Any
printing procedure contains some stages of printing as making of printing
block, choosing the surface of 
printing (such as paper, cloth on another surface), ink and print pulling
or taking the print. In
Tibetan traditional printing technique the paper making, block making
and print pulling - in this three stages, the Chinese printing procedure
is followed.
Now the making and processing of these three material,
paper, block and ink is being discussed.
Paper
Making
The paper is always a very crucial and important thing in any kind of
print making. The Tibetan learned it from the Chinese. So the process
of making the handmade paper is similar to those of Chinese.
At first the barks from tree is collected and moistened in water for
15 days. Then it is lifted from water and cut into small pieces. Then
those are put into a cylindrical container made from bamboo and grinded
with a mullet. Then the girded paste is boiled. Next the boiled paste
is strained and by straining the paper pulp is collected. The their
remaining stages are quite similar to the age-old process of making
handmade papers. The pulp is evenly spread over a fine mess, tightly
stretched wooden frame and after little bit of drying, a pressure is
given with a bottle rolled over it (for making an even surface).
Some craftsman in Rumtek monastery told me ash is
mixed with the pulp as a pigment.
This handmade paper making is a small scale cottage
industry of Sikkim and in many village we find units of paper making.
The technique of paper making came to India via Muslim
rulers. But in this particular area unlike the other parts of this country
papermaking technique came from China via the Tibetan cultural influence.
THE
MAKING OF PRINTING BLOCKS
The
making of printing blocks is one of the most important stages of printmaking.
As it is told a print maker has to play in three roles:- At first the
designer or creator of the image, secondly the block maker and in the
third stage is the print puller.
The block is called ‘PARSHING’ in Tibetan language. ‘PAR’ means print
and ‘SHING’ means wood. So ‘PARSHING’ means the wood for printing. For
printing a page of a manuscript, at first one learned lama writes 
the text of the page or paper. If there is any image or diagram on the
page then it is also drawn in ink. Generally there are Thanka and mural
printers in every monastery. They do this job. After that the page is
pasted down on a prepared block. In order to make the drawing show through
the paper clearly oil is applied to make the paper more transparent.
Then chisel is used to cut along the edges of lines or either side so
as to leave them standing in relief and in this way all negative areas
are removed. After this being completed water is applied
and the paper is rubbed out. Now the block is ready for printing.
Generally teak wood is used for this block making. Craftsmen of Rumtek
monastery told me about or other type of wood named syor or ‘Takpashing’.
However another way of making block I saw in "Dhaja Printing Unit"
in Gangtok. They sometime use zinc block. This blocks are made from
design in the way zinc blocks for letter press printing generally are
made. However I have not seen such blocks being used in traditional
Tibetan printing practice.
THE
PRINTING INK
Tibetans had their own formula for making ink, which now is not used
generally, because the preparation of ink is a time consuming process.
The readymade printing ink which is easily available in market displaced
it. The printers tell about the preparation but generally they do not
use it at all. This ink is water based ink, similar to the Chinese system
and unlike the Western process of printing.
For making the ink at first blue pine wood is burnt and the charcoal
is collected. For the binder or adhesive purpose keisin type gum is
prepared from boiling leather. This is mixed well with the charcoal
dust to make the creamy paste of ink. I heard also of a composition
of lamp black and simple gum arabic for ink preparation. But this kind
of handmade ink is very seldom used today. Generally for printing manuscript
or diagrams on paper printers prepare the by mixing ordinary poster
color (designer gouache) with gum arabic For printing banner ordinary
letter press printing ink is used. It is oil based and used for the
banner because it hang in open area and has to face rain shower. So
the ink must not be water soluble in order to be permanent.
Pulling
The Print
This is the final stage for taking the print. The wood block is kept
upon a slanted desk called ‘patti’. The printer
spreads the printing ink all over the block. If it is tharchok or banner
to be printed then the oil based ink is applied with a hand roller.
In case of the manuscript printing a small hand brush with stiff hair
is used. In Tibetan language it is called ‘Jangpar’.
Great care is taken so the ink is evenly spread on all over the surface
then the cloth or paper to be printed is
placed over it. Then the print is taken by running a dry hand roller
very fast on it. After rolling several times the ink becomes transferred
and the printed cloth on manuscript page is lifted from the block.
The dry hand roller used for pulling the print is made of wrapping Hessian
cloth over a wooden stick and then a handle is added to it. Sometime
the Hessian is also covered by plastic sheet. For this hand roller,
different name is used used by different craftsmen. The small is sometimes
called ‘Tapri’ on
‘Pati’. There is large roller which is called
‘Langa’.
After all the pages of the manuscripts has been printed they are arranged
chronologically and the edge of the pages are trimmed. Then it is colored
with red ink. This red ink is called ‘chen marpo’.