I’m always happy when old news in the religious studies world makes it to the secular press. Today the Huff Post rather breathlessly notes the history of the Dunhaung discovery of the oldest printed book, a copy of the Diamond Sutra, a text important to the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and Zen in particular.
Joyce Morgan who co-wrote “Journeys on the Silk Road: A Desert Explorer, Buddha’s Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World’s Oldest Printed Book,” writes in summary for the Huffington Post:
“Ask people to name the world’s oldest printed book and the common reply is Gutenberg’s Bible. Few venture that the answer is a revered Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 A.D. Or that by the time Gutenberg got ink on his fingers nearly 600 years later — and his revolutionary technology helped usher in the Enlightenment — this copy of the Diamond Sutra had been hidden for several centuries in a sacred cave on the edge of the Gobi Desert and would remain there for several more.
“Its discovery is the result of a series of accidents and its significance realized belatedly. The book unwittingly came to light when a Chinese monk clearing sand from a Buddhist meditation cave in 1900 noticed a crack in a wall.” For the rest of Ms Morgan’s essay, go here.
It really is something wonderful.
And worth knowing more about…
Here’s a lovely video on on the book itself.
And for a brief listen to the text…
(Thanks to Justin for the pointer to the Huff Post entry)
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