ABSTRACT
The first long-lasting Tibetan-language newspaper in history, known as the Yul phyogs so so'i gsar 'gyur me long (The Mirror of News from All Sides of the World, or later, The Tibet Mirror 2 ) was produced between 1925 and 1963 in Kalimpong, a small hill town in north Bengal, India. The publication was significant for a number of reasons. First, it was produced by a Tibetan who did not fit within assumed historical categories of Tibetan identity. Dorje Tharchin (Rdo rje mthar phyin, 1890–1976; also known as Tharchin Babu) was a Christian teacher-turned-journalist and publisher, employed by the Church of Scotland in Kalimpong to work as a printer. Second, the Tibetan-language publication aimed to create a unified Tibetan identity between different Tibetan-language-speaking communities of the Himalayas. Its distribution from India to Tibet, China, and later, Europe and its focus on nonparochial themes with news included from around the world made it the first textual attempt to foster pan-Tibetanism. Finally, and most significantly, The Tibet Mirror “subverted the prescribed notions of text” within Tibetan-language communities (Shakya 2004: 23).
