The Diamond Sutra of 868, the oldest dated printed book
On 11 May 868 a man named Wang Jie had the Diamond Sutra printed from carved wooden blocks “for universal free distribution” on behalf of his parents. The scroll, found in 1900 in the walled-up Library Cave of the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, is the oldest surviving printed book that bears a date.
- Date
- 11 May 868exact dateDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Library Cave (Cave 17) of the Mogao Caves, where the scroll was foundtoday: Mogao Caves, 25 km southeast of Dunhuang, Gansu, China; the scroll is in the British Library, London · Central and Northern Asia
- Participants
- Tang dynasty
- Threads
- Central Asia and the steppe (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Diamond Sutra; Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra; Jingang jing; Wang Jie; Or.8210/P.2; Library Cave; Алмазная сутра; Ваджраччхедика; Цзиньган цзин; Ван Цзе; Библиотечная пещера; 金剛經; 王玠
The Diamond Sutra, a Mahayana discourse on the perfection of wisdom in which the Buddha instructs his disciple Subhūti, was one of the most widely read scriptures in China, in the translation made by Kumārajīva around 401. Copying and giving away sutras was believed to earn merit, and printing allowed many copies to be made at once. The Dunhuang copy is a scroll about five metres long, printed on seven sheets of paper pasted together; it opens with a woodcut frontispiece in which the preaching Buddha is surrounded by disciples, bodhisattvas and heavenly beings, with the elder Subhūti before him. Its colophon reads: “Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 15th day of the 4th month of the 9th year of Xiantong” — 11 May 868. Where it was printed is not known.
The scroll was one of some fifty thousand manuscripts and prints walled up — probably early in the 11th century and for reasons still debated — in a small side chamber of the Mogao cave temples, the Library Cave, now Cave 17. The Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu found the chamber in 1900, and in 1907 the archaeologist Aurel Stein acquired the Diamond Sutra from him together with thousands of other documents; it is now in the British Library. Older printed texts survive — among them the Japanese Hyakumantō Darani charms of 764–770 and a dharani found in a pagoda of the Bulguksa monastery in Korea — but they bear no printed date, and the Dunhuang scroll is the earliest complete printed book known to carry one. Historians note that the quality of its cutting and printing points to a craft long practised in Tang China, almost six centuries before Gutenberg.
Connections
Related events
- Le Zun cuts the first cave at Mogao366 · Central and Northern Asiathe scroll was found in the Library Cave of the Mogao Caves, begun in 366 according to a stele of 698
- Kim Dae-seong builds Bulguksa and the Seokguram grotto751 – c. 775 · East Asiaan earlier but undated woodblock print, the Mugujeonggwang dharani, was found in the Seokgatap pagoda of Bulguksa
- Zhang Yichao drives the Tibetans out of Dunhuang848 · Central and Northern Asiain 868 Dunhuang, where the scroll was later found, was ruled by the Guiyi Army of the Zhang family
Same participants
- Nanzhao takes Songping and holds Annam863–866 · Southeast Asia and Oceaniavia Tang dynasty
- Huang Chao rebellionbetween 874 and 875 – 13 July 884 · East Asiavia Tang dynasty
Same place
- Cang Ci, governor of Dunhuang, protects the western merchantsbetween 227 and 233 · Central and Northern Asia
Adjacent events in the thread
- The rise of the Samanids in Transoxiana819–900 · Central and Northern Asia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Aghlabid conquest of SicilyJune 827 – 1 August 902
- Great Heathen Army in England865–878
- Mission of Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia863 – 6 April 885
Eastern Europe
- Askold and Dir rule in Kyiv862–882
- First Christianization of the Rus’between 860 and 867
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
Middle East and Egypt
- Ahmad ibn Tulun rules Egypt: al-Qata'i and the Mosque of Ibn Tulun15 September 868 – 10 May 884
- The House of Wisdom and the translation movement in Baghdadc. 800 – c. 900
Africa
- Founding of the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fezbetween 857 and 877
- Ifriqiya under the Aghlabids800 – March 909
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
South Asia
- Mihira Bhoja and the Pratihara empire of Kannaujc. 836 – c. 885
- The tripartite struggle for Kannaujbetween 783 and 790 – between 915 and 918
North America
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
- Pueblo I: villages of surface rooms on the Colorado Plateauc. 750 – c. 900
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlandsc. 800 – c. 950
- Rise of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatánc. 800 – between 900 and 1000
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Cacaxtla and Xochicalco: the Epiclassic cities of central Mexicoc. 650 – c. 900
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Diamond Sutra
- Wikipedia (English): Mogao Caves
- Wikipedia (Russian): Алмазная сутра
- The Diamond Sutra — Linda Hall Library, Scientist of the Day
- Wood F., Barnard M. The Diamond Sutra: The Story of the World’s Earliest Dated Printed Book. — London: The British Library, 2010.