iUniverse review today takes you on a tour of the British Library, 1 of the 2 biggest libraries in the world, alongside The US Library of Congress.
The Diamond Sutra
The title above refers to the most common first words of Buddhist texts and the context here is that amongst the treasures housed in the British Library is the Diamond Sutra, which is the earliest example of block printing that bears an actual date. The colophon, at the inner end, reads: made for universal distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his parents on the 15th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong, 11th May 868, approximately 587 years before the Gutenberg Bible was first printed.
The extant copy is a scroll, approximately 16 feet long. It was discovered in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein and then purchased from the walled-up “Caves of the 1000 Buddhas”, which can be found at Dunhuang, northwest China.
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