Listen to red memories and follow in the footsteps of a century. The 100-episode audio column "Collection has Something to Say", jointly produced by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage, the Palace Museum, the Beijing Museum Society and the Xinhua network client, has been officially launched recently. The column selects more than 100 pieces of collections from nearly 60 museums, compiles collection stories and makes them into audio programs, and reviews the century-old struggle of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese nation by telling the stories of patriotic party and patriotic collections of museums, science and technology museums, art galleries and memorial halls in Beijing.
Episode 60: Turning "Decay" into Magic:
The restorer of Yunju Temple and the Wooden Plank Sutra of The Dragon Collection
Today, we invite Wang Xiaoning from the Stone Classics Museum of Yunju Temple to introduce you to a collection of cultural relics in the museum.
Pieces of almost rotten wooden planks, why do the staff worry and be cautious? Can the national treasure of three hundred years ago turn "decay" into magic and achieve scientific protection? Today's "Collection has Something to Say" will bring you the story of the restorer in the Stone Sutra Museum of Yunju Temple and the "Dragon Collection" Wooden Plank Sutra.
Entering the wood lacquer restoration department of Yunju Temple, pieces of numbered wooden warp boards are neatly arranged on the shelves, some of them have been mothed by insects, some have cracks and deformations, and some have decayed to the point of breaking. The restorer Zhu Zhaojing and others on the side are working on the case, they first dry cleaning the wooden warp board, taking a soft brush and cotton swab to remove dust and mold on the surface, and then using a steam cleaner to soften the ink on the surface of the warp board, and then using a special bamboo skewer to remove the ink stuck on the warp board a little bit.
Wood warpboard repair operation
Yunju Temple Stone Sutra Museum is available
What are these wooden warp panels? Why do you have to take care of it so carefully? Originally, they were the famous "Dragon Collection" wooden plank sutra.
The "Longzang" wooden plank classic, also known as the "Qianlong Version of the Great Tibetan Classic", was carved in the thirteenth year of Yongzheng (1735) and completed in the third year of Qianlong (1738), and has a history of nearly 300 years. There are 1670 parts, 7240 volumes, 79036 carved warp plates, weighing about 400 tons. The high-quality pear wood produced in Shandong (present-day Hebei) and Shandong is specially selected for carving, and the carved scriptures are beautiful in body, exquisitely engraved, and like a person; the plates such as Buddha statues are drawn in white painting techniques, solemn but vivid.
The Dragon Collection is extremely rich in content, containing Buddhist classics and Buddhist research works handed down from generation to generation, and is the most complete and highly valuable Buddhist encyclopedia preserved to this day. According to expert research, there are only two complete preserved Chinese woodcuts in the world, one is the Korean "Goryeo Collection" and the other is the "Dragon Collection" of Yunju Temple.
The original version of the wooden warp board of "Dragon Collection"
After the wooden scripture plate of "Dragon Collection" was carved, it was originally stored in the Wuying Hall in the Forbidden City, and moved to the Berlin Temple in Beijing in the last year of Qianlong. In nearly 300 guns and smoke, social movements, these precious cultural relics have been seriously damaged by flooding, rain, insects and other serious damage, a large number of warp plates appear cracks, decay, deformation and other problems, individual warp plates even broken, dropped words, as the protection around the warp plates for the use of linen hanging ash also has different degrees of damage, the overall damage is very serious.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the party and the government were very concerned about the protection of the "Longzang" wooden warp board. In order to rescue this batch of precious cultural relics, in July 1982, the jingban was moved to Zhihua Temple for preservation, which was kept by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics; in October 1987, the jingban was transported to the Hanying Ancient Book Printing Factory in Daxing County for brush printing; in February 1989, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics and the Fangshan District Government agreed that after the plate brush printing, it would not be transported back to Zhihua Temple, but moved to Yunju Temple to store in the warehouse specially built for "Dragon Collection".
In 2016, Yunju Temple put the protection and restoration of wooden warp boards on the important agenda. After scientific demonstration, the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University conducted a preliminary disease investigation on the wooden warp board, and in view of the disease situation, it has successively compiled the "Yunju Temple Tibetan "Dragon Collection" Wooden Warp Plate Cultural Relics Protection and Restoration Plan" and the protection and restoration plan; in April 2018, the restoration plan was approved by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics and received special financial support from the central government for the protection of key cultural relics.
In 2019, after the trial repair was confirmed by the expert group, the repair work of a large number of wooden warp boards was officially started. In addition to inviting experts and scholars such as Wu Menglin, Luo Zhong, Zhou Baozhong, Liu Endi and other experts and scholars to guide the work, several young restorers specializing in cultural relics appraisal and restoration also undertook the restoration task together, and Zhu Zhaojing was one of them.
Before and after the repair
This group of young people often sat in front of the restoration platform for a day, they rarely spoke, and most of the time they "communicated" with the wooden warp in their hands. For this group of young people, the most important thing in this work is not only restoration, but also protection.
Many wooden warpboards have become very fragile due to their age, often seemingly intact, but they are empty inside and will collapse when they are touched. This not only requires them to take it lightly, but also to "take a little effort" when repairing, after cleaning up, it is necessary to adjust it into a special glue in proportion, brush it on the wooden warp board over and over again, let the glue slowly penetrate into it, and strengthen the wood warp board.
Through the joint efforts of experts and them, a total of 350 wooden warp boards have been restored by the end of 2020, and in the near future, the restored "Longzang" wooden warp boards will be displayed to the public with a new look.
Yunju Temple Stone Scripture Museum
Built in the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, Yunju Temple is a famous ancient temple in northern China. Yunju Temple has experienced many vicissitudes, and after the July 7 Incident, Yunju Temple was destroyed by the war of the Japanese army invading China. In 1956, the Buddhist Association of China and Peking University jointly excavated, printed and sorted out the stone carved Buddhist Scriptures of Yunju Temple. As of 1958, the Fangshan stone was excavated through 14278 squares. In order to protect the Fangshan Stone Classics and precious cultural relics, the original site was restored in 1985, and now it has been restored to its former pattern, covering an area of 70,000 square meters.
Yunju Temple now treasures more than 30,000 sets of stone, paper and wooden cultural relics. On March 4, 1961, Yunju Temple Pagoda and Stone Classic were first announced by the State Council as national key cultural relics protection units; in 1987, Yunju Temple was opened to the public as a social site museum; in 1997, it was announced as a patriotic education base; in 2001, it was rated as a national AAAA-level tourist attraction, passing the two international certifications of ISO9001 and ISO14001; and in 2020, it was rated as a red tourist scenic spot in Beijing.
Source: The Palace Museum, Beijing Museum Society, Xinhuanet client