Bhutan has a long tradition of making and using paper. Although texts were written and carved on stone such as maṇi walls, metal such as votive bells, and wooden tablets such as temple inscriptions, and also printed on pieces of cloth such as prayer flags, the main material used for writing and printing texts in Bhutan has been paper. Bhutanese did not have a tradition of writing on papyrus, palm leaf, birch bark, or parchment. Bhutanese historians claim that Bhutan produced paper and supplied them to Tibet even as early as the 8th century when the massive project of translating the Buddhist scriptures from Indian language to Tibetan took place at Samyé during the reign of Trisong Détsen. Despite lacking any evidence and written records, it is very likely that practice of paper making, which originated in China in 105 CE and spread to Tibet by the 7th century, may have reached Bhutan as early as the 8th century.
Paper making probably also took off in Bhutan due to the abundance of paper plants (དལ་ཤིང་), from which the raw materials for making paper are extracted. Bhutanese used the bast, or inner bark of Daphne plant, known as the dark dalshing (དལ་ཤིང་ནགཔ་) and Edgeworthia, or the white dalshing (དལ་ཤིང་དཀརཔ་) as the main raw materials for making paper. These paper plants grew abundantly in the Bhutanese valleys, allowing for the relatively easy production of paper. In Tibet and other higher Himalayan areas, where paper plants grow less, people also used the root of Stellera chamaejasme (རེ་ལྕགས་པ་) and bark of Aquilaria agallocha (ཨ་ག་རུ་). It is clear that paper production was an established craft by the time Bhutan was unified as a state. We see the art of paper making included in the thirteen major arts and crafts of Bhutan which was formulated soon after the formation of the Bhutanese nation.
Paper production in Bhutan, like in other parts of the Himalayas, are not mechanized but a process of manual labour. We have a clear and detailed description of paper making in Thimphu in 1783, recorded by Samuel Turner, who lead a British mission to Bhutan, in his book entitled An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet: Containing a Narrative of a Journey through Bootan and Part of Tibet (p.99-100). His description of paper making, like his accounts of alcohol- and butter-making, is precise and still practiced in Bhutan and many parts of the Himalayas.
“When a sufficient quantity of bark is collected to employ the labourer, it is divided into small shreds, steeped and boiled in a lixivium of wood ashes; it is then taken up, and laid in a heap to drain; after which it is beaten upon a stone, with a wooden mallet, until it is reduced to an impalpable pulp; it is then thrown into a reservoir of water, where, being well stirred about, and cleansed from the coarse and dirty part, which floats upon the surface, it is still further depurated in another large reservoir of clean water. When the preparation is complete, the parts are finely broken, and that which sinks in the water appears mucilaginous to the touch. All that now remains is to form it into sheets, which is done upon small reeds set in frames. The labourer dips the frame in the water, and raises up a quantity of the pulp, which, by moving the frame in the water, he spreads, until it entirely and equally covers the surface of the reeds; he then raises the frame perpendicularly, the water drains off, and the frame is hung up till the sheet is nearly dry: it is then taken off, and suspended upon lines. The paper thus prepared is of a much stronger texture, than that of any other country with which I am acquainted, as it is capable of being woven, when gilt by way of ornament, into the texture of silk and satins, to which use I have seen it frequently applied in the manufactures of China.”
As we read in Turner’s description, the process of paper making starts with the collection of the bast of the paper plants. People go out into the forests to collect the branches of paper, which they cut responsibly to ensure regrowth. The collection of the bast was often imposed as a tax in pre-modern Bhutan, and some families would even change their social positions or locations in order to avoid the heavy paper tax. A lozey ballad from the 18th century about a hermit named Sangngak Dorjé who was required to pay paper tax to the 2nd Gangteng Trülku Tendzin Lekpé Döndrup (1645-1726) when the latter started the project of writing the Kanjur manuscripts in Gangteng in 1690, sufficiently illustrates the scenario. The lozey begins with Sangngak Dorjé, who was blacklisted for failing to pay his paper tax on time, being forced out of his hermetic seclusion by this levy and sent into a long search for a paper tree. After the recluse traverses the forest for the whole day, he finds a paper tree at sunset, but to his utter frustration, the bird Ali Butri has built her nest on it. As he prepares to wield his axe, the bird begs the Buddhist hermit:
O Hermit! Don’t be startled that a bird is speaking a human language.
O Listen Sangngak Dorjé! O Hear me, Sangngak Dorjé!
At this late juncture of summer and winter,
This bird had no wish to lay any egg
But overcome by the force of karma
I laid fifteen eggs.
I thought the eggs may not hatch
But twelve chicks have come out from them.
My chicks have not yet developed their feathers.
I beg you please do not cut down the paper plant.
To this plea, the hermit tells his story of the paper tax. The bird promises to approach the lama to request for a deferment of the tax and to pay the paper tax herself once her chicks have developed their wings. She persuades the hermit to return to his prayers and flies off to see the lama. The lama hears her story and cancels Sangngak Dorjé's tax and grants the paper plant as her home.
O Listen, Ali Bukhri.
Keep the paper plant between the cliff and meadow.
Make its top your nesting place.
Make its middle your perch,
And its base your roosting ground.
Thanks to your efforts,
I shall also remove Sangngak Dorjé from the blacklist.
The ballad has a happy ending for all three parties. The bird gets its nesting place, the hermit has his levy cancelled, and the lama is pleased that his spiritual warmth attracts even wild birds to him. This short piece of oral literature captures the spiritual, ecological and political tensions which the collection of raw materials for paper entailed.
Once the materials are collected, the outer bark or skin is then separated from the bast before the fibre is soaked in water for several hours or overnight. The fibres are also cooked in water by adding ash-water which has been formed from mixing ash with water and removing the sediment. Boiling the fibres helps the bark loosen and soften so that it can more easily be mashed into a pulp. The soft pulp is the cleaned by removing unwanted fibres and then beaten using stone mortars until the fibres are fully broken down and the pulp has a dough-like consistency. The pulp is then mixed with water thoroughly before it is moulded.
As described by Turner, Bhutanese paper producers in the past as well as today commonly use the dipping mould. The pulp is mixed with water and plant starch from hibiscus roots in a large wooden container. The paper frame or shokdré (ཤོག་བྲེ་), which is a rectangular wooden frame with bamboo, reed or cloth filter, is then dipped into the liquid pulp and then swished around to allow an even layer of the pulp to accumulate on the frame. When the pulp is evenly distributed on the frame, the frame is transferred to a table where the screen filter is carefully removed and the new sheet of paper laid out. The process is repeated until a stack of wet paper is created. The stack is then pressed to squeeze out any remaining water and the sheets of paper are taken one by one to be dried on boards or on strings.
If one used the floating mould, the wooden frame with the filter is kept floating on a mass of water such as pond, puddle, or a tub of water. The liquid pulp is then poured on the filter and the filter moved repeatedly until the pulp mixture is evenly spread. The frame is then laid in a slanting position until it is dried and the paper is peeled off.
The paper made through such a process is then cut into rectangular pieces of varying sizes but a whole piece of paper is often used for religious charts, ritual diagrams and maṇḍalas. Letters are also often written on a whole sheet of paper but the paper is cut into very small pieces for receipts, tax slips and name cards, which are given by lamas when people ask them for a name.
Once the paper is manufactured, it is often treated and polished before it is used for writing. Mipam Namgyel Gyatso (1846-1912) writes in his treatise on useful arts and crafts, bzo gnas nyer mkho’i za ma tog, about methods of soaking and polishing the paper in preparation for writing. First one has to make a thin solution from flour, like a very thin soup. To this solution, one adds whey about one fourth of the solution in amount and a tiny amount of an essence of liquid glue. The paper should be dipped in this mixture at a mild temperature. The whey helps to lighten the paper, the flour solution makes it soft and supple and glue gives it firmness and hue and prevents the ink from blotting.
If one wants the paper to be whiter, one can add a powdered chalk solution, but too much of this will make the paper heavy just as too much glue with make the paper hard and unreceptive to the ink. When the paper is being dried, it should not be done in either extreme heat or cold. Once dried, layers of paper are rolled up and uniformly pounded on a flat surface with a hammer. Nagapani seed, which is used as soap in traditional Bhutan, is soaked in water and applied to the paper to help prevent worms.
Sometimes, the paper is also dyed in indigo or painted dark blue using minerals such as azurite, malachite, and/or lapis. Dark blue paper (མཐིང་ཤོག་), which appears to initially appear during the tenth century, is particularly used for special books written in gold and silver ink (གསེར་བྲིས་) and may well have a link to the purple pages produced in Europe during the late antiquity and early Christian periods as marks of costliness and luxury and sometimes to imbue a work with imperial connotations (from Greek porphyrogenitus, or ‘born in the purple,’ referring to children born to reigning Byzantine emperors). These special books are very often quite large productions and two or more sheets of paper are stuck together using glue and often a narrow thread of paper is used to hold them together and make the leaves thick and strong.
Once the paper is treated in the solution and dried, it can be polished using a conch shell, which makes the paper smooth but gives it a slight tinge of blue; or using a stone, which may burn the paper; an agate, which may leave patterns; a piece of iron, which may leave oxidization; and best of all is a zi (གཟི་) stone, which makes the paper smooth, soft and good-coloured. Alternatively, one can polish the paper with cloth or other stones. The slab on which it is polished must be smooth and the polishing must be slow, uniform and persistent in the sun for a good outcome.
The resultant paper was used mainly for writing religious books. In addition to creating books in Bhutan, Bhutanese shipped paper to Tibet to have Buddhist canons printed from xylographic blocks that were extant in Tibet. Paper was also sent as gifts to Tibetan lamas and printeries by the Bhutanese rulers and elites. It was also used as a merchandise for bartering with goods from Tibet.
Although Bhutan was known for its paper, few people took up the trade of paper making. Only some families specialized in making paper and are known as dezow (དལ་བཟོཝ་), or paper craftsmen. Today, there are a number of traditional paper manufacturers who produce it for selling it to tourists or for some special purposes. The paper supplies for educational and administrative uses are generally mass-produced and imported, particularly from India.
Karma Phuntsho is a social thinker and worker, the President of the Loden Foundation and the author of many books and articles including The History of Bhutan.