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The oldest complete printed book that carries a date is a Chinese copy of the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist text, printed from carved wooden blocks in AD 868.

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The copy is a scroll more than five metres long, made of paper panels printed from carved wooden blocks, a method called woodblock printing, and it opens with a picture of the Buddha teaching. Around the year 1000 it was sealed, with tens of thousands of other documents, in a small cave at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in north-western China. In 1907 the explorer Aurel Stein acquired it from the monk who had found the hidden library, and it is now in the British Library in London. A note at the end gives the date, 11 May 868, and says that a man named Wang Jie had it made, on behalf of his parents, to be given away freely.

Türkçe oku
Günümüze eksiksiz ulaşan, üzerinde tarih bulunan en eski basılı kitap Elmas Sutra'dır. Bu Budist metninin Çince nüshası MS 868'de oyulmuş ahşap kalıplarla basıldı.

Bu nüsha, oyulmuş ahşap kalıplarla, yani ağaç baskı yöntemiyle basılmış kâğıt tabakaların birleştirilmesiyle yapılmış, beş metreyi aşan bir tomardır; başında Buda'yı öğretirken gösteren bir resim vardır. 1000 yılı dolaylarında, on binlerce başka belgeyle birlikte Kuzeybatı Çin'de Dunhuang yakınlarındaki Mogao Mağaraları'nda küçük bir mağaraya kapatıldı. Kâşif Aurel Stein 1907'de onu bu gizli kütüphaneyi bulan keşişten satın aldı; tomar bugün Londra'daki British Library'de. Sonundaki not tarihi, 11 Mayıs 868'i verir ve Wang Jie adlı bir adamın onu anne babası adına, herkese ücretsiz dağıtılmak üzere bastırdığını söyler.

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