Tibetan was developed as a literary language from the 7th century onward as a result of earlier cultural contacts with neighbouring Buddhist countries--namely, the small states of the Takla Makan, especially Khotan (Ho-t'ien) and the kingdoms of ancient northwestern India (modern Gilgit, Kashmir, and Kullu) and Nepal. Scripts of Indian origin were in use in these countries, so the Tibetans also adapted an Indian script to suit their own very different language. By far the greater number of works produced between the 7th and 13th centuries are skillful translations of Buddhist works, largely from Sanskrit, on which Indian scholars and Tibetan translators worked side by side. The Tibetans had to create an entirely new (and therefore artificial) vocabulary of religious and philosophical terms, mainly by ingenious compounding of simple terms available in their own language. Apart from some religious terms in daily use, this vocabulary remains a specialized scholarly language. An indigenous literature was also produced: annals and chronicles, sets of spells and prognostications, legendary and liturgical works, all representing the remains of ancient oral traditions. Large collections of such manuscript fragments, all earlier than the 11th century, were discovered early in the 20th century in the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas near Tun-huang (at the eastern side of the Takla Makan). (see also Index: Tibetan Buddhism)

The quasi-official work of translating authorized Indian Buddhist texts, which continued for six centuries, gave incentive to the Bon-pos (the followers of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet) to collect and write down their own early traditions; but in so doing they adopted many Buddhist ideas and, inevitably, used the new vocabulary. The followers of the earliest Buddhist traditions to enter Tibet (the Rnying-ma-pa, or "Old Order") also committed their teachings to writing; and, conversely, these are interspersed with pre-Buddhist traditions. (see also Index: Bon)

The official Tibetan Buddhist canon was closed in the 13th century; it consisted of two parts, the Kanjur ("Translated Word," teachings or reputed teachings of the Buddhas themselves) and the Tanjur ("Translated Treatises," mainly commentaries by Indian teachers). By this time, however, there already existed some orthodox Buddhist works of Tibetan origin (for example, Mi-la ras-pa and Sgam-po-pa); and from the 13th century onward, under the impetus given by the prolixity of religious houses and orders, there were produced such lengthy and numerous collections of historical and biographical works, treatises and commentaries, and liturgy and religious drama that Tibetan literature must be one of the most extensive in the world. Just as in the European Middle Ages there was little secular literature worth the name, so there is none in Tibetan except for a great epic (Rgyal-po Ge-sar dgra'dul gyi rtogs-pa brjod-pa, "The Great Deeds of King Gesar, Destroyer of Enemies") that recounts the exploits of the king and magic hero Gesar. This work grew through the centuries, assimilating whatever material pleased the fancy of the bards.

After the craft of printing from incised wood blocks was introduced from China, possibly in the 14th century, certain monasteries became famous printing houses. This form of printing continued until the Chinese invasion in 1959. Manuscripts and block-printed books are always of elongated shape, thus imitating the form of ancient Indian palm-leaf manuscripts. There are considerable collections in some European libraries--London, Paris, and Rome--but few translations are available, because of the small number of scholars of Tibet.

Despite the phonetic changes in the spoken dialects since the script was fixed, the Tibetans have never changed their system of writing. Thus, once the literary language and the various types of script have been mastered, the reader has immediate access to all literature of the 7th to the 20th centuries, though changes in style and vocabulary have left many obscurities in the earliest works. Since there is no modern style of writing, the 20th-century colloquial language can be written only in the traditional medium (as though, for example, one had to write modern Italian with Latin spellings and grammatical forms); the Tibetans themselves compose even personal letters in a conventional literary style.