Diamond Sutra printed - May 11, 868

On this day in 868, a copy of the Diamond Sutra was published. It is the oldest surviving complete dated and printed book.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Eves and Welcome to This Day
in History Class, a show that uncovers a little bit
more about history every day. Today is May eleventh, nineteen.

(00:24):
The day was May eleventh, eight hundred sixty eight. A
copy of the Diamond Sutra, one of the Buddhist teachings,
was published on seven pages of paper pasted together to
create a scroll. Today, the text is considered the oldest surviving, complete, dated,
imprinted book. The diamond Sutra contains teachings on the Buddhist

(00:46):
principles of non abiding and non attachment, and it's a
key scripture in Mahayana Buddhism. The text also provides meditations
on illusion and perception. The copy of the Diamond Sutra
that was published on is not the earliest example of
block printing, but it is the oldest book to include

(01:06):
a colophon that has a verifiable date. A colophon is
an inscription at the end of a book or manuscript
that provides details of the works publication. The Diamond Suture
was first translated from Sanskrit to Chinese around four hundred c.
In eighth century China, printing was done with woodblocks. Paper
was made from mulberry or hemp, then it was dyed

(01:28):
yellow with bark from the amer cork tree. The text
was painted onto tracing paper, which was put onto a
wooden block. A carver then followed the trace text to
carve the shapes into the block. Then the block was
inked and stamped onto the paper. In Taoist, Emperor Wuzong
of the Tong dynasty suppressed Buddhism as China denounced foreign

(01:50):
influences and old confusion in Taoist ideas re emerged. Temples
and monasteries were shut down and adherents were banned from practice.
The band was rolled back not long after it was instituted,
but Buddhism did not thrive as it had before. A
monk named wong U n Lou originally discovered Wang Ji's

(02:13):
Diamond Sutra in don Huang, China in nineteen hundred. He
was in a place now known as the Caves of
a Thousand Buddhas a cliff wall with hundreds of caves
carved out of it. He found the entrance to a
secret library that had been sealed, where there were tens
of thousands of documents. It's not completely clear who and

(02:33):
why the documents were placed in the library cave, nor
is it known why and when the cave was sealed shut.
But in nineteen o seven, British Hungarian archaeologist Mark R. L.
Stein was mapping the Silk Road when he found out
about the library. After some negotiation, Stein bribed Wong into
selling about ten thousand documents and painted scrolls for a

(02:56):
hundred and thirty pounds by invoking Wong's paint in Saint
Chuan Zon, a Buddhist monk and scholar who had taken
a pilgrimage to India in the seventh century and was
a translator of Buddhist scriptures. One of the documents Stein
acquired was the Diamond Sutra. The scroll is about sixteen
feet or five meters long and ten and a half

(03:19):
inches or about twenty seven centimeters wide. It's made up
of seven pieces of yellow stained paper pasted together with
an elaborate illustration on the first paper that shows the
Buddhas speaking to a disciple. An inscription on the scroll
says the following in translation reverently made for universal free
distribution about Wang gi On behalf of his parents. On

(03:42):
the fifteenth of the fourth moon of the ninth year
of Shoon Long. That would work out to be May eleven,
eight sixty eight. It's not clear who Wong Gi was
or why he had the Diamond Sutra printed, but it's
likely that monks used the scroll to chant the sutra
and that printing copies of the sutra allowed for wider
dissemination of the Buddhist teachings. Today, the scroll is located

(04:06):
at the British Library. I'm each Chef Coote and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. And here's an additional note on really old books.
Books have been dated back to the BC years, like
the manuscript Bulgaria's National Museum of History Holes, which is
more than years old. But what should be considered a

(04:28):
book is up for debate. Scrolls and clay tablets exists
that are thousands of years old as well. Also, the
International don Huang Project is a collaboration that has digitized
archaeological materials from Dunhuang and other sites on the Eastern
Silk Road. Keep up with us on Twitter, Instagram and

(04:48):
Facebook at t d I h C Podcast. Thanks again
for listening, and we'll see you tomorrow m HM. For
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