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'Jikji' is the abbreviated title of a Korean Buddhist document, whose full title can be translated "Baegun Hwasang's Anthology of the Great Priests' Teachings on Identification of the Buddha’s Spirit by the Practice of Seon." Printed during the Goryeo Dynasty in 1377, it is the world's oldest extant movable metal print book. UNESCO confirmed “Jikji” as the world oldest metalloid type in September 2001 and includes it in the Memory of the World program. [1]

Contents

Book's content

Printing

Preservation

Commemoration

See also

References

External links

Book's content

The Buddhist priest Baegun Hwasang compiled and annotated the book, a collection of excerpts from analects by the most revered Buddhist monks throughout successive generations. It was created as a guide for students of Buddhism, then Korea's national religion under the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392).
The Jikji propounds on the essentials of Seon, the predecessor to Japan's Zen Buddhism.

Printing

On the last page of "Jikji" is its record of publication, indicating that it was published in the 3rd Year of King U (July 1377) by using the metal type at Heungdeoksa in Cheongju. The Jikji originally consisted of two volumes totalling 307 chapters. But the first volume is not found yet, and only the second volume, with the first page torn off, is preserved in Manuscrit Orianteaux of France National Library.
Priest Baegun wrote Jikji at Cheongju Heungdeok-sa Temple in 1372. There is a record indicating that Baegun's students, Priest Seokcan, Daldam helped the publication of "Jikji" by using movable metal types and female priest Myodeok donated for the project in 1377. "Jikji" predates Gutenberg's 42-Line Bible, which was printed in Germany between 1452 and 1455, by 78 years.

Preservation

Toward the end of the Joseon Dynasty, a French diplomat took the second volume of "Jikji" from Korea to France, which has since been preserved at the National Library of France in Paris.
According to UNESCO records, the Jikji “had been in the collection of Collin de Plancy, a chargé d’affaires with the French Embassy in Seoul in 1887 during the reign of King Gojong. The book then went into the hands of Henri Véver [in an auction at Hotel Drouot in 1911], a collector of classics, and when he died in 1950, it was donated to the Biliothèque nationale de France, where it has been ever since.” [2]
Today only 38 sheets of the second volume exist, although a full version printed earlier from wood type is preserved in the National Library of Korea.

Commemoration

'Jikji' was displayed during the "International Book Year" by the National Library of France in Paris in 1972, gaining worldwide attention for the first time.
It was added to the Memory of the World on September 4, 2001. The Jikji Memory of the World Prize was created in 2004 to commemorate the inscription of the Jikji.

See also

★ List of Korea-related topics

★ History of Korea

★ Korean Buddhism

★ Jikji prize

★ History of typography in East Asia

References

★ Introduction Jikji and its value

★ UNESCO and Jikji

★ chronology and world printing

★ UNESCO Jikji Prize

★ Exhibit flyer (PDF)

★ Carnegie Council article on Jikji ownership controversy

★ Korean National Commission for UNESCO

★ Korea Times article on Chongju's promotion of Jikji

External links

★ Campaign Web site to inform the world of Jikji

★ Korea.net profile