Edict from a Dalai Lama

This edict was issued from the Ganden Palace at the great monastery of Drepung on the third moon of the fifth month in the water-tiger year, a cyclical date which can be either 1723 during the reign of the seventh Dalai Lama or 1783, time of the eighth Dalai Lama. It exhorts the various regions of the Land of Snow Mountain (Tibet) to provide students for the monasteries of Ganden, Drepung, and Sera.

Such edicts from the Dalai Lamas are highly treasured by Tibetans. They are usually written in black ink on yellow silk, in the dbu-med, or "headless," style of calligraphy. The two vermillion seals are carved in the Phagspa script, the official script in use since the 1200s for official seals.