Printing is one of the four great inventions of ancient mainland China. Engraving and printing has a history of more than 1300 years, more than 400 years before movable type printing. Engraving and printing pioneered human photocopying technology. Before the invention of engraving and printing, the dissemination of Buddhist classics on the mainland relied on manual copying. Manual transcription of Buddhist texts is laborious and time-consuming, and the main problem is that it is easy to distort and errors. After the invention of engraving and printing, the above problems were solved and the spread of Buddhism was greatly promoted.
Engraving printing is a process technology that engraves words or pictures on woodblocks, and then uses wooden boards engraved with pictures and texts as printing plates for ink printing. The process method is: 1, first make wooden boards according to the size of the layout (mainly using pear wood, jujube wood, etc.); 2, write words or draw pictures on thin paper according to the requirements of the layout; 3, the thin paper with written text or pictures drawn with special paste is pasted on the wooden board; 4, use the engraving knife to engrave according to the strokes and lines of the picture, so that the picture and text are protruding, the space is concave, and the printing plate is made; 5, brush ink on the printing plate; 6, lay the paper flat on the printing plate, wipe with a brown brush, so that the ink is printed on the paper; 7, the paper is lifted, dried, and bound into a book. In the early days of the invention of engraving and printing, the engraving and printing process could print two thousand sheets a day, and at that time its speed was unmatched by the method of hand-copying scriptures.
Judging from the excavated cultural relics, from the ancient books and classics handed down from China, from the historical records of China, the earliest engraving and printing technique in China was mainly applied to the needs of the spread of Buddhism.
emperor
The most typical example is the engraving and printing of "Open Treasure". "The Treasure of Kai was ordered by Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, and was carved and printed by Gao Pin Zhang Congxin, a eunuch of the Inner Servant Province."
The heyday of engraving and printing was the Song Dynasty. To this day, the Song edition of the book is also a valuable item in the collection of ancient books and rare books. In the fourth year of the Northern Song Dynasty, that is, in 971 AD, Zhao Kuangyin (927-976 AD), the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, personally ordered Gao Pin and Zhang Congxin to go to Yizhou, which is today's Chengdu, Sichuan, to preside over the engraving of the Great Tibetan Classics[3], and completed the engraving of 130,000 scriptures in the eighth year of the Taiping Revival, that is, in 983 AD, and then began the printing of the engraved "Kaibao". This is the first official carved woodblock engraving of the Great Tibetan Classic in Chinese history, which is also known as the "Kai treasure" because it was first engraved during the Kaibao period of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Another example: around 954 AD, the devout Buddhist King Qian Li (chu), together with the high monk Yanshou monk, engraved and printed a large number of Buddha statues and tatu mantras, of which there were 682,000 volumes of which could be examined, and the number of printed and spread was so large that it was rare in the world. In addition, the Well-known Hangzhou Leifeng Pagoda Sutra is a stupa built by Qian Li in the second year of the Northern Song Dynasty Taiping Xingguo (977) on Xizhao Mountain on the south bank of the West Lake, and the scriptures hidden in the pagoda are called the Leifeng Pagoda Sutra, also known as the "Baozhen Indrani Sutra". The text is more than 2,700 words, and the end of the volume is titled "Qian Li, the Great Marshal of the Terracotta Army, made this sutra in 84,000 volumes, smashed into the Xiguan Brick Pagoda, Yongchong Offering, Yihai August Diary". The existing objects of this sutra are in the library of Sun Yat-sen University.
dignitary
Xuanzang is arguably the greatest figure in the history of Chinese Buddhism. A mythological story about the Tang monks taking the scriptures from the West, "Journey to the West", is even more well-known to its families and women. Around 650-664 AD, Xuanzang printed 1 million copies of the Buddha in engravings and distributed them to a wide range of Buddhist devotees over a period of five years. According to Volume 10 of the Biography of the Three Tibetan Masters of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty (688 AD) written by Xuanzang's disciple Hui Li and others, in 650 AD after Emperor Gaozong's succession, in view of Xuanzang's respect for his father's emperor, Emperor Gaozong also paid great respect to Xuanzang, sent courtiers to ask for consolation, and also gave hundreds of pieces of brocade and robes. After the prize is accepted, it is given to the poor and foreign Brahmin guests, "scatter as you please, and have nothing to store." He vowed to make a statue of the Ten Moons and cause it. "Juyue 氐" is a transliteration of the Sanskrit quantitifier koti, and the jujutsu is 1 million. Literature records that the Xuan Prize prints five statues of Puxian every year, "based on 100-125 kg of paper per horse, then five horses carry 500-750 kg, according to today's leather paper per square meter of about 30g, the size of each portrait is 25cm x30cm, then about 200,000 to 240,000 copies, so 5 years can reach one million copies, which coincides with the 'wish to make a statue of ten months'." If the 1 million prints printed in 5 years are evenly distributed to each day, the printing volume per day is 667 according to the 300 days of work in a year. Based on the average time it takes to print a single one by today's workers engaged in traditional engraving and printing, it takes about 4h to print 667 Buddha statues."
scholar
Su Shi (1037-1101 AD), a famous essayist, calligrapher, poet, and gourmet of the Northern Song Dynasty, also known as Zi Zhan, Zi He Zhong, and Dongpo Resident. He and the Buddhist monk presided over the engraving of the Golden Mountain Sutra at the Jinshan Monastery in Zhenjiang. In February of the eighth year of Yuan Feng (1085 AD), Su Shi was at the residence of the crown prince Taibao Zhang Dao and received the Golden Mountain Tsubasa Abhidharma Treasure Sutra given to him by the Taibao.
Zhang Dao paid Su Shi to "make the printing of the sutra in jianghuai". And the Golden Mountain Elder Buddha Seal Master yuan yue, the seal is exhausted, if the book is engraved, it is endless. In the same year, Su Shi brought this sutra to the Golden Mountain Temple, and with the assistance of the Master of the Buddha Seal, Su Shi personally wrote all the scriptures. Later, he invited craftsmen who were good at carving to Jinshan to carve the scriptures, and after the engraving, the book version has been stored in the Jinshan Temple, whether it is a believer or a pilgrim, you can print it as you want, so that this sutra can be widely circulated.
believer
Cui Fazhen, daughter of Cui Jin of Jin Dynasty. In some parts of Shanxi and Shaanxi, Cui Fazhen raised funds to engrave the "Zhao Cheng Jinzang" by means of a broken arm, which touched many Buddhist letters, and these believers donated funds to help. Around the 9th year of Emperor Jin Xizong's reign (1149 AD), the "Kaidiao Dazang Sutra Edition Society" was formed at Tianning Temple to be responsible for carving, and it took about 30 years to complete until the completion of the 13th year (1173) of Kim Sejong Dading. After the golden treasure was carved, Cui Fazhen sent the printed copy to Yanjing in the eighteenth year of Dading (1178), and was valued by Kim Sejong, who set up an altar at Sheng'an Monastery to grant Choi Fazhen the bhikshuni ordination. Three years later, Cui Fazhen sent the sutra editions to Zhongdu (now Beijing) for printing and circulation, totaling 168,113 plates and 6,980 volumes. In recognition of Cui Fazhen's exploits, in the twenty-third year of Dading (1183 AD), Cui Fazhen was given a purple robe and was awarded the title of "Master of Hongjiao".
"Zhao Cheng Jinzang" is clearly printed, the font is strong, each volume has an exquisite Buddha diagram, its sword line and Song version of the Buddhist scriptures, with the characteristics of bold and rigorous and vigorous, is a precious specimen in the history of mainland printing, is a precious material for studying the history of continental engraving and edition history. It can be seen from this that the evolution of Buddhist book production in successive dynasties is a great treasure house in the history of printing development, and it also occupies an important position in the history of Chinese edition bibliography and engraving and printing. I saw a copy of this sutra in the Capital Museum.
Source: Sandalwood House
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