Tripitaka Koreana

[Traveler]
One of Korea's representative items in the UNESCO Memory of the World is the Tripitaka Koreana, a Buddhist scripture printed on as many as 81,258 woodblocks. The Tripitaka Koreana shows the excellence of ancient Korea's woodblock printing technology, some 140 years before metal types were invented, when the ancient country's woodblock printing technology was in its heyday. Notably, the character carving skills and contents of the printed materials have been highly evaluated for their excellence.

This masterpiece was made possible because Buddhism was widely spread across the country and because woodblock printing was actively carried out at temples. Specifically, whenever the country was in a crisis, Koreans resorted to Buddhism to save the country from the crisis. They thus endeavored to produce these scriptures, build temples, and pray for peace with the Buddha. The Tripitaka Koreana was produced in the desire to repel Mongol invaders. A dedicated office was established to exclusively undertake this printing work, which took as much as 16 years to complete, from 1236.

The interesting thing is that the depository of the Tripitaka Koreana boasts outstanding technology, enabling it to be designated as a UNESCO World Heritage. Thanks to its scientific architecture, the 750-year-old wooden building has been able to preserve its original appearance despite a long period of exposure to rot and insects. Under the building, charcoal was laid deep in soil to automatically control moisture according to the changing seasons, and the sizes and locations of the windows in the building were made to vary so as to allow the incoming air to circulate around evenly inside the building before being channeled out again. Furthermore, specially devised shelves allowed air to flow between the woodblocks.

As such, the Tripitaka Koreana is the best example of ultimate memory culture and preservation culture.