དཔེ་ཆ

A handwritten unbound Tibetan text (pecha) on handmade paper. Handwritten in "headless" Tibetan dbu med (Ume) script. An astrological and ritual text སྤར་ཁ་བདན་ཕྱེད་བཞུགས་སྷོ། སྤར་ཁ (parka)refers to the astrological system of trigrams (as in the iChing) of which there are eight. Lamas diagnose problems with a person's parka. When ones parka is diminished you need a ritual to sort this out. If several people have the same parka in one household ( and this is causing probems), a performance of this ritual will separate their parkas out.

Extent: One unbound book consisting of five folios.

Size and dimensions of original material: Each folio is 33 cm x 8.5 cm.

Condition of original material: page edges chewed by mice. The precise country of origin is unknown. However it is almost certain that the original text was created in Tibet, though the specific material in question may have been copied locally in Spiti (India) at a later date.