.” The Lumbini Inter­na­tion­al Research Insti­tute has kindly author­ised the repro­duc­tion of this text and accom­pa­ny­ing photographs.

Born on Decem­ber 14, 1942, in Delme, France, and grow­ing up in Ger­many in the Harz region and in Krefeld, after finish­ing school in 1963 Dieter Schuh star­ted to study Math­em­at­ics, Phys­ics and Philo­sophy at the Uni­ver­sity of Cologne. Unable to study Ancient Greek in Cologne, which would have been use­ful for his philo­sophy stud­ies, he and a fel­low stu­dent took addi­tion­al les­sons in Sanskrit from Prof. Klaus Lud­wig Jan­ert (19221994). This is where he first developed his interest in Indi­an logic (Navya-Nyāya). Klaus Lud­wig Jan­ert inten­ded to send Dieter Schuh to south­ern India with a sti­pend from the Ger­man Aca­dem­ic Exchange Ser­vice (DAAD), and the Indi­an gov­ern­ment. He had already begun to learn the south­ern Indi­an lan­guages Tamil and Malay­alam in Cologne from the vis­it­ing pro­fess­or Shri Krishna Sharma when Klaus Lud­wig Jan­ert was told by the Mon­gol­ist Prof. Walth­er Heis­sig (19132005), who had foun­ded the Cent­ral Asia Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­sity of Bonn in 1966, that it would be bet­ter if Dieter Schuh went to Dharam­sala, where he could learn about the almost entirely unex­plored fields of Tibetan math­em­at­ics and astro­nomy from Tibetan schol­ars. So, as a math­em­atician and without even hav­ing com­pleted a basic course of Tibetan, Dieter Schuh was ‘thrown into the deep end’ and sent to Dharam­sala with the sti­pend from the DAAD and the Indi­an gov­ern­ment in 1967. Armed with the Manu­al of Spoken Tibetan (Lhasa Dia­lect) by Kun Chang and Betty Shefts and ably assisted by Ye shes sby­in pa, a Lhas­aborn monk from the rNam rgy­al grva tshang who was instruc­ted by the Dalai Lama to help him and would con­tin­ue to do this for many years, Dieter Schuh quickly gained profi­ciency by con­vers­ing with the exiled Tibetans from Lhasa. Then he began his stud­ies of Tibetan astro­nomy and calendric­al cal­cu­la­tion (Tib. sKar rtsis kyi rig gnas) under the Amdo astro­nomer and astro­lo­ger Blo gros rgya mtsho. Dur­ing this time in Dharam­sala he also encountered oth­er Tibet­o­lo­gists such as Heath­er Stoddard.

During a meeting in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, Dieter Schuh hands the Swiss photographer Lucienne Favret a copy of Helmut Hoffmann’s publication “The Religions of Tibet”. (Photo: Dr Elisabeth Finckh, Dharamsala 1967)
Dur­ing a meet­ing in McLeod Ganj, Dharam­sala, Dieter Schuh hands the Swiss pho­to­graph­er Lucienne Favret a copy of Helmut Hoffmann’s pub­lic­a­tion “The Reli­gions of Tibet”. (Photo: Dr Elisa­beth Finckh, Dharam­sala 1967)

 

One anec­dote will have to suf­fice here as an illus­tra­tion of Dieter Schuh’s time in Dharam­sala and how quickly he integ­rated into Tibetan soci­ety. Dur­ing a private meet­ing with Karl-Heinz Everd­ing in 1998, bsTan ’dzin dge rgy­as, the former private sec­ret­ary of the Dalai Lama, asked about the health of Dieter Schuh and then, without any prompt­ing, added:

You know, when Dieter Schuh came to Dharam­sala, with­in one year he not only mastered read­ing Clas­sic­al Tibetan but also spoke Tibetan per­fectly. And one year later he had finished the com­plete study of Tibetan astro­nomy. We have nev­er seen a per­son like him here again. And when he was invited to the meet­ings of our soci­ety, he came and spoke hon­or­ific Tibetan (Tib. zhe sa) in a way that even we were barely able to under­stand. It was a level of eleg­ance in Tibetan we had hardly ever heard before. He was a really aston­ish­ing man!”

When asked about this later, Dieter Schuh revealed only that at the time he had read the bio­graphy of the 7th Dalai Lama and had mem­or­ised a few of its idio­mat­ic expres­sions to occa­sion­ally use in his con­ver­sa­tions with Tibetans as a sort of ‘party trick’. He knew full well that these Tibetan idioms are no longer com­pre­hens­ible, so he enjoyed teas­ing the Tibetans with their own culture.

Hav­ing returned to Bonn, he set about com­plet­ing his dis­ser­ta­tion, which was pub­lished in 1973 as Unter­suchun­gen zur Geschichte der tibet­ischen Kal­ender­rech­nung [Stud­ies on the His­tory of Tibetan Calendric­al Cal­cu­la­tion]. The issue he ini­tially set out to deal with was described as follows:

The dif­fi­culty of an exact con­ver­sion of even the year with­in a Tibetan date still exists today and lies in the fact that the begin­ning of the Tibetan year not only dif­fers from the begin­ning of the Juli­an or Gregori­an cal­en­dar year but also changes in its rela­tion­ship to the ‘fixed’ begin­ning of the nat­ur­al year because of its depend­ence on the vari­able begin­nings of spe­cif­ic phases of the moon. Addi­tion­ally, the Tibetan calendric­al cal­cu­la­tion for the length of the nat­ur­al year takes as its basis a dif­fer­ent value to the Juli­an or Gregori­an cal­en­dar. This in turn leads to a not insig­ni­fic­ant dis­place­ment of the aver­age begin­ning of the year for the Tibetan cal­en­dar. For the exact con­ver­sion of any date includ­ing the month and day, one par­tic­u­lar dif­fi­culty lies in the inclu­sion of ‘leap months’ in the Tibetan cal­en­dar and anoth­er arises due to the pat­tern of leav­ing out or adding in cer­tain days of the calendar.”

In his dis­ser­ta­tion, he starts with a basic intro­duc­tion to the his­tory of Tibetan astro­nomy, divin­a­tion and calendric­al cal­cu­la­tion and goes on to provide com­pre­hens­ive con­ver­sion tables which allow any Tibetan cal­en­dar days from 1027–1971 to be con­ver­ted into the mod­ern European cal­en­dar. In 1972, he had writ­ten his own pro­gramme in the pro­gram­ming lan­guage For­tran on an IBM com­puter to cal­cu­late these tables. It is no exag­ger­a­tion to say that this work revolu­tion­ised the sci­entif­ic insights into Tibetan calendric­al cal­cu­la­tions and con­tin­ue to form the most sig­ni­fic­ant ref­er­ence work for the descrip­tion of the Tibetan cal­en­dar and the con­ver­sion of Tibetan dates into mod­ern cal­en­dar dates, regard­less of which Tibetan cal­en­dar they were based on. The Korean Sokhyo Jo, who obtained his doc­tor­ate in 2016 in Har­vard with a work on Tibetan astro­nomy, made mul­tiple use of Dieter Schuh’s astro­nom­ic­al stud­ies and was there­fore well placed to offer the fol­low­ing praise:

All in all, Schuh, being equipped with the best philo­logy and … astro­nom­ic­al know­ledge, has pion­eered the new ter­rit­or­ies of skar rtsis and nag rtsis. His mar­vel­lous schol­ar­ship has been, is, and will be an inspir­a­tion for the research of the Tibetan rtsis.”

After this pion­eer­ing study, which would later pave his way to receiv­ing a Heis­en­berg Grant from the Ger­man Research Found­a­tion, he then moved into a com­pletely dif­fer­ent sub­ject with­in Tibet­o­logy, whose fun­da­ment­al soci­opol­it­ic­al sig­ni­fic­ance made it very import­ant to him: Tibetan dip­lo­mat­ics. Hav­ing set him­self the task of edit­ing, trans­lat­ing and ana­lys­ing every Tibetan lan­guage leg­al doc­u­ment from the peri­od of the Mon­go­li­an empire that he could lay his hands as an ori­gin­al or copy, his habil­it­a­tion dis­ser­ta­tion Erlasse und Send­s­chreiben mon­gol­ischer Herrscher für tibet­ische Geist­liche. Ein Beitrag zur Ken­nt­nis der Urkun­den des tibet­ischen Mit­telal­ters und ihr­er Dip­lo­matik (1977, A5) [Decrees and Missives of the Mon­go­li­an Rulers for Tibetan Clergy. A Con­tri­bu­tion to Know­ledge of the Offi­cial Doc­u­ments from the Tibetan Middle Ages and their Dip­lo­mat­ics] could offer sig­nificant clar­ity on many key ques­tions related to the his­tory of Tibet in the 13th/14th cen­tur­ies. This work was later sup­ple­men­ted by vari­ous mono­graphs, some of which he authored togeth­er with Jampa Kals­ang Phukhang: Urkun­den und Send­s­chreiben aus Zen­t­ralt­ibet, Ladakh und Zans­kar (A3 and A7) [Dip­lo­mas and Missives from Cent­ral Tibet, Ladakh and Zans­kar], His­tori­ograph­is­che Dok­u­mente aus Zaṅs-dkar (A13) [His­tori­ograph­ic­al Doc­u­ments from Zaṅs-dkar] and Urkun­den, Erlasse und Send­s­chreiben aus dem Besitz sikkimes­is­cher Adelshäuser und des Klosters Pho­dang (A6) [Dip­lo­mas, Decrees and Missives Held by Sikkimese Aris­to­crat­ic Houses and Pho­dang Mon­as­tery], and also by offi­cial doc­u­ments from the Ladhakhi rul­ing house (A11) and Tibeto-Mon­go­li­an doc­u­ments from the Qing era (A12). He con­duc­ted fur­ther stud­ies at this time which focussed on indi­vidu­al doc­u­ments or leg­al issues (B2, B4-B7, B9, B11 and B13), but here we merely men­tion his pub­lic­a­tion Polit­ische Imp­lika­tion­en tibet­ischer Urkun­den­formeln (A14) [Polit­ic­al Implic­a­tions of the Word­ing of Tibetan Dip­lo­mas] and the two essays Zum Entstehung­s­prozeß von Urkun­den in den tibet­ischen Herrscherkan­zlei­en (1983, B18) [On the Pro­cess of Form­a­tion of Dip­lo­mas in the Chan­cer­ies of Tibetan Rulers] and Recht und Gesetz in Tibet (1984, B19) [Laws and the Law in Tibet], that dealt with the fun­da­ment­al ques­tions of judi­cial prac­tice and jur­is­pru­dence, chan­cellery and judicature in Tibet. The issue of the law in Tibet had pre­vi­ously been rather neg­lected, so this abund­ance of stud­ies put the field on an entirely new footing.

His work in dip­lo­mat­ics then received its – inter­im – crown­ing glory with his pion­eer­ing mono­graph Grundla­gen tibet­ischer Siegel­kunde. Eine Unter­suchung über tibet­ische Siegelauf­s­chriften in ’Phag­spa-Schrift (1981, A9) [The Found­a­tions of Tibetan Sigil­lo­graphy. A Study of Tibetan Seal Imprints in the ’Phags-pa Script]. In total, in a peri­od of no more than ten years, Dieter Schuh edited, trans­lated and ana­lysed more than 200 Tibetan roy­al charters from the 13th-20th cen­tur­ies which he had pho­to­graphed dur­ing his time in India, Sikkim and Ladakh. He was deal­ing with mater­i­al which is exceed­ingly dif­fi­cult to pro­cess due to the diversity of idio­mat­ic expres­sions, its ever-chan­­ging, lex­ic­ally more-or-less undoc­u­mented leg­al ter­min­o­logy, and many oth­er lin­guist­ic pecu­li­ar­it­ies. Indeed, trans­lat­ing the mater­i­al with almost no omis­sions was an almost mira­cu­lous achieve­ment and demon­strates his pro­found under­stand­ing of the leg­al struc­tures and judi­cial beha­viour of the Tibetan state, his famili­ar­ity with the Tibetan sense of justice, soci­et­al real­it­ies and cul­tur­al influences, and also his unique mar­riage of incred­ible intu­ition with logic­al thought, which was prac­tic­ally pre­destined to pro­duce a suf­fi­cient grasp of the leg­al state­ments. He set in place an almost ines­tim­able found­a­tion for the study of Tibetan law and diplomatics.

The works which deal with the study of his­tory and jur­is­pru­dence mainly appeared dur­ing the peri­od when Dieter Schuh was work­ing in a pro­ject fun­ded by the Ger­man Research Found­a­tion (DFG) from 1969 to 1978 which was later taken up by the Göt­tin­gen Academy of Sci­ences. It was inten­ded to com­plete the cata­loguing of all the Tibetan manu­scripts and block prints that he him­self had pho­to­graphed while fun­ded by the DFG in India or which were stored in the Ber­lin State Lib­rary – Prus­si­an Cul­tur­al Her­it­age. These com­prised the Col­lec­ted Works of rJe Mi pham rnam rgy­al (1846–1912, A2) and of Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas (1813–1899, A4) as well as a large part of the doc­u­ments and scrip­tures col­lec­ted by Laurence Aus­tine Wad­dell (1854–1938) in Tibet (A8). By work­ing on the writ­ings of two import­ant lamas of the rNy­ing ma school and Waddell’s col­lec­tion of deluxe edi­tions and stand­ard works of Tibetan lit­er­at­ure, he opened up sig­nificant Tibetan source mater­i­al to fur­ther study which was of excep­tion­al exem­plary value and which, thanks to his numer­ous trans­la­tions and con­tent ana­lyses, presen­ted cru­cial aspects of Tibetan lit­er­ary his­tory. The pub­lic­a­tion of these three volumes, com­pris­ing more than 1000 indi­vidu­al descrip­tions, took place as part of the pro­ject Kata­logis­ier­ung ori­ent­al­is­cher Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land (KOHD) [Cata­loguing of Ori­ent­al Manu­scripts in Ger­man Col­lec­tions] with­in the Verzeich­nis der ori­ent­al­is­chen Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land [Uni­on Cata­logue of Ori­ent­al Manu­scripts in Ger­man Col­lec­tions]. This series of mono­graphs was pub­lished by the Indo­lo­gist Dr Wolfgang Vogt, Ber­lin State Lib­rary, who played a decis­ive role in the aca­dem­ic devel­op­ment of Dieter Schuh in this period.

Dur­ing his stay in India from Janu­ary 1967 to Autumn 1969, the jubil­ari­an had fol­lowed the advice of his Indo­lo­gist tutor in Cologne Prof. Klaus Lud­wig Jan­ert to carry out com­pre­hens­ive microfilm pho­to­graphy of Tibetan texts, for which he vis­ited vari­ous lib­rar­ies and mon­ast­ic­al insti­tutes in Dharam­sala, Dar­jeel­ing, Gang­tok, Kalimpong, Dehradun and Solan. In this way, his trusty Leica pre­served microfilm cop­ies of 6000 works with 350,000 pages of texts for the archives of the Ber­lin State Lib­rary – and as Dieter Schuh once noted, without any erro­neous ‘improve­ments’ by (overly) enthu­si­ast­ic edit­ors keen to enhance the faded parts of the pages for their offset print­ing, which would often res­ult in spelling mis­takes. A vivid image of these elab­or­ate efforts, often involving long and ardu­ous jour­neys but also lead­ing to encoun­ters with the Dalai Lama, Sa skya khri ’dzin, bDud ’joms rin po che, lJongs ldong Sangs rgy­as bstan ’dzin, Bya ’bral rin po che and oth­er high-rank­ing lamas, was giv­en by Dieter Schuh him­self in his research report (A2, Intro­duc­tion).

There fol­lowed his appoint­ment at the Depart­ment for Lin­guist­ics and Cul­tur­al Sci­ences of Cent­ral Asia (ZAS) at the Uni­ver­sity of Bonn, which gave him extraordin­ary free­dom in his research. In 1978 the DFG had awar­ded him a Heis­en­berg Grant for a peri­od of sev­en years, and then, shortly before this came to an end, the Uni­ver­sity of Bonn received fund­ing for two top-level research posts from the Fed­er­al State of Nordrhein-West­­­falen. Dieter Schuh was appoin­ted to one of these posts at the ZAS. He had already begun to teach Tibet­o­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Bonn in 1976, and this loc­a­tion remained the base for his work until he retired. The pri­or­it­ies in his long years of teach­ing activ­ity were sem­inars in astro­nomy and calendric­al cal­cu­la­tion, divin­a­tion, Tibetan his­tory, his­tori­ography, emic gram­mar, logic, gen­er­al lit­er­at­ure and dip­lo­mat­ics. These inform­at­ive and inspir­ing les­sons were atten­ded by an act­ive circle of stu­dents, includ­ing Roland Biel­mei­er, Mar­gret Cause­mann, Chris­toph Cüp­pers, Karl-Heinz Everd­ing, Silke Her­mann, Joachim Karsten, Andreas and Monika Kretschmar, Shen-yu Lin, Klaus-Dieter Math­es, Petra Maurer, Hanna Schneider, Peter Schwieger, Weirong Shen and Tem­ing Tseng.

Cave studies in Mustang: Daniel Gebauer during a risky attempt to abseil to caves which had not been accessed for centuries.
Cave stud­ies in Mus­tang: Daniel Gebauer dur­ing a risky attempt to abseil to caves which had not been accessed for centuries.

 

See­ing the need for an effi­cient, inex­pens­ive plat­form to pub­lish, present and pub­li­cise spe­cial­ist works in Tibet­o­logy, in 1976 he joined forces with col­leagues such as the Indo­lo­gist Dr Richard Oth­on Meisezahl and TibetoMon­gol­ist Prof. Rain­er Käm­pfe to found the Asso­ci­ation for His­tor­ic­al Stud­ies on High Asia [in Ger­man, Ver­ein­i­gung für Geschicht­swis­senschaft Hochasi­ens GmbH (VGH)] and its pub­lish­ing arm, the VGH-Wis­­senschaft­s­ver­­lag, which ini­tially had its registered office in St. Augustin, then in Bonn and later in Halle (Saale). The asso­ci­ation was imme­di­ately gran­ted char­it­able status for its object­ives of pro­mot­ing sci­ence and research. It was respons­ible for a range of seri­al pub­lic­a­tions, the most not­able of which was the Monu­menta Tibet­ica His­tor­ica (MTH), which was estab­lished in 1977 after a series of indi­vidu­al and group dis­cus­sions dur­ing the Csoma de Kőrös Memori­al Sym­posi­um. The found­ing com­mit­tee included Dieter Schuh along­side Prof. Luciano Petech (Rome), Prof. Wang Yao (Beijing), Prof. Rolf A. Stein (Par­is), Dr Geza Uray (Hun­gary), Prof. Hans-Rain­er Käm­pfe (Bonn) and Dr Richard Oth­on Meisezahl (Bonn) (B12). The aim of the MTH was to edit and make access­ible his­tor­ic­al mater­i­als from the Tibetan cul­tur­al region. Inspired by the Monu­menta Ger­mani­ae His­tori­ae (MGH), it com­prises the five sec­tions I. Scriptores, II. Vitae, III. Dip­lo­mata et Epis­tolae, IV Leges et doc­u­menta iur­is and V. Antiquit­ates.

In addi­tion, in order to pub­lish papers on the Tibetan sci­ences, on the geo­graphy and his­tory, art and cul­ture, soci­ety, and eco­nom­ics and mater­i­al cul­ture of Tibet, as well as on the reli­gion and philo­sophy of Buddhism and Bon, it set up the seri­al pub­lic­a­tions Archiv für zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung (AZG) [Archive for Cent­ral Asi­an His­tor­ic­al Research] and Beiträge zur Zen­t­ralasi­en­forschung (BZF) [Con­tri­bu­tions to Cent­ral Asia Stud­ies], Beiträge zur tibet­ischen Erzählforschung (BTE) [Con­tri­bu­tions to Tibetan Story Stud­ies] and Son­deraus­gaben der Tibet-Encyc­lo­pae­­dia (STE) [Spe­cial Edi­tions of the Tibet Encyc­lo­pae­dia]. The series Beiträge zur Tibet­ischen Erzählforschung, one volume of which was authored by Dieter Schuh him­self (A2), deserves a par­tic­u­lar men­tion here. The fifteen volumes pub­lished to date con­tain nearly 400 Tibetan fairy tales, fables and anec­dotes recor­ded and tran­scribed in the inter­na­tion­al phon­et­ic alpha­bet (IPA) in the dia­lects of Ding ri, sKy­id grong and Shig­atse, from nomads in Amdo, in Nang chen in east­ern Tibet and in south­east­ern Tibet, as well as in vari­ous regions of east­ern, west­ern and cent­ral Tibet. A lin­guist­ic ana­lys­is of the differ­ent dia­lects was also con­duc­ted adding to the benefits of this col­lec­tion of stor­ies from oral tra­di­tions which are under extreme threat from soci­et­al change and may very well soon be com­pletely lost.

Fur­ther­more, the well-known Zen­t­ralasi­at­ischen Stud­i­en (ZAS) [Cent­ral Asia Stud­ies], the journ­al pub­lished by the Cent­ral Asia Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­sity of Bonn, which has now become the Depart­ment of Mon­go­li­an and Tibetan Stud­ies with­in the Insti­tute of Ori­ent­al and Asi­an Stud­ies at the Rhen­ish Friedrich Wil­helm Uni­ver­sity of Bonn, benefit­ted from an ini­ti­at­ive of Dieter Schuh in 2003 and exper­i­enced a renais­sance after it was threatened with clos­ure: Volumes 1–31 (1967–2002) had been pub­lished by the Otto Har­rassow­itz-Ver­­lag, Wies­baden, and it was Dieter Schuh who ensured that its pub­lic­a­tion could con­tin­ue until the present day. This became pos­sible in part due to the estab­lish­ment of the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Tibetan and Buddhist Stud­ies (IITBS) in 2005 by renam­ing the Asso­ci­ation for His­tor­ic­al Stud­ies on High Asia (VGH). The new insti­tute was ini­tially based in Halle, mov­ing in 2010 to Andi­ast, Graubünden, Switzer­land, where it still serves the study of the cul­ture and his­tory of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism today. Thanks to this ini­ti­at­ive of Dieter Schuh, more than 100 mono­graphs and col­lec­ted volumes have been pub­lished, along­side hun­dreds of papers with research res­ults. It is this untir­ing com­mit­ment and effort to benefit the field of Tibet­o­logy which inspired the title of this present Fest­s­chrift: A Life in Tibetan Stud­ies.

Left photo: Christoph Cüppers (left) and Dieter Schuh (right) encountering a rider in Kaligandaki Valley. Right photo: Setting off for cave explorations. Bottom row, left to right: Christa Schuh, Mr Harder (the German ambassador in Nepal), and Roland Bielmeier; upper row: Dieter Schuh, the proprietor of the Himali Hotel in Jharkot, Burghart Schmidt, Rajendra alias Pema Tshering (son of the hotel proprietor), Christoph Cüppers and Raju, the photographer of the Nepal German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP).
Left photo: Chris­toph Cüp­pers (left) and Dieter Schuh (right) encoun­ter­ing a rider in Kalig­andaki Val­ley. Right photo: Set­ting off for cave explor­a­tions. Bot­tom row, left to right: Christa Schuh, Mr Harder (the Ger­man ambas­sad­or in Nepal), and Roland Biel­mei­er; upper row: Dieter Schuh, the pro­pri­et­or of the Him­ali Hotel in Jharkot, Burghart Schmidt, Rajendra ali­as Pema Tsh­er­ing (son of the hotel pro­pri­et­or), Christoph Cüp­pers and Raju, the pho­to­graph­er of the Nepal Ger­man Manu­script Pre­ser­va­tion Pro­ject (NGMPP).

 

In the 1990s, Dieter Schuh’s cre­at­ive abil­it­ies were primar­ily ded­ic­ated to the imple­ment­a­tion of a Pri­or­ity Pro­gramme from the Ger­man Research Found­a­tion (DFG) which he led togeth­er with Prof. Wil­libald Haffn­er from the Geo­graph­ic Insti­tute at the Jus­tus Liebig Uni­ver­sity Giessen: the research pro­gramme Sied­lung­s­prozesse und Staaten­bildun­gen im west­tibet­ischen Him­alaya [Set­tle­ment Pro­cesses and State-Build­ing in the West­ern Tibetan Him­alay­as], which com­prised numer­ous indi­vidu­al pro­jects: on pre­his­tory and cave stud­ies, archae­ology and set­tle­ment his­tory, pop­u­la­tion stat­ist­ics and loc­al his­tory, land usage and social com­munit­ies, hip­pi­atry, geo­graphy and topo­graphy, loc­al and region­al his­tor­ic­al devel­op­ment, dendro­chrono­logy and cli­mate change, his­tor­ic roads and lin­guist­ics, eco­nom­ics and trade, flora and fauna, and also art, cul­ture and archi­tec­ture. The open­ing-up of Mus­tang then offered a unique oppor­tun­ity to con­duct research in a largely unex­plored Tibetan-Buddhist cul­tur­al area with an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary approach net­work­ing between vari­ous aca­dem­ic disciplines.

This oppor­tun­ity was taken up by many stu­dents of Dieter Schuh along­side oth­er Tibet­o­lo­gists such as Katja Buffet­rille, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Helmut Eimer, John Har­ris­on and Charles Ramble. Indeed, this Pri­or­ity Pro­gramme alone, car­ried out from July 1992 to the end of 1999, led to 202 pub­lic­a­tions (B28) from more than 60 authors and co-authors. Along­side the man­age­ment of this Pri­or­ity Pro­gramme, in this peri­od Dieter Schuh also con­duc­ted stud­ies of the polit­ic­al organ­isa­tion of south­ern Mus­tang (B20) and the his­tory of the Muk­t­inath Val­ley (B22 and B23). Fur­ther­more, he was involved in sev­er­al pro­jects to explore the caves of Muk­t­inath Val­ley (B26 and B27).

Dieter Schuh with his wife Christa Schuh during the preparations for a cave exploration. Fortunately, the fracture to his right arm did not occur until the last phase of the explorations.
Dieter Schuh with his wife Christa Schuh dur­ing the pre­par­a­tions for a cave explor­a­tion. For­tu­nately, the frac­ture to his right arm did not occur until the last phase of the explorations.

 

Dieter Schuh was not sat­isfied with the details of the pop­u­la­tion stat­ist­ics being noted in tibet­o­lo­gic­al and anthro­po­lo­gic­al stud­ies. In his opin­ion they were based on poorly evid­enced estim­ates, so they were too impre­cise and unre­li­able. For this reas­on, when con­duct­ing field stud­ies he was always on the lookout for doc­u­ments that would help with demo­graph­ic research, along­side the his­tor­ic­al and leg­al doc­u­ments his oth­er research needed. In the early 1980s his search bore fruit in the archives of the Tashi Samten Ling mon­as­tery in Kath­mandu, loc­ated at the foot of the Swayamb­hunath Stupa: he was able to microfilm 190 dip­lo­mas, fun­da­ment­al leg­al doc­u­ments, and import­ant doc­u­ments for demo­graph­ic­al stud­ies, as well as the invent­or­ies and cata­logues of the mon­as­tery (A15). These dis­cov­er­ies enabled him to study wages, cal­cu­late prices for food and rent pay­ments, and estim­ate the life expect­ancy of Tibetans as well as the pro­por­tion of monks rel­at­ive to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. He could also look into the polit­ic­al and social factors behind the trans­fer of land and oth­er resources to Tibetan mon­as­ter­ies. One very illus­trat­ive example of these stud­ies is his long essay with the title: Kloster­feud­al­is­mus in Tibet aus his­tor­ischer und öko­nomis­cher Sicht [Mon­ast­ic Feud­al­ism in Tibet from a His­tor­ic­al and Eco­nom­ic Per­spect­ive]. By present­ing one par­tic­u­lar case study, it describes the land own­er­ship, the num­ber and size of the fields, farm­ers and her­ders belong­ing to the mon­as­tery, as well as the effects of the distribution.

In 2007, a year before the con­tro­ver­sial Olympic Games in Beijing (2008), he was invited by the Ger­man TV broad­caster ZDF to be a con­sult­ant trav­el­ling with their team fol­low­ing the foot­steps of Hein­rich Har­rer. This res­ul­ted in a two-part film Tibet — Reise durch ein ver­botenes Land [Tibet — Jour­ney through a For­bid­den Land] which was an enorm­ous suc­cess, not least because it delivered a visu­al impres­sion of present-day Tibet under Chinese rule along­side the many his­tor­ic­al ref­er­ences. Dieter Schuh pub­lished his own book illus­trated with numer­ous pho­tos taken dur­ing that trip entitled Tibet – Traum und Wirk­lich­keit. Chin­atowns und das Ende der tibet­ischen Zivil­isa­tion (A16) [Tibet — Dream and Real­ity. Chin­atowns and the End of Tibetan Civil­isa­tion] to doc­u­ment the rad­ic­al reor­gan­isa­tion of Tibetan cit­ies and the mar­gin­al­isa­tion of the Tibetan pop­u­la­tion due to the influx of Han Chinese people.

Dieter Schuh with Dawa Dondup, possibly the only Tibetan businessman who succeeded in becoming the owner of a large industrial operation (Photo: Tibet – Traum und Wirklichkeit, p. 48).
Dieter Schuh with Dawa Don­dup, pos­sibly the only Tibetan busi­ness­man who suc­ceeded in becom­ing the own­er of a large indus­tri­al oper­a­tion (Photo: Tibet – Traum und Wirk­lich­keit, p. 48).
Com­ment­ing on the photo, he could not res­ist not­ing that the price of the businessman’s eco­nom­ic suc­cess seems to be hanging over them both.”

 

The year 2012 saw the pub­lic­a­tion of his four-volume Con­tri­bu­tions to the His­tory of Tibetan Math­em­at­ics, Tibetan Astro­nomy, Tibetan Time Cal­cu­la­tion (Cal­en­dar) and Sino-Tibetan Divin­a­tion, form­ing a com­pen­di­um on the Tibetan cal­cu­la­tion sci­ences. This included repro­duc­tions of all sig­nificant works that had appeared in this field before 2012, includ­ing Dieter Schuh’s out-of-print dis­ser­ta­tion. In the first volume this reprint was sup­ple­men­ted with the first sys­tem­at­ic, gen­er­ally com­pre­hens­ible intro­duc­tion to Tibetan astro­nomy (rtsis) and math­em­at­ics, encom­passing every explan­a­tion ima­gin­able that a Tibet­o­lo­gist unfa­mil­i­ar with these fields could desire, ran­ging from the aba­cus to the “slow and quick feet of the plan­ets” and the plan­et Engke. In the fourth volume he included a gloss­ary of all the spe­cial­ist terms appear­ing in the first three volumes, which was cer­tainly a mile­stone whose import­ance for this field of study will nev­er fade.

At more or less the same time, Dieter Schuh was invest­ig­at­ing the areas on the west­ern and south-west­­ern peri­pher­ies of the Tibetan high plat­eau. Here we will men­tion his study of the roy­al and private dip­lo­mas and doc­u­ments in the col­lec­tion of the Ladakhi intel­lec­tu­al Sonam Sky­abldan Ger­gan (A17). Dur­ing sev­er­al stays in Ladakh, Dieter Schuh had developed a close rela­tion­ship with S. S. Ger­gan, who had already offered to let him microfilm part of his archive back in the 1970s. With great pleas­ure Dieter Schuh had, of course, at the time selec­ted the dip­lo­mas in the col­lec­tion, of which there were 69 examples. Although the jubil­ari­an was once more return­ing to the West­ern Tibetan areas as the object of his study, par­tic­u­larly the Ladakhi area and his­tory, this then led his interest towards the Baltistan area of north-east­­ern Pakistan, which had formed part of the Great­er Tibetan King­dom in the 7th9th cen­tur­ies and where even today the dia­lect spoken resembles the Tibetan of that peri­od. In order to study and visu­ally and tex­tu­ally doc­u­ment the gen­er­ally unknown moun­tain­ous regions of this coun­try, its former minor king­doms, its monu­ments and early-era pet­ro­glyphs, between 2007 and 2011 he under­took sev­er­al jour­neys through remote ter­rain, involving con­sid­er­able dif­fi­culties. The res­ults were pub­lished in his four-volume Reise in die Geschichte Baltistans [Jour­ney into the His­tory of Baltistan] (2012, A18 and A19).

Dieter Schuh presenting Yousuf Hussainabadi, the Director of the Jinnah Public School and College in Skardu, Baltistan, a copy of his Baltistan volumes.
Dieter Schuh present­ing Yousuf Hus­sain­abadi, the Dir­ect­or of the Jin­nah Pub­lic School and Col­lege in Skardu, Baltistan, a copy of his Baltistan volumes.

 

In the same way, he then devoted his efforts to Purig (A20, A22, A23, A25, B30, B33), Spiti (A24, A26) and the south­ern and north­ern regions of Mus­tang (A21, B20, B38-B40). While under­tak­ing jour­neys to these regions and look­ing for offi­cial doc­u­ments, his excel­lent Tibetan lan­guage skills and his open, friendly man­ner always rap­idly ensured he was invited into mon­as­ter­ies and the houses of the des­cend­ants of the fam­il­ies who once ruled the regions, and these then read­ily gran­ted him access to and per­mis­sion to pho­to­graph their archives of doc­u­ments, which nobody had ever pre­vi­ously shown any interest in. This res­ul­ted in stud­ies whose dens­ity and fac­tu­al­ity are unri­valled and whose aca­dem­ic import­ance can­not be under­es­tim­ated. They grant a com­pletely new insight into the polit­ic­al, leg­al and social rela­tions of these peri­pher­al and more loc­ally organ­ised regions, some of whom had them­selves abol­ished the feud­al sys­tem and replaced it with com­munity-ori­en­ted, demo­crat­ic types of admin­is­trat­ive structures.

The numer­ous offi­cial doc­u­ments which he had pho­to­graphed him­self over many years and which Peter Schwieger was able to digit­ise in 1999–2001 in the pro­ject Digit­al­iz­a­tion of Tibetan doc­u­ments in Lhasa, Tibet Autonom­ous Region, PR China with­in the Archives of the Tibetan Autonom­ous Region, enabled him to com­pile two cata­logues of seals repro­du­cing well over 1000 Tibetan seal impres­sions (B32 and B36) – anoth­er remark­able and aston­ish­ing achievement.

From June 8–12, 2014, to cel­eb­rate the 65th birth­day of Chris­toph Cüp­pers, he organ­ised a sym­posi­um at the IITBS in Andi­ast with the title Sec­u­lar Law and Order in the Tibetan High­land (D6). It dealt with a range of aspects of the his­tory of law in Tibet from the peri­od of the Great­er Tibetan King­dom through to the 20th cen­tury and encom­passed con­tri­bu­tions on Tibetan leg­al codices, jur­is­pru­dence and courts, pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and pen­al codes.

His long essay on Land­wirte im tibet­ischen Hoch­land: Im Elend lebende Leibei­gene oder sozi­al und wirtschaft­lich sta­bile Säu­len feudaler Herrschaften? Stat­istische Ana­lysen zur Ver­mö­gen­sungleich­heit [Agri­cul­tur­al­ists in the Tibetan High­lands: Serfs Liv­ing in Hard­ship or Socially and Eco­nom­ic­ally Stable Pil­lars of Feud­al Regimes? Stat­ist­ic­al Ana­lyses of Wealth Inequal­ity] rep­res­en­ted anoth­er cru­cial study which, typ­ic­ally for him, was pion­eer­ing and cast a much-needed light on an under-researched area here, social life in Tibet. Finally, men­tion must be made here of his inter­est­ing essays Das Märchen von der Einkerker­ung ein­er ladakhis­chen Prin­zessin in der Burg von Kag­beni (B35) [The Fairy Tale of the Impris­on­ment of a Ladakhi Prin­cess in the Dun­geons of Kag­beni Castle], Politik und Wis­senschaft in Tibet im 13. und 17. Jahrhun­dert [Polit­ics and Sci­ence in Tibet in the 13th and 17th Cen­tur­ies] (B24) and Srid ohne Chos? Reflek­tion­en zum Ver­hält­nis von Buddhis­mus und säku­larer Herrschaft im tibet­ischen Kul­tur­raum (B25) [Srid without Chos? Reflec­tions on the Rela­tions between Buddhism and Sec­u­lar Rule in the Tibetan Cul­tur­al Area]. – papers which are cer­tainly well worth reading.

In addi­tion to these pub­lic­a­tions in book format, after years of frus­tra­tion attempt­ing to con­trib­ute to Wiki­pe­dia, Dieter Schuh began work on his own digit­al plat­form for the res­ults of his work in 2010: the Tibet Encyc­lo­pae­dia (http:// www.tibet-encyclopaedia.de/). In more than 100 entries, he com­men­ted on key terms that had formed the focus of his earli­er pub­lic­a­tions. Fre­quently illus­trated and gen­er­ally very com­pre­hens­ive, these digit­al art­icles con­tain a wealth of mater­i­al which can­not be found elsewhere.

The above over­view of the res­ults of Dieter Schuh’s research makes it abund­antly clear how his work has formed an essen­tial build­ing block for every­one inter­ested in a deep­er under­stand­ing of dip­lo­mat­ics, his­tory, pop­u­la­tion stud­ies, social sci­ences, lin­guist­ics and many oth­er research areas relat­ing to Tibet. The meth­od­o­logy, form­al­ity and con­tents of his research have always been firmly rooted in aca­dem­ic the­ory and crit­ic­al ration­al­ism. The approaches he took were con­vin­cing and pion­eer­ing, lead­ing to res­ults which are as fun­da­ment­al to the stud­ies of today’s research­ers as the works of Giuseppe Tucci, Rolf A. Stein or Dav­id Sey­ford Ruegg were to his own. He nev­er evaded crit­ic­al dis­cus­sion of the res­ults of his research and also did not hold back when he felt that cri­ti­cism of oth­ers was justified and neces­sary. For him, basic aca­dem­ic prin­ciples were bey­ond discussion.

Even though he revolu­tion­ised numer­ous fields of Tibet­o­logy, his works have still not achieved the level of wide­spread famili­ar­ity among Tibet­o­lo­gists that they deserve. This can surely only be explained by the reluct­ance of con­tem­por­ary Anglo-Amer­­ic­an Tibet­o­logy to engage more than super­fi­cially with Ger­­­man-lan­guage research – and Dieter Schuh’s pub­lic­a­tions are almost exclus­ively in German.

In the course of his life, Dieter Schuh always had an open ear for every­one who turned to him with spe­cial­ist ques­tions and research pro­jects. He was able to help many of them find answers to their dif­fi­cult ques­tions, give them import­ant impulses and open up per­spect­ives – all help­ing to sig­nificantly enhance the res­ults of their work. Access to import­ant source mater­i­al under his con­trol or ideas on the imple­ment­a­tion of pro­ject ideas were always will­ingly gran­ted, and he has nev­er ceased to sup­port the work of his stu­dents and col­leagues to the best of his abil­ity. More than a few of those seek­ing his advice or sup­port received an invit­a­tion to the IITBS in order to fur­ther dis­cuss the details of their dif­fi­cult ques­tions and problems.

Additional info

A. Monographs

A1. Unter­suchun­gen zur tibet­ischen Kal­ender­rech­nung. Wies­baden 1973 (Verzeich­nis der ori­ent­al­is­chen Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land, Sup­ple­ment­band 16).

A2. Tibet­ische Hand­s­chriften und Block­drucke sow­ie Ton­band­auf­nah­men tibet­ischer Erzählun­gen. Teil 5. Wies­baden 1973 (Verzeich­nis der ori­ent­al­is­chen Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land, Bd. XI, 5).

A3. Urkun­den und Send­s­chreiben aus Zen­t­ralt­ibet, Ladakh und Zans­kar. 1. Teil. St. Augustin 1976 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 2).

A4. Tibet­ische Hand­s­chriften und Block­drucke. Teil 6. Ges­am­melte Werke des Koṅ-sprul Blo-gros-mtha’-yas. Wies­baden 1976 (Verzeich­nis der ori­ent­al­is­chen Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land, Bd. XI, 6).

A5. Erlasse und Send­s­chreiben mon­gol­ischer Herrscher für tibet­ische Geist­liche. Ein Beitrag zur Ken­nt­nis der Urkun­den des tibet­ischen Mit­telal­ters und ihr­er Dip­lo­matik. St. Augustin 1977 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 1).

A6. Urkun­den, Erlasse und Send­s­chreiben aus dem Besitz sikkimes­is­cher Adelshäuser und des Klosters Pho­dang. St. Augustin 1978 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 3). Unter Mit­arbeit von L. S. Dagyab.

A7. Urkun­den und Send­s­chreiben aus Zen­t­ralt­ibet, Ladakh und Zans­kar. 2. Teil. St. Augustin 1979 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 4). Unter Mit­arbeit von J. K. Phukhang.

A8. Tibet­ische Hand­s­chriften und Block­drucke. Teil 8. Sammlung Wad­dell der Staats­bib­lio­thek Preußis­cher Kul­turbesitz. Wies­baden 1981 (Verzeich­nis der ori­ent­al­is­chen Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land, Bd. XI,8).

A9. Grundla­gen tibet­ischer Siegel­kunde. Eine Unter­suchung über tibet­ische Siegelauf­s­chriften in ’Phags-pa-Schrift. St. Augustin 1981 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 5).

A10. Märchen, Sagen und Schwänke vom Dach der Welt. Teil 1. Erzähl­gut aus Zen­t­ralund Ost­tibet, erzählt in der Sprache von Lhasa. St. Augustin 1982 (Beiträge zur tibet­ischen Erzählforschung, Bd. 1).

A11. Frühe Bez­iehun­gen zwis­chen dem ladakhis­chen Herrsch­er­haus und der süd­lichen ’Brug-pa-Schule. St. Augustin 1983 (Archiv für Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung, Heft 2).

A12. Zwei ch’ing-zeitliche tibeto-mon­gol­is­che Dok­u­mente. St. Augustin 1983 (Archiv für Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung, Heft 4).

A13. His­tori­ograph­is­che Dok­u­mente aus Zaṅs-dkar, heraus­gegeben, über­set­zt und kom­men­tiert unter Mit­arbeit von J. K. Phukhang. St. Augustin 1983 (Archiv für Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung, Heft 6).

A14. Polit­ische Imp­lika­tion­en tibet­ischer Urkun­den­formeln. St. Augustin 1985 (Archiv für Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung, Heft 9).

A15. Das Archiv des Klosters bKra-sis-bsam-gtan-gliṅ von sKy­id-groṅ. 1. Teil: Urkun­den zur Klos­ter­or­d­nung, grundle­gende Rechts­dok­u­mente und demo­graph­isch bedeut­same Dok­u­mente, Find­büch­er. Bonn 1988 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 6).

A16. Tibet — Traum und Wirk­lich­keit: Chin­atowns und das Ende der tibet­ischen Zivil­isa­tion. Halle (Saale) 2007 (Beiträge zur Zen­t­ralasi­en­forschung 13) A17. Herrscher­urkun­den und Privaturkun­den aus West­tibet (Ladakh). Halle (Saale) 2008 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 11) A18. Reise in die Geschichte Baltistans, Band 1–3. Exped­i­tion in ein immer noch unbekan­ntes Land. Andi­ast 2011.

A19. Reise in die Geschichte Baltistans, Band 4. Exped­i­tion in ein immer noch unbekan­ntes Land. Andi­ast 2012.

A20. Travel into the His­tory of Purig. Pre­lim­in­ary Report about a Jour­ney to Purig in 2013. Andi­ast 2014 (Beiträge zur Zen­t­ralasi­en­forschung 29) A21. unter Mit­arbeit von Wang­du Lama. Rekon­struk­tion von Sozi­al­geschichte anhand von Rechts­dok­u­menten: Unter­suchun­gen zur his­tor­ischen Demo­graph­ie von Marpha (Süd­mus­tang). X, 562 Seiten, Andi­ast 2015 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 12).

A22. unter Mit­arbeit von Ajaz Hus­sain Mun­shi, Temba Schuh, Mohammed Fayaz und Junichiro Honjo. Bur­gen und Alter­tümer von Purig. Andi­ast 2015.

A23. Herrschaft, ört­liche Ver­wal­tung und Demo­graph­ie des äußer­sten West­ens des tibet­ischen Hoch­landes: Rechts­dok­u­mente aus Purig und Spiti. Teil 1: Purig. Andi­ast 2016 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 14).

A24. Herrschaft, ört­liche Ver­wal­tung und Demo­graph­ie des äußer­sten West­ens des tibet­ischen Hoch­landes: Rechts­dok­u­mente aus Purig und Spiti. Teil 2: Spiti. X, 284 Seiten, Andi­ast 2016 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 15).

A25. unter Mit­arbeit von Quentin Devers und Gulzar Hus­sain Mun­shi: Die erfundene Geschichte (Fake-Story) vom tra­gis­chen Schick­sal der muslimis­chen Königin Bhi-bhi. Neue Urkun­den­funde aus San­grah: Quel­len zur Geschichte des nieder­en Landadels im Suru-Tal (Purig). Andi­ast 2018 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 17).

A26. und Jörg Heim­bel: Beiträge zur polit­ischen Geschichte von Spiti zwis­chen 1629 und 1842 und zur Geschichte der Sa-skya-pa-Schule im äußer­sten West­en des tibet­ischen Hoch­landes: Rechts­dok­u­mente aus dem Kloster Gog-mig ( ~ sTen­grgy­ud) in Spiti. 1. Teil: Beiträge von Dieter Schuh. Andi­ast 2019 (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 18 (1)).

 

B. Articles

B1. Stud­i­en zur Geschichte der Math­em­atik und Astro­nomie in Tibet. Teil 1: Ele­ment­are Arith­metik, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 4 (1970), S. 81–181.

B2. Über die Mög­lich­keit der Identifizier­ung tibet­ischer Jahres­angaben anhand der sMe-ba dgu, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 6 (1972), S. 485–504.

B3. Die Dar­le­gun­gen des tibet­ischen Enzyk­lopädis­ten Koṅ-sprul Blo-gros mtha’yas über ost­tibet­ische Hochzeits­bräuche, in: Serta Tibeto-Mon­gol­ica. Wies­baden 1973, S. 295–349.

B4. Die Dar­le­gun­gen des 5. Dalai Lama Ṅag-dbaṅ blo-bzaṅ rgya-mcho zur Kalku­la­tion der neun sMe-ba, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 7 (1973), S. 353–423.

B5. Der chin­es­is­che Steinkre­is. Ein Beitrag zur Ken­nt­nis der Sino-tibet­is­chen Divin­a­tion­skalku­la­tion­en, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 7 (1973), S. 353–423. B6. Grun­dzüge der Entwicklung der tibet­ischen Kal­ender­rech­nung, in: Zeits­chrift der Deutschen Mor­gen­ländis­chen Gesell­schaft, Sup­ple­ment II 1974, S. 554–556.

B7. Ein Rechts­brief des 7. Dalai Lama für den tibet­ischen Res­id­en­ten am Stūpa von Bodh­nāth. Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 8 (1974), S. 554–566.

B8. Das Theat­er­stück ’Gro-ba bzaṅ-mo in der Ver­sion der Theat­er­gruppe von Dharam­sala, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 8 (1974), S. 455–523.

B9. Wie ist die Ein­ladung des fün­ften Karma-pa an den chin­es­is­chen Kais­er­hof als Fort­führung der Tibet­politik der Mon­golen-Khane zu ver­stehen?, in: Alta­ica Col­lecta. Wies­baden 1976, S. 209–244.

B10. Der Schaus­piel­er des tibet­ischen Lha-mo-Theat­ers, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 10 (1976), S. 339 – 384. Eng­lische Über­set­zung: The act­or in the Tibetan Lha-mo theatre, in: The Singing Mask. Echoes of Tibetan Opera (= Lun­gta 15), Amnye Machen Insti­tute, Tibetan Centre for Advanced Stud­ies. Dharam­shala 2001: 97–118.

B11. Eine kollekt­ive tibet­ische Schul­durkunde, in: Folia Rara. Wies­baden 1976, S. 93110.

B12. Bericht über die Gründung der Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica. Bul­let­in of the Csoma de Körös Sym­posi­um, No. 1 – 2 (1977), S. 16–18.

B13. Ergeb­n­isse und Aspekte tibet­ischer Urkun­den­forschung, in: Pro­ceed­ings of the Csoma de Körös Memori­al Sym­posi­um. Bud­apest 1978, S. 411–425.

B14. Bericht über die filmis­che Dok­u­ment­a­tion ein­er tibet­ischen Orakel-Séance, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 13 (1979), S. 511–531.

B15. A tibeti ido”számitás, in: Bevez­etées a mag­yar östörténet kutatásának for­rá­saiba III. Bud­apest 1980, S. 221–228.

B16. Beiträge „Tibet­ische Quel­len“ und „Tibet unter der Mon­golen­herrschaft“, in: Die Mon­golen. Beiträge zu ihr­er Geschichte und Kul­tur. Darm­stadt 1986, S. 14–17 und 283–289.

B17. Zu den Hin­ter­gründen der Partei­nahme Ladakh’s für Bhutan im Krieg gegen Lhasa, in: Recent Research on Ladakh. München – Köln – Lon­don 1983, S. 37–50.

B18. Zum Entstehung­s­prozeß von Urkun­den in den tibet­ischen Herrscherkan­zlei­en, in: Con­tri­bu­tions on Tibetan Lan­guage, His­tory and Cul­ture, Vol. 1. Wien 1983, S. 303–328.

B19. Recht und Gesetz in Tibet, in: Tibetan and Buddhist Stud­ies. Com­mem­or­at­ing the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alex­an­der Csoma de Körös. Bud­apest 1984, S. 291–311.

B20. The polit­ic­al organ­isa­tion of South­ern Mus­tang dur­ing the 17th and 18th Cen­tur­ies, Ancient Nepal 119, 1990, S. 1–7.

B21. Intro­duc­tion und Research Pro­pos­al : Joint Nepal-Ger­­­man archae­olo­gic­al research pro­ject. High Mountin archae­ology on pre­his­toruc dwell­ings in the Mustang

zone. Ancient Nepal 130–133, 1993, S. c‑m. (Auch erschien­en in: Archae­olo­gic­al, His­tor­ic­al and Geo­graph­ic­al Reports on research activ­it­ies in the Nepal-Tibetan bor­der area of Mus­tang dur­ing the years 1992–1998, Bonn 1999).

B22. Invest­ig­a­tion in the His­tory of the Muk­t­inath Val­ley and Adja­cent Areas, Part I.

Ancient Nepal 137, 1994, S. 9–92. (Auch erschien­en in: Archae­olo­gic­al, His­tor­ic­al and Geo­graph­ic­al Reports on research activ­it­ies in the Nepal-Tibetan bor­der area of Mus­tang dur­ing the years 1992–1998, Bonn 1999).

B23. Invest­ig­a­tion in the His­tory of the Muk­t­inath Val­ley and Adja­cent Areas, Part II.

Ancient Nepal 138, 1995, S. 5–54, 14 Tafeln. (Auch erschien­en in: Archae­olo­gic­al, His­tor­ic­al and Geo­graph­ic­al Reports on research activ­it­ies in the Nepal-Tibetan bor­der area of Mus­tang dur­ing the years 1992–1998, Bonn 1999).

B24. Politik und Wis­senschaft in Tibet im 13. und 17. Jahrhun­dert, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 33 (2004), S. 1–23.

B25. Srid ohne Chos? Reflek­tion­en zum Ver­hält­nis von Buddhis­mus und säku­larer Herrschaft im tibet­ischen Kul­tur­raum. In: Chris­toph Cüp­pers (ed.): The Rela­tion­ship Between Reli­gion and State (chos srid zung ‘brel) Tra­di­tion­al Tibet. Pro­ceed­ings of a Sem­in­ar Held in Lumbini, Nepal, March 2000. Lumbini Inter­na­tion­al Research Insti­tute. Lumbini 2004: 291–97). Auch erschien­en in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 33 (2004), S. 153–162.

B26. Reis­en zu den Höh­len von Süd-Mus­tang (1985–1992), in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 35 (2006), S. 1–106.

B27. (zus. mit R. Biel­mei­er, C. Cüp­pers und B. Schmidt), Forschungs­bericht über die Explor­a­tion der Höh­len des Muk­t­inath-Tales (1986–1987), in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 35 (2006), S. 107–166.

B28. Bib­li­o­graph­ie von Ver­öffent­lichun­gen des DFG-Schwer­­punk­t­­pro­­gramms „Staaten­bildung und Sied­lung­s­prozesse im tibet­ischen Him­alaya“, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 35 (2006), S. 273–288.

B29. Die sa-bdag (Erd­her­rengeister) und die Schwi­erigkeiten der Inter­pret­a­tion illu­min­iert­er Manuskripte, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 40 (2011), S. 7–163. B30. Vier Rechts­dok­u­mente des „Mun­shi Aziz Bhat Museum of Cent­ral Asi­an and Kar­gil Trade Arte­facts” in Kar­gil (Purig), in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 43 (2014), S. 311–338.

B31. Zwis­chen Großreich und Phyi-dar: Eine dunkle, kul­tur­lose Zeit? Das Beis­piel des Lehr­sys­tems von sinot­ibet­ischen Divin­a­tion­skalku­la­tion­en (nag-rtsis), Geo­mantie (sa-dpy­ad), gTo-Ritualen und Erd­her­rengeister (sa-bdag), in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 45 (2016), S. 361–395.

B32. Ein Kata­log von Siegel­ab­drück­en aus Ladakh, Purig und Spiti, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 45 (2016), S. 493–582.

B33. Neue Urkun­den­funde aus der Herrschaft dKar-rtse: Ein Beitrag zur Ver­wal­tung­sund Rechts­geschichte von Purig zwis­chen 1767 und 1842, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 46 (2017), S. 159–182.

B34. Die Ins­ch­rift III von Feekar in der Herrschaft Sod von Purig, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 46 (2017), S. 183–188.

B35. Das Märchen von der Einkerker­ung ein­er ladakhis­chen Prin­zessin in der Burg von Kag­beni: Eine Herrscher­urkunde des 7. Dalai Lama zum Krieg zwis­chen Mus­tang und Jumla des Jahres 1723, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 47 (2018), S. 7–27. B36. Ein Kata­log von Siegel­ab­drück­en aus der Zeit der dGa´-ldan pho-brang-Regi­er­­ung in Tibet, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 47 (2018), S. 111–435.

B37. Land­wirte (khral-pa, khral-´dzin, grong-pa, khang-chen) im tibet­ischen Hoch­land: Im Elend lebende Leibei­gene oder sozi­al und wirtschaft­lich sta­bile Säu­len feudaler Herrschaften? Stat­istische Ana­lysen zur Ver­mö­gen­sungleich­heit, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 48 (2020), S. 125–234.

B38. (zus. mit C. Cüp­pers und Kash­inath Tamot), His­tor­ische Quel­len zur Geschichte von Süd-Mus­tang (Glo-bo smad) Teil 1: Fün­fzehn auf Kup­fer­plat­ten aus­ge­fer­tigte Urkun­den der Könige von Par­bat (Gru) aus dem 18. Jahrhun­dert für Des­tin­atäre in Süd­mus­tang, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 48 (2020), S. 235–347.

B39. Herrscher­urkun­den der Könige von Nord-Mus­tang (Glo sMon-thang) Teil 1: Urkun­den der Könige dBang-rgy­al rdo-rje, bKra-shis sny­ing-po und ´Jam-dpal dgra-´dul, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 48 (2020), S. 349–503.

B40. Herrscher­urkun­den der Könige von Nord-Mus­tang (Glo sMon-thang) Teil 2: Urkun­den der Könige Kun-dga´ nor-bu, ´Jam-dby­angs dbang-´dus ali­as bDud-´dul spen-pa rnam-rgy­al und dBang-rgy­al nor-bu, der Königs­mut­ter (rgy­al-yum) bKrashis bu-khrid, des Königs sNyigs-dus karma ´dus-pa ali­as Anāthasiddhishribhadra (~ mGon-med dngos-grub dpal-bzang) ali­as Siddhishribhadra ali­as Siddhishrijāla, der Königs­mut­ter (a‑yum) Zla-ba lha-mo und der Könige ´Jam-dby­angs rgy­almt­shan ali­as Mañjug­hoṣa ali­as ´Jam-dpal dpal-´bar, ´Jam-dpal bstan-´dzin dgra´dul, dBang-´dus sny­ing-po ali­as dBang-mgon sny­ing-po und ´Jig-med spar-ba, in: Zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Stud­i­en 49 (2021), S. 7–280.

 

C. Book reviews

C1. R. Kas­chewsky: Das Leben des lamaistischen Hei­li­gen Tsongkhapa Blo-bza­­ṅ­­grags-pa (1357 – 1419). Wies­baden 1971, in: Mundus, Vol. IX, 1973, N. 3, S. 216–218.

C2. L. Petech: Aris­to­cracy and Gov­ern­ment in Tibet, 1728 – 1959. Roma 1973, In: Zeits­chrift der Deutschen Mor­gen­ländis­chen Gesell­schaft 127 (1977), S. 172–175.

C3. M. Abelein: Shisha Pangma. Ber­gisch Glad­bach 1980, In: Frank­furter Rundschau, 3. Feb­ru­ar 1981, S. 10.

C4. Man­fred Gern­er: Schnee­land Tibet. Frank­furt 1981, in: Das neue China, 8. Jahr­gang, Nr. 6, 1981, S. 32–33.

C5. Per K. Sørensen and Gun­tram Hazod in Cooper­a­tion with Tser­ing Gyalpo, Rulers on the Celes­ti­al Plain. Eccle­si­ast­ic and Sec­u­lar Hege­mony in Medi­ev­al Tibet . A Study of Tshal Gung-thang. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. S. 190–205. ZAS 37 (2008).

C6. Svante Jan­son, “Tibetan Cal­en­dar Math­em­at­ics”. Inter­net pub­lic­a­tion on the serv­er of the Depart­ment of Math­em­at­ics, Uppsala Uni­ver­ity. Nachum Der­show­itz and Edward M. Rein­gold, Calendric­al Cal­cu­la­tions. Edward Hen­ning, Kala­cakra and the Tibetan Cal­en­dar. S. 205–242. ZAS 37 (2008)

D. Published series and works

D1. Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica (Bände 1–19).

D2. Archiv für zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung (Hefte 1–20).

D3. Beiträge zur tibet­ischen Erzählforschung (Bände 1–15).

D4. Beiträge zur Zen­t­ralasi­en­forschung (Bände 1–29).

D5. Son­deraus­gabe der Tibet-Encyc­lo­pe­­dia (STE).

D6. Tibet­ische Hand­s­chriften und Block­drucke. Teil 9. Eingeleitet und bes­chrieben von Peter Schwieger. Stut­tgart 1985 (Verzeich­nis der ori­ent­al­is­chen Hand­s­chriften in Deutsch­land, Bd. XI, 9).

D7. Sec­u­lar Law and Order in the Tibetan High­land. Con­tri­bu­tions to a work­shop organ­ized by the Tibet Insti­tute in Andi­ast (Switzer­land) on the occa­sion of the 65th birth­day of Chris­toph Cüp­pers from the 8th of June to the 12th of June 2014. Andi­ast 2015. (Monu­menta tibet­ica his­tor­ica, Abteilung III: Dip­lo­mata et epis­tolae, Bd. 13).

D8. Con­tri­bu­tions to the His­tory of Tibetan Math­em­at­ics, Tibetan Astro­nomy, Tibetan Time Cal­cu­la­tion (Cal­en­dar) and Sino-Tibetan Divin­a­tion. Andi­ast 2012. (Archiv für zen­t­ralasi­at­ische Geschichts­forschung, Heft 17–20).

E. Various contributions to the Tibet Encyclopedia

http://www.tibet-encyclopaedia.de/