A Step-By-Step Process
The process of constructing the printing press was not an easy one. It required a great amount of concentration, dedication and motivation. Last week, I asked one of the bhikkunis, who’s name was Dawa, about the ritual performances that had to be carried out, so that the villagers could cut down the trees in a peaceful and safe way. She told me that people in Burma had some forest guardian spirits called “Taw Saung Nats” to whom they performed rituals to before cutting down the trees. However, she was not sure if we were allowed to use the same rituals as the people who lived in Burma. She told me that she was going to ask the head bhikkuni. Fortunately, our head bhikkuni allowed us to follow the same ritual performances that were practiced in Burma.
We have collected some of the necessary items, which were to be used for the construction of the printing press. So far, we have water, walnuts, vinegar, and gum of Arabic, which were all going to be used for the production of ink, iron for the press building, and tools that the builder could use, such as the different types of chisels, a sander, screwdrivers, and a saw. The items that we still need are, paper, long blocks of wood, carved-out alphabet letters and image blocks, fabric to bind the books together and objects for the forest rituals.
As I’ve mentioned before, the printing press group have decided to follow the descriptions of papermaking, which was provided by Samuel Turner. Also, in the Schaeffer book, there were explanations that described the process of wood-block printing. We also decided to follow this process. The process for the wood-block printing consisted of several steps. Firstly, a manuscript of thin paper was to be prepared by a scribe, and placed face down on a blank wood block evenly covered with paste. After the paste had dried, the paper was moistened and removed from the block, leaving in ink the reversed letters. This reverse-image page should then be relief-carved to make a printable surface. The finished block should be smeared with ink, and then a blank paper should be laid on top of it. Next, it should be firmly impressed with a roller.
All of the villagers were asked to donate 500 resources to the village cave expedition group. We were asked to do this because the expedition group had no resources because the lama did not contribute any resources to them. The lama had donated 1000 resources each to the building of the medicine factory and to the nunnery. This expedition group needs to make their journey into the caves so that they could collect useful and valuable resources, objects, items and tools that could be used to help the construction of the medicine factory, and the library and printing press at the nunnery. The printing press group has decided to donate a total amount of 120 resources. There are 6 people in our group and each person has agreed to donate at least 20 resources, or more.
I collected two amulets for the printing press group. The first amulet is the cakra of the iron and phur-ba. It should always be worn when digging the earth for protection against soil-spirits. This amulet was collected so that there wouldn’t be any evil soil-spirits if we had to dig in order to collect the wood blocks. The second amulet was known to produce success in trading. Dākini Lag-‘gul (shaky hand) is affixed at the time of going for trading. One is the winner in trade and is protected from being the loser. The mantra for this amulet is: May the one who wears this become successful in every kind of trading in which he is involved. This amulet is supposed to help our group if we happened to come upon the service of trading.
The next day, our printing press group gathered at the nunnery and discussed about making the paper, collecting the long blocks of wood, and the carved-out alphabet letters and image blocks. We also talked about searching for fabric so that we could bind the books together. The builder announced that she was going to make her way to the neighbouring village, so that she could collect the carved-out alphabet letters and image blocks. The rest of us decided to collect wood from the forest, make the ink and paper, polish the wood blocks by using a sander and to find fabric.
The next day, our plans were successfully carried out. However, since there was a lot of polishing to do, we decided to finish this task by the weekend. We also discussed about the carving date. We all agreed that we should start carving the wooden blocks by the following Monday up until that Wednesday. Furthermore, we set the tentative date for printing on that same Wednesday afternoon. Our scholar and artist suggested that by next Wednesday, we should all start the printing process of the small commentaries on Monastic Manuals of the Sera Monastery.
Despite the difficulties in constructing such a valuable printing press, we all believed that our generation and the future generations were all going to benefit from this establishment. There would be a greater selection of books in which people could choose from, and many more copies of the same books would be published.
