Slide 1
A printed scroll ends with the date 868 CE
The Diamond Sutra scroll includes a dated ending placing its production in 868 CE.
More to Read
A printed scroll can preserve more than the text it carries. The Diamond Sutra includes a dated ending that places its production in 868 CE. That detail turns a surviving object into unusually precise evidence about the history of printing.
Slide 2
The date tells us about this surviving copy
That ending, called a colophon, supports describing it as the earliest surviving dated printed book. It does not show that nobody printed earlier.
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The dated colophon helps establish when this copy was produced. It supports the scroll's description as the earliest surviving dated printed book. It does not establish that nobody printed earlier, or that other printed works once made have all survived.
Slide 3
This book was assembled as a scroll
The dated work is made of printed sheets assembled into a scroll, not pages bound along one edge.
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Here, a book does not mean pages bound along one edge. Printed sheets were assembled into a scroll. Understanding that construction helps explain why a conservator must attend to joins, paper and the whole length of the object as well as its words.
Slide 4
The scroll had to survive long after it was printed
Its history includes production in 868, survival at Dunhuang and later conservation. The date records its making; preservation explains why it remains.
More to Read
The scroll's history runs from its production in 868 through its survival at Dunhuang to later conservation. These are different kinds of events. Its date records an early moment; its continued existence also depends on what happened to fragile materials afterward.
Slide 5
A surviving book can anchor history without revealing its beginning
The Diamond Sutra is both a sacred Buddhist work and evidence of early printing. Its date anchors what survives, not the very first use of printing.
More to Read
This Buddhist text is both a sacred work and material evidence of printing. Its historical importance rests on a carefully bounded claim about what survives with a date. Evidence can anchor a history without revealing the very first time a technique was used.
Sources
- The world's earliest dated printed book: The Diamond Sutra, 868 CE
University of Oxford, Cabinet
- Restoration of the Diamond Sutra, IDP News 38
British Library, International Dunhuang Project