Effective protection, inheritance and development of the intangible Tibetan cultural heritage. Since the 1970s, a group of institutions have been set up at the regional and prefectural (city) levels to rescue, sort out and research on the Tibetan cultural heritage. They have conducted extensive surveys on Tibetan folk literature and art, collected, sorted out and studiedliterature and art materials widely spread among Tibetans in aspects of drama, dance, music, ballads, folk songs, proverbs and folk tales. These efforts have resulted in the collection and collation of about 30 million words of written materials in the Tibetan and Han languages, over 1,000 academic papers on traditional Tibetan culture, and more than 30 research works on literature and art. Since 2003, the Central People''s Government and the People''s Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region have launched and implemented a project for intangible cultural heritage protection. Leading groups and special offices for this purpose have been set up at regional and prefectural (city) levels to conduct more extensive and thorough investigations throughout the region, to effectively save and preserve endangered cultural heritage items. A total of 19 townships have been named by the region as "homes of folk arts"; 120 items listed as representative works of region-level intangible cultural heritage, with 61 on the national intangible cultural heritage list; and 31 people placed on the list of representatives for national intangible cultural heritage. A large number of ancient Tibetan books and records have been saved from oblivion. The completion of the Tibetan volumes in the 10-tome series, including the Annals of Chinese Operas, A Collection of Chinese Folk Ballads, A Collection of Folk Dances of China''s Ethnic Groups, A Collection of Chinese Proverbs, A Collection of Folk Performing Art Genres, A Collection of Folk Songs of China''s Ethnic Groups, A Collection of Traditional Operas and Music and A Collection of Folk Tales, has put an end to the history of scanty records of Tibetan culture and art, and enabled a large number of major items of the Tibetan cultural heritage to be saved and protected in an effective way. The Life of King Gesar, a lengthy epic, had been passed down orally until the state placed it on the key scientific research project list. The state has set up a special body and earmarked special funds for the collection, collation and publishing of the masterpiece. So far, 5,000 hours of audiotapes have been recorded, over 300 volumes collected, with the publication of 120 volumes in the Tibetan language, 25 volumes in Mongolian, over 20 volumes in Han Chinese translation, and 20 monographs; and many volumes have been translated into English, Japanese and French.

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