Tripitaka Koreana

UNESCO World Heritage Site

The Tripitaka Koreana 팔만 대장경
Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List
Type	Cultural
Criteria	iv, vi
Reference	737
UNESCO region	Asia and the Pacific
Inscription history
Inscription	1995 (19th Session)

The Tripitaka Koreana (lit. Goryeo Tripitaka) or Palman Daejanggyeong ("Eighty-Thousand Tripitaka") is a Korean collection of the Tripitaka (Buddhist scriptures, and the Sanskrit word for "three baskets"), carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century. It is the world's most comprehensive and oldest intact version of Buddhist canon in Hanja script, with no known errors or errata in the 52,330,152 characters which are organized in over 1496 titles and 6568 volumes. Each wood block measures 70 centimeters in width and 24 centimeters in length. The thickness of the blocks ranges from 2.6 to 4 centimeters and each weighs about three to four kilograms. The work is stored in Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple in South Gyeongsang province, in South Korea.

History

Tripitaka Koreana sutra page in 1371.

The name "Goryeo Tripitaka" comes from "Goryeo", the name of Korea from the 10th to the 14th centuries. It served as reference for the edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon.

The Tripitaka Koreana was first carved in 1087 during the Third Goryeo-Khitan War. The act of carving the woodblocks was considered to be a way of bringing about a change in fortune by invoking the Buddha's help.^[1]

The original set of woodblocks were destroyed by fire during the Mongol invasions of Korea in 1232, when Goryeo's capital was moved to Ganghwa Island during nearly three decades of Mongol incursions, although scattered parts of its prints still remain. To once again implore divine assistance with combating the Mongol threat, King Gojong thereafter ordered the revision and re-creation of the Tripitaka; the carving took 16 years, from 1236 to 1251, with support from the Choe House and involving monks from both the Seon and Gyo schools. This second revision is usually what is meant by the Tripitaka Koreana. In 1398, it was moved to Haeinsa, where they have remained housed in four buildings.

Evaluation

The Tripitaka Koreana is the 32nd national treasure of Korea, and the Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, the depository for Tripitaka Koreana, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.^[2] The UNESCO committee describes the Tripitaka Koreana as one of the "most important and most complete corpus of Buddhist doctrinal texts in the world."^[3] Not only is the work invaluable, it is also aesthetically valuable and shows a high quality of workmanship.^[3]

The historical value of the Tripitaka Koreana comes from the fact that it is the most complete and accurate extant collection of Buddhist treatises, laws, and scriptures.^[4] The compilers of the Korean version incorporated older Northern Song Chinese, Khitan, Goryeo versions and added content written by respected Korean monks.^[5] Scholars can get an idea of the older Chinese and Khitan versions of the Tripitaka from the Korean version today. The quality of the wood blocks are attributed to the National Preceptor Sugi who carefully checked the Korean version for errors.^[5] Because of the accuracy of the Tripitaka Koreana, the Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese versions of the Tripitaka are based on this Korean version.^[4]

Copy of a Tripitaka Koreana woodblock at Haeinsa complex grounds used to allow visitors to make an inked print of the Heart Sutra while at the temple. See: for image of woodblock print.

Each block is made of birch wood from the southern islands of Korea and was treated to prevent the decay of the wood. They were soaked in sea water for three years, then cut, then boiled in salt water. Then, the blocks were placed in the shade and exposed to the wind for three years at which point they were finally be ready to be carved. After each block was carved, it was covered in a poisonous lacquer to keep insects away and was framed with metal to prevent warping.

Every block was inscribed with 23 lines of text with 14 characters per line, Therefore, each block, counting both sides, contained a total of 644 characters. The consistency of the style, and some sources, suggests that a single man carved the entire collection but it is now believed that a team of thirty men did the job.^[4][5]

Modern edition

Modern edition has 1,514 texts in 47 volumes.

See also

• National treasures of South Korea
• Buddhism in Korea
• Buddhist texts
• Pali Canon
• List of Korea-related topics

References

Further reading

• Turnbull, Stephen (2003). Genghis Khan & the Mongol Conquests 1190–1400. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-523-6. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tripitaka Koreana.

• Tripitaka Koreana (Site in Korean with electronic scans of the tripitaka)
• The Korean Tripitaka
• National Heritage
• (Haeinsa) National Treasures 32
• UNESCO

Coordinates: 35°48′N 128°06′E / 35.800°N 128.100°E / 35.800; 128.100