According to the Tibetan Medicine Institute of Qinghai Province, up until now, the institute has collected 1,552 kinds of ancient documents regarding Tibetan medicine.

Some of the documents, discovered for the first time, are extinct books made by prestige monks during the history. These all become the important foundation of the theoretical studies, clinical studies as well as of new medicinal developments regarding Tibet medicine.

Statistics show that the ancient documents recording Tibetan medicine throughout the history number to over 5,000 types. However, due to the long history and the simple and crude preserving conditions, plus defacing human activities, so there exists serious problems surrounding ancient Tibetan medicine documents such as the documents have become moldy, rusty, damaged or even lost.

The Tibetan Medicine Institute of Qinghai Province was established in 1983. In recent years, the institute has respectively organized and sent over 100-person-time researchers to more than 10 countries such as England, the U.S., and Italy as well as to China’s different provinces and regions such as Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Beijing, to collect and sort out the ancient books regarding Tibetan medicine. All together, they have collected 1,552 kinds of ancient documents.

At the moment, the Tibetan Medicine Institute of Qinghai Province has published The Collections of Classical Writings on Tibetan Medicine including 108 sets of ancient books on Tibetan medicine; the institute has also translated and edited 12 volumes of The Explanations of the Four Medical Tantras Mantang (in Tibetan, Chinese, English and Japanese languages) and compiled and published 60 volumes of The Dictionary of Tibetan Medicine and The Comprehensive Work on the Tibetan Medicine Decoction.

All of these works are very significant to the rescue and preservation of the Tibetan medicine heritage and to the development of the Tibetan medicine academy.

From this point forward, the institute will move a step further towards improving the management system revolving around the Tibetan medicine database and establishing 10 kinds of Tibetan medicine databases including the clinical, material, and prescription databases as well as the “Tibetan medicine website”.

Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, Indian Vedic medicine and Western traditional medicine are regarded as the Four Big Traditional Medicines in the world. In 2006, Tibetan medicine was listed in the 1st batch of national intangible cultural heritages.