The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward |
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Common terms and phrases
ancient Arabic bamboo began block printing British Museum Buddha Buddhist Buddhist printing capital Central Asia chapter characters charms Chinese printing Christian clay Confucian copies Crusades culture dharani Diamond Sutra earlier earliest early East edition Egypt emperor empire Empress Shotoku Encyclopedia European evidence Fêng Tao found at Tun-huang Gutenberg Han Dynasty Ilkhans imperial invention of printing issue Japan Japanese Jinghis Khan known Korea language large number later literature manuscript Marco Polo metal monasteries Mongol Mongol Empire movable type official pagodas paper money Pelliot period Persia playing cards printed books printers printing in China province quoted records reign roll rubbing Sanskrit script seal impressions Si-an-fu silk stamped statement stone inscriptions Sung Dynasty Szechuen T'ai Tsung T'ang Dynasty Tabriz Tangut Tao's Taoist textile printing thousand tion translation Ts'ai Lun Ts'in Tun-huang Turfan Turkestan Turkish typography Uigur Wang West wood wooden blocks writing
Popular passages
Page 3 - In ancient times writing was generally on bamboo or on pieces of silk, which were then called chih. But silk being expensive and bamboo heavy, these two materials were not convenient. Then Ts'ai Lun thought of using tree bark, hemp, rags and fish nets. In the first year of the Yuan-hsing...
Page 185 - India furnished the language and the religion of the earliest block prints. People of Turkish race were among the most important agents in carrying block printing across Asia, and the earliest extant type are in a Turkish tongue. Persia and Egypt are the two lands of the Near East where block printing is known to have been done before it began in Europe. The Arabs were the agents who prepared the way by carrying the making of paper from China to Europe.
Page 77 - The smallest of these sizes is worth a half tornesel ; the next, a little larger, one tornesel ; one, a little larger still, is worth half a silver groat of Venice ; another a whole groat ; others yet two groats, five groats, and ten groats. There is also a kind worth one Bezant of gold, and others of three Bezants, and so up to ten. All these pieces of paper...
Page 173 - Thus there will be no book left unprinted, and no man who does not learn. Literature and religion will make daily progress, and the cause of morality must gain enormously.
Page 160 - He had previously prepared an iron plate and he had covered this plate with a mixture of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate. In this he placed the type, set close together. When the frame was full, the whole made one solid block of type. He then placed it near the fire to warm it. When the paste [at the back] was slightly melted, he took a perfectly smooth board and rubbed it over the surface, so that the block of type became...
Page 31 - The difficulty of dating the beginning of block printing is enhanced by the fact that the evolution of the art was so gradual as to be almost imperceptible. The earliest well-defined block print extant dates from 770 and comes from Japan. The earliest printed book comes from China and is dated 868. But that printed book is a highly developed product. It is evident that the feverish activity in devising new ways of reduplication, which was going on in the Buddhist monasteries and elsewhere before...
Page 77 - Cambaluc, and the way it is wrought is such that you might say he hath the Secret of Alchemy in perfection, and you would be right! For he makes his money after this fashion. He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in fact of the Mulberry Tree, the leaves of which are the food of the silkworms,~these trees being so numerous that whole districts are full of them.
Page 31 - The exact date at which true block printing began is shrouded in mystery. A supposed reference to printing as having taken place under the emperor Wen in 594, before the beginning of the T'ang dynasty — a statement that has found its way into almost everything that has been written in European languages on the subject of Chinese printing — is apparently based on an error by a Chinese writer of the sixteenth century.
Page 160 - Each character formed as it were a single type. He baked them in the fire to make them hard. He had previously prepared an iron plate and he had covered this plate with a mixture of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes. When he wished to print, he took an iron frame and set it on the iron plate.
Page 2 - But as dynasty records of the time state, silk was too expensive and bamboo too heavy. The philosopher Me Ti, when he traveled from state to state, carried with him three cart loads of bamboo books. The emperor Chin Shih Huang set himself the task of going over daily a hundred and twenty pounds of state documents. Clearly a new writing material was needed. And as necessity is the mother of invention this need, together with the discovery of the writing brush of hair or the Chinese pen by Meng Tien...