[
    {
        "id": 205284,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 46,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "39\n\nPRINTING - A NEW DISCOVERY\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nIn 1963 the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society published a paper of mine entitled \"The development of printing in China and its effect on the renaissance under the Sung dynasty (960 - 1279).\" Recently a new find was made which, if confirmed, pushes back the history of block printing some fifteen years, possibly more. The discovery occurred last October when certain Korean scholars noticed that a stone stupa known as Sokka Tap 釋迦塔, at Pulguk sa 佛國寺, had been damaged. On investigation they found a printed Buddhist sutra hidden in its interior. (See plates 5 and 6) It was in the form of a scroll made of thick mulberry paper, mounted on a piece of bamboo, lacquered at each end. The text is some 630 cm. long and 6 cm. wide, the printed portion being 5.3 cm. in width. The exact length cannot be determined as the scroll has not been fully unrolled due to its poor condition. In fact, about one third has suffered serious damage from worms; the rest of it, however, is in fair condition. Later examination revealed that the printing had been executed by means of a series of woodblocks, twelve in number, each about 20 or 21 inches in length. Then the separate pieces of paper had been joined together to form a continuous scroll, just as was the text of the famous Diamond Sutra of 868, discovered in 1907 at the cave library of Ch'ien-fo-tung near Tun-huang (west China) by Sir Aurel Stein, now at the British Museum. The scholars who have pronounced this an authentic piece of printing are Professors Kim Sanggi and Yi Hongjik, members of the Cultural Assets Preservation Committee, Ministry of Education, Seoul.\n\nIn the cavity of the stupa there were, besides the scroll, reliquary vessels, Buddhist images, tiny pagodas, incense sticks, pieces of silk, etc. (See plate 7). They seem to be typical of the period not only in Korea, but also in China and in Japan. These items are important discoveries in themselves, and deserve further study.\n\nThe text is well known. Its title in Chinese is Wu kou ching kuang ta to-lo-ni ching (in Sanskrit: Raśmivimalavaviśuddhaprabhā dhāranī). It was first rendered into",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205285,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 47,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "40\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nChinese by Mi-t'o-hsien tu, a monk from Tokhara in central Asia, who lived at Ch'ang-an (then capital of China) from 680 to 704, after which he returned home. These are the years when the Empress Wu (reigned 684-704) ruled the land. This fact\n\n武后 is important as the Empress foisted certain strange characters upon her Chinese subjects. One at least of these appears in the sutra:  for (heaven; the elements sun, moon, and earth appearing inside an old form for ); this helps to establish the genuineness of the text. Now the stupa seems to have been erected at the same time as the temple itself, which was completed in 751. Unfortunately no date has so far been found on the text, as was the case in the above-mentioned Diamond Sutra of 868. There seems little reason to doubt the mid-8th century attribution, however, as the calligraphy of the scribe who brushed out the characters for the woodblock is like that of other literary remains of mid-T'ang provenance (found at Tun-huang and elsewhere), and the scholars reporting the discovery assert that the artifacts found together with the text showed no sign of a disturbing hand.\n\nIf then the date of 751 or earlier may be accepted, Korea has revealed evidence for printing which pre-dates the evidence from Japan. As may be recalled, the exact dates for the printing of the charms distributed by the Empress Shōtoku are not exactly known but they run between 764 and 770. (See the discussion in my revision of Thomas Francis Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward, 2nd edn., Columbia University Press 1955, chapter 7.) Add to this another remarkable fact: both the Japanese empress and the unknown individual responsible for the printing at Pulguk sa made use of the same sutra. They must have considered that it had unusual powers. The main difference between the texts is that the Korean made much more use of it. His runs to twenty feet or more as against eighteen inches in the Japanese examples. The width of the two texts is almost identical (2 inches). These measurements may be compared with the sutras printed about two centuries later; one group, found in the pagoda of a monastery at Hu-chow (Chekiang) bearing a date equivalent to 956, and others found in the Thunder Peak Pagoda near Hangchow, dated 975. The first measured 2.5 inches in width (inner portion 1.95 ins.), length not specified; the second 2.8 inches wide and 6 feet 9 inches long. Incidentally the items dated 956 were also dhāranīs taken from the sutra translated by Mi-t'o-hsien.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205453,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1967",
        "page_number": 215,
        "title": "RAS-1967",
        "content_text": "土石英\n\n五供養\n\n搭滿九幸\n\n中各置\n\n若護在人體\n\nWAGEN PAS\n\nPlate 5. Part of printed sutra, early 8th century.\n\n持\n\n諸天\n\n彼諸如來皆通\n\n天供具而了\n\n善男女人\n\n福德版\n\n敬佩杓身上以\n\n*\n\n若依此作\n\n已六於翠密位時\n\n一九億百十那由滿是射同造\n\nPlate 6. Part of printed sutra. early 8th century.\n\nPlate 7. Artifacts found in stupa at Pulguk sa.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 206655,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1972",
        "page_number": 203,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n197\n\nand his three small survey ships have given their names respectively to Sulphur Channel, Starling Inlet and Plover Cove.\n\nJ. R. JONES.\n\nCHINA'S EARLIEST PRINTING A NOTE\n\nLLL\n\nIn Volume 7 (1967) of this Journal I published a brief note entitled \"Printing, a new discovery.\" This told of a find in a stone stupa, standing in the courtyard of a temple called Pulguk-sa, in Korea, erected in 751, of a printed Buddhist sutra. The find was hailed by the Korean archaeologists as perhaps the oldest example of printing known, although the exact date of the printing still remains a mystery.\n\nRecently I have learned that the Chinese discovered another piece of printing as far back as 1944. (Somehow, perhaps because of the war, news of this had escaped my attention.) Known in Chinese as T'o-lo-ni ching chou (dharani sutra charm), it was unearthed in a T'ang dynasty grave site in Chengtu, Szechwan, inside the silver bracelet of a young woman. As Professor Max Loehr has written, it \"is a charm printed on a single sheet showing a six-armed Bodhisattva figure in the center of concentrically laid out Sanscrit words written in Lantsa letters.\" This is surprising, but not unreasonable. In the last half of the Tang, Chengtu happens to have developed into perhaps the chief center of printing, and, as everyone knows, by the middle of the eighth century Chinese civilization had reached one of its heights. It was the age of Li Po and Tu Fu, Wu Tao-hsüan and Wang Wei, and Buddhism was at the summit of its influence. With the demand for reduplication in every circle - Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist - and with all the tools and techniques at hand, the printing of a highly popular charm seems natural. So it came about that there have come to light charms, printed within a few years of each other, in Korea (751?), China (757), and Japan (764-770).\n\nBibliography:\n\nChung-kuo pan-k'o lü-lu, compiled by the Peking Library (Peking 1961), pl. 1, text Vol. I, p. 7;",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h",
        "rank": 0
    }
]