Religious freedom in Tibet protected
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-05-23 15:42

The world's longest epic, Life of King Gesser, of the Tibetan people that has been transmitted orally for centuries, has a circulation of more than 3 million printed copies in Tibetan language, a government white paper said Sunday.

The white paper, titled Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet and issued by the Information Office of China's State Council, says traditional culture in the Tibet Autonomous Region is well protected and the people there enjoy freedom of religious belief.

The Tibetan language is widely studied, used and promoted in Tibet, according to the paper. The regional government has promulgated regulations that urged using both Tibetan and Han-Chinese languages in Tibet, with more priorities going to the Tibetan language.

In practice, both Tibetan and Chinese languages are used in all schools, legislative bodies, government agencies, legal actions, public activities and public places in Tibet. Both radio and TV stations in Tibet have special Tibetan-language channels. There are 14 magazines and 10 newspapers published in Tibetan in the region. In recent years, more than 100 titles of Tibetan-language books were published annually, with a circulation of hundreds of thousands.

Specialized institutions for salvaging, editing and researching Tibetan cultural heritage have been established by governments at all levels in the region to collect, edit and publish Tibetan dramas, ballads, folk dances, proverbs, folk songs and folk tales, says the paper.

After some 20 years of compiling effort, more than 3,000 audio tapes of Life of King Gesser have been recorded, almost 300 hand-copied and block-printed editions of the epic have been collected, and 62 volumes of the epic in Tibetan have been edited and published, with a distribution in excess of three million copies.

Meanwhile, over 20 volumes of its Chinese edition have been published so far, and some of them have been translated into and published in English, Japanese and French.

Since it was founded, the Tibet Autonomous Region has promulgated a number of regulations on the protection of cultural relics, renovated and opened over 1,400 monasteries and given timely repair to a large group of cultural relics.

Tibetans fully enjoy the freedom of religious belief. At present, there are over 1,700 venues for Tibetan Buddhist activities, with some 46,000 resident monks and nuns; four mosques and about 3,000 Muslims; and one Catholic church and over 700 believers. Religious activities of various kinds are held normally.

The transmission lineage system of the reincarnation of a great lama after his death is unique to Tibetan Buddhism, and this has been respected by the state and governments at all levels in Tibet. Since Tibet's Democratic Reform, altogether 30 Living Buddhas have been approved by the state and the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

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