UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
---|---|
Location | South Korea |
Criteria | Cultural: iv, vi |
Reference | 737 |
Inscription | 1995 (19th Session) |
Coordinates | 35°48′N 128°06′E / 35.800°N 128.100°E |
Tripitaka Koreana | |
Hangul | 팔만 대장경 or 고려 대장경 |
---|---|
Hanja | |
Revised Romanization | Palman Daejanggyeong or Goryeo Daejanggyeong |
McCune–Reischauer | P'alman Taejanggyŏng or Koryŏ Taejanggyŏng |
The Tripiṭaka Koreana (lit. Goryeo Tripiṭaka) or Palman Daejanggyeong ("Eighty-Thousand Tripiṭaka") is a Korean collection of the Tripiṭaka (Buddhist scriptures, and the Sanskrit word for "three baskets"), carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century.[1]
It is the oldest intact version of Buddhist canon in Hanja script. It contains 1,496 titles, divided into 6,568 books, spanning 81,258 pages, for a total 52,330,152 Hanja characters.[2]
Each wood block (page) measures 24 centimetres in height and 70 centimetres (9.4 in × 27.6 in) in length.[3] The thickness of the blocks ranges from 2.6 to 4 centimetres (1.0–1.6 in) and each weighs about three to four kilograms (6.61 - 8.81 lbs). The woodblocks would be almost as tall as Mount Baekdu at 2.74 km (1.70 mi) if stacked and would measure 60 km (37 mi) long if lined up, and weigh 280 tons in total.[4] The woodblocks are in pristine condition without warping or deformation despite being created more than 750 years ago.[5][6] The Tripiṭaka Koreana is stored in Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple in South Gyeongsang Province, in South Korea.
There is a movement by scholars to change the English name of the Tripiṭaka Koreana.[7] Professor Robert Buswell Jr., a leading scholar of Korean Buddhism, called for the renaming of the Tripiṭaka Koreana to the Korean Buddhist Canon, indicating that the current nomenclature is misleading because the Tripiṭaka Koreana is much greater in scale than the actual Tripiṭaka, and includes much additional content such as travelogues, Sanskrit and Chinese dictionaries, and biographies of monks and nuns.[8]
The Tripiṭaka was designated a National Treasure of South Korea in 1962, and inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2007.[9][1] Haeinsa has decided to open the Palman Daejanggyeong, which was limited to Buddhist events, to pre-booked members of the public every weekend, morning and afternoon from 19 June 2021.[10]