The "80,000 Blocks of the Complete Collection of Buddhist Scriptures" is a collection of Buddhist books during the Koryo Dynasty, a feudal state of Korea, which existed between 918 and 1392.
It began to be printed in Koryo in 1011. The wooden blocks used for printing the collection on two occasions were burnt by foreign invaders in 1231.
Ri Chun Sop, Section Chief of the National Classics Institute under the Academy of Social Sciences, says:
"The present complete collection of Buddhist scriptures was engraved on wood for 16 years between 1236 and 1251. The collection published at that time has 1,537 kinds and 6,793 volumes and the number of wooden blocks engraved with words amounts to more than 80,000.
That's the 80,000 Blocks of the Complete Collection of Buddhist Scriptures which was widely known as the world's oldest, correctest and richest of the complete collections of Buddhist scriptures in Chinese characters. It is also called the 'Complete Collection of Buddhist Scriptures during the Koryo Dynasty'."
The wooden blocks of the complete collection were made of machilus, paktal wood or birch wood. Every block is 69.6 centimetres long, 24 centimetres wide and 3.7 centimetres thick. It has 22 lines with 14 letters each.
Four corners of the block were girdled with bronze belts and fixed with nails. Wooden pillars were put on both sides to keep the block from being twisted and the surface of the board was lacqured not to be decayed and worm-eaten for a long time.
A copy of the wooden blocks of the "80,000 Blocks of the Complete Collection of Buddhist Scriptures" is preserved in the Pohyon Temple of Mt. Myohyang in Hyangsan Country of North Phyongan Province.
The "80,000 Blocks of the Complete Collection of Buddhist Scriptures" is one of the precious cultural heritages of the Korean nation as it shows the high printing technology of the Korean ancestors.
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