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CHINESE
Daban ruopo luomiduo jing. Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra. Zhejiang province, China, dated to the fifth lunar month of the Renwu year, Shaoxing period, Southern Song dynasty (corresponding to June, 1162).
Details
Daban ruopo luomiduo jing. Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra. Zhejiang province, China, dated to the fifth lunar month of the Renwu year, Shaoxing period, Southern Song dynasty (corresponding to June, 1162).
Accordion form, 295 x 112 mm folded, extending to 28 feet in length. (Some worm damage repaired.) Printed paper wrappers; cloth folding case. Provenance: purchased from Emil Offenbacher, 23 September 1955.
VERY EARLY CHINESE BLOCK PRINTING. Part of the Chinese Buddhist canon, translated from the Sanskrit, the work is listed as no. 1 in Nanjio, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, London, 1883. When Emil Offenbacher described the book in 1955 and presented it to Mr. Hauck, he cited Donald McMurtrie, in The Book, saying that "the earliest printed book preserved in America" is a Chinese work dated 1167--the present work was unrecorded by McMurtrie and predates his date by five years.
Columbia University, in its current exhibition Jewels in Her Crown: Treasures from Columbia University Libraries Special Collections, selected their volume of the series as a highlight of their Asian collection: "This extremely rare volume was identified by visiting scholar Shen Jin, from Shanghai Municipal Library, in 1987, as one of only six known surviving volumes of the original 600-volume printing of this Buddhist sutra. Printed apparently privately during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), it is believed to be the oldest book in the Chinese collections at Columbia University. The Prajna-paramita sutra is one of the most important sacred books of Mahayana Buddhism, and Chinese translations of Indian sutras were used in the spread of Buddhism-and of the Chinese written language as well-throughout East Asia."
Accordion form, 295 x 112 mm folded, extending to 28 feet in length. (Some worm damage repaired.) Printed paper wrappers; cloth folding case. Provenance: purchased from Emil Offenbacher, 23 September 1955.
VERY EARLY CHINESE BLOCK PRINTING. Part of the Chinese Buddhist canon, translated from the Sanskrit, the work is listed as no. 1 in Nanjio, A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka, London, 1883. When Emil Offenbacher described the book in 1955 and presented it to Mr. Hauck, he cited Donald McMurtrie, in The Book, saying that "the earliest printed book preserved in America" is a Chinese work dated 1167--the present work was unrecorded by McMurtrie and predates his date by five years.
Columbia University, in its current exhibition Jewels in Her Crown: Treasures from Columbia University Libraries Special Collections, selected their volume of the series as a highlight of their Asian collection: "This extremely rare volume was identified by visiting scholar Shen Jin, from Shanghai Municipal Library, in 1987, as one of only six known surviving volumes of the original 600-volume printing of this Buddhist sutra. Printed apparently privately during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), it is believed to be the oldest book in the Chinese collections at Columbia University. The Prajna-paramita sutra is one of the most important sacred books of Mahayana Buddhism, and Chinese translations of Indian sutras were used in the spread of Buddhism-and of the Chinese written language as well-throughout East Asia."