Mirror of Zen Blog

Zen Was Before Gutenberg

Zen was before God, so it is also before the Gutenberg Bible.

What a delicious irony it is that the oldest book made from movable type was a book of Zen teachings. How totally rad and stealthy cool that the spiritual tradition which most eschews book learning, which claims (quite correctly) of itself “a special transmission outside of scriptures”, has produced the first book in human history made for mass circulation.

Printed in Korea in 1377, 78 years before the Gutenberg Bible, this is the world's oldest known book printed with movable metal type. Known by its abbreviated name of "Jikji", only a single copy of one volume of the original 2 vol edition survives, and is held today by the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France in Paris.
In a colophon the last page of Jikji is recorded details of its publication, indicating that it was published in the 3rd Year of King U (July 1377) by metal type at Heungdeok temple in Cheongju.

The cover on the surviving volume of this edition is a replacement of the original, and records in French "The oldest known Korean book printed with molded type, with 1377 as date". Jikji was donated to @laBnF by the heirs of the collector Henri Véver, when he died in 1950.

Jikji was purchased in Korea in the early 1900s by the French consul at the time, Victor de Plancy. Most of the books Plancy collected in Korea were sold at auction in 1911, where Jikji was purchased for 180 fr. by Henri Véver. Vever later left it to the BNF in his will.

UNESCO confirmed Jikji as the world's oldest book printed with metal type in September 2001, and includes it in the Memory of the World Programme.
The importance of the book to the Korean people is incalculable. Korea has tried repeatedly to have the book returned - or even loaned - back to Korea. Not only have all these efforts been rebuffed, but the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France has not displayed the book publicly at all for over 50 years.


Text/images: @incunabula

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