AoA, Rea ay ?, igh oe os eee enety ss ore Y ' . Py re Fee JM Shaggy re iis y meat j fi se: AS epistles me - OAs ER A Ft es rs ~~ Ct - 2 ; OS; $ THE INVENTION OF PRINTING IN CHINA AND ITS SPREAD WESTWARD Ts 7. NOV 7 1995 “ 4 LM agicat seme GAIN OF Ph THE INVENTION PRINTING IN CHINA AND ITS SPREAD WESTWARD BY THOMAS FRANCIS CARTER, Pu.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF CHINESE IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Oe CopyRIGHT, 1925 By COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Printed from type. Published June, 1925 Printed in the United States of America DOUGLAS C. MCMURTRIE + NEW YORK TO PAUL PEE LIOT Membre de ’ Institut, Professor of the Languages, History and Archaeology of Central Asia in the College de France, the master mind of Chinese historical research; whose example, whose writings, and whose revision of the manuscript have made possible such measure of accuracy as this work can claim Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library httos://archive.org/details/inventionofprintOOcart_0 ——— }.. ea BC) hae GG): NT By Nis 6 PAGE INTRODUCTION x1 PART | THE BackGRouND oF PRINTING IN CHINA CHAP. 1. The Invention of Paper I 2. The Use of Seals 7 3. Rubbings from Stone Inscriptions 12 4. The Dynamic Force that created the Demand for Printing, the Advance of Buddhism 17 Parr II Biock PrintTInc In CHINA 5. The Significance of Block Printing in China, the Ink, and the Method Used 2 6. The Beginnings of Block Printing in the Buddhist Monasteries of China 28 7. The Empress Shotoku of Japan and her Million Printed Charms 7% 8. The First Printed Book. The Diamond Sutra of 868 39 g. The Printing of the Confucian Classics under Féng Tao. (932-953) 47 10. The High Tide of Chinese Block Printing. The Sung and Mongol Dynasties (960-1368) og 11. The Printing of Paper Money 70 v1 CHAP. 12, 24. Notes CONTENTS PAGE Part III Tur Course or Biock Printinc WESTWARD Early Commerce in Thought and in Wares along the Great Silk Ways 85 . Paper’s Thousand Year Journey from China to Europe 95 . Printing of the Uigur Turks in the Region of Turfan 102 . Islam as a Barrier to Printing 112 6 —_ Meeting of China and Europe in the Mongol Empire 1 Persia the Crossroads between the East and the West 126 . Block Printing in Egypt during the Period of the Cru- sades ness, . Playing Cards as a Factor in the Westward Movement of Printing 139 . The Printing of Textiles 145 . Block Printing in Europe 150 Part IV Printinc witH MovaB_e Type . The Invention of Movable Type in China 1$g . The Great Expansion of Movable Type Printing in Korea 169 The Pedigree of Gutenberg’s Invention 180 189 BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS TO FACE PAGE Chart, showing the History of Paper Manufacture, of Block Printing and of Typography in China, and Indi- cations as to their Course Westward frontispiece Stationery of Bamboo and Wood of the Han Dynasty . The Earliest Paper that has so far been discovered . Chinese Paper Makers in Peking . Chinese Seals and Seal Impressions . Primitive Charm Prints in the Tibetan Language . Clay Containers in which Tibetan Charm Prints were found . A Stone Inscription and a Paper Rubbing made from it . A Metal Stamp for making Figures of Buddha Fragment of a Roll of thin Paper with Stamped Buddhas . Chinese Writing, showing the Ink Stick and the Stone on which it is moistened . A Chinese Block Printer at Work . A Paper Stencil or Pounce . The Oldest Printing in the World. Sanskrit Charm, in Chinese Characters, printed in Japan about a.p. 770 . The Caves of the Thousand Buddhas at Tun-huang . The World’s Oldest Printed Book. The Diamond Sutra of 868 . A Block Print presented in Payment of a Vow at one of ° the Shrines in the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas 4 43 vill ILLUSTRATIONS TO FACE PAGE 18. A Tenth Century Woodcut from Tun-huang in which many small Buddha Figures are printed together from a single Block 46 19. The Evolution of the Chinese Book 47 20. Page from a Printed Book of the Sung Dynasty fags 21. One of the earliest Printed Books of Japan 58 22. A Buddhist Woodcut of the Sung Dynasty 59 23. Note for One Thousand Cash, issued between 1368 and 1399 72 24. Map showing the Westward Course of Paper Making 85 25. A Buddhist Sutra, printed in the Language of the Uigur Turks, with interlinear Notes in Sanskrit and Page Numbers in Chinese 102 26. Leaf from a Sanskrit Book, printed to imitate the Pothi or Palm Leaf Books of India 103 27. A Page from the Sanskrit Diamond Sutra 106 28. A Bit of Tangut Printing 107 29. A Fragment of a Printed Sutra in the Mongol Language in Square (’Phagspa) Script 120 30. Letters from the Mongol Rulers of Persia to Philip the Fair of France, with Chinese Seal Impressions 126 31. Reproduction of one of the Seal Impressions from the foregoing Letter of 1289 130 32. Ruins of the Great Mosque of Tabriz, built during the reign of Ghazan Khan 131 33. The Oldest of the Egyptian Block Prints 134 34. 35. 36. 37: 38. 39: 40. ILLUSTRATIONS 1X TO FACE PAGE An old Chinese Playing Card 142 An early European Block Cutter preparing Block for a Woodcut 150 The Revolving Wheel. A Type-setting Device used in China in the early Fourteenth Century 162 Wooden Type of the early Fourteenth Century in the Uigur Language 163 Early Korean Metal Type 170 Early European Typography, from Woodcuts by Jost Amman, 1568 182 Page from Gutenberg’s 42-line Latin Bible 183 Peay ~ i Pa ee TOL erie Va) ‘shh rh | ‘AF *t 0 INTRODUCTION OUR great inventions, that spread through Europe at the beginning of the Renaissance, had a large share in creating the modern world. Paper and printing paved the way for the religious reformation and made possible popular education. Gunpowder levelled the feudal system and created citizen armies. The compass discovered America and made the world instead of Europe the theater of history. In all these inventions and others as well, China claims to have had a conspicuous part. The pur- pose of the present work is to investigate the truth of this claim in the one domain of printing. The restlessness of the tribes of Central Asia during the early centuries of our era brought several hundred years of anarchy in China, corresponding to the Dark Ages in Europe; but as these barbarian migrations did not cause quite such a complete rooting up of classical civilization in the Far East as they did in the West, China quickly recovered and was earlier ready for those inven- tions which came into Christendom with the beginning of the Renaissance. Marco Polo’s record shows us a China whose new civilization already in the thirteenth century had come to full bloom and had advanced very much farther than that of contem- porary Europe. When Europe was ready for the new life, she found in the Arabic Empire and Constantinople reservoirs ready at hand where the lore of her own classical world had been stored away, and to these reservoirs she turned with a real thirst. But with the classic lore there was a certain new element that also entered Europe from the East—an essentially modern spirit of invention and practical discovery. The mediators of the inventions that reached Europe at this time were the Arabs and the Empire of the Mongols. But the inventors were neither Arab nor Mongol. There seems to be good reason to believe that certain processes xil INTRODUCTION that had been gradually evolved in China, when joined with the recovered civilization of Greece and Rome, had much to do with starting Europe forward on her course of progress, a course to which the classics alone could never have led. It is the glory of European genius, newly awakened from its thousand years of sleep, that it was able to seize these discoveries, dimly seen in the Far East, and in some cases but dimly understood in the land of their birth, and to make of them the basis for a civilization of which their discoverers could never have dreamed. Preéminent among these inventions of China, on account of their influence both in Eastern Asia and in Europe, stand paper and printing. The invention of paper has already received con- siderable attention. The scientific study of the subject in the West was begun by Dr. Friedrich Hirth, who held for many years the chair of Chinese at Columbia University, and its popular pre- sentation has been carried forward by Mr. H. G. Wells in his Outline of History. The facts concerning China’s part in the in- vention of printing, on the other hand, have been almost unknown to European scholarship, except in a few of their larger outlines. The Encyclopedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition), which in its article on typography devotes seventeen pages to the controversy as to whether Gutenberg or Coster invented movable type in Europe, tells all it knows of pre-European printing in less than half a column. And the catalog of the State Library in Berlin, in its two great folio volumes of titles on the history of printing, has just one title that refers to China—a magazine article that ap- peared in Paris in 1847. No historical research however can lay claim to complete originality, and this study of Chinese printing may be considered a compendium of the researches of a multitude of scholars, schol- ars of many centuries, Chinese, Japanese and Western, correlated with certain of the results of recent excavations in Turkestan and in Egypt. The biblography indicates the main sources, and indi- cates also the debt of gratitude felt by the author to all these in- vestigators, the results of whose labors have been freely borrowed. INTRODUCTION Xili On the other hand, the gathering together and correlating of this source material from different ages and different parts of the world has been largely a virgin field. It is this which has made the work at the same time difficult and inspiring. Apparently, the first mention in European literature of the Chinese invention of printing dates from the year 1550, when the Italian historian Jovius, from an examination of certain printed books brought from Canton by Portuguese travellers and pre- sented by the King of Portugal to the Pope, came to the conclusion that European printing was derived from China.! In the eigh- teenth century Phil. Couplet in the British Encyclopedia, writing evidently on the authority of Roman Catholic missionaries, as- signed the year 930 as the date of the Chinese invention. Gerard Meerman in his Origines Typographicae in 1765 told of early Chinese printing, basing his statement on Arabic authority. A further study of the subject from Chinese sources was made by Jules Klaproth *in 1834 and by Stanislas * Julien in 1847. The results of Julien’s work were published in a short article in the Journal Asiatique, which, in spite of inaccuracies, has formed the basis of practically all that has been written on the subject in the West up to the present. A letter from Thomas T. Meadows to Lord Elgin, published as part of a paper by Lord Robert Curzon in the Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society of London in 1858,? contains what is probably the best account of the Chinese inven- tion of block printing that has appeared in any European language even down to our own day, but unfortunately this letter has been hidden away in a little known publication and in an article the balance of which is of doubtful value, and it has apparently escaped the attention of later writers. Since 1858 little if any in- dependent work devoted to printing in China has appeared in any European language until 1923, when Dr. Hermann Hille? of Berlin published in a fifteen-page booklet a clear summary of the history of Chinese typography and its development in Korea, based partly on Julien and Satow, partly on independent research in Chinese sources. The writer had the privilege of working for XIV INTRODUCTION some months under the expert direction of Dr. Hiille, who is in charge of the Chinese department in the State Library at Berlin, and who very kindly placed all his source material at the writer's disposal. Meanwhile an article on the history of early printing in Korea and Japan was published in 1882 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Japan by Sir Ernest Satow * and has remained to the present the main source of what is known in the West on that sub- ject. Modern scholarship in Japan and China has produced at least three works * which gather up the main historical facts concerning the history of printing in their respective countries, the Japanese work, as is natural, dealing somewhat with Chinese sources and more fully with those of Korea, as well as with the Japanese de- velopment of the invention. Unfortunately these books are avail- able only in Japanese and Chinese respectively and have not been mentioned, so far as the writer is aware, in any European work. All are brief but are far more complete than the short sketches mentioned above that have appeared in European languages. These articles and books in five of the world’s leading languages have been used freely in the preparation of the present work, both for the actual information contained and more especially for their references to earlier Chinese literature. Another important source has been the great Chinese encyclo- pedias, especially the 7’u-shu-chi-ch’eng,’ published in 1726, and the Ko-chih-ching-yiian,’ published in 1735. These too have been valuable largely on account of their quotations from earlier works.* Unfortunately, while new improvements in the art of writing, such for instance as the invention of the hair pen and the inven- tion of paper, have called forth a voluminous literature of anti- quarian research by Chinese writers, printing has as a rule been taken for granted and sparsely mentioned. Calligraphy has been considered the work of artists, printing that of artisans. However, by supplementing such direct references as have been found with many indirect references, it is possible to gain a fairly clear pic- INTRODUCTION XV ture of the early history of the art, at least as clear a picture as we have of early European block printing, which grew up equally in the dark. Needless to say, further research will probably find very much material in the great mine of Chinese literature that has not yet been unearthed. A further source, and that which gives us our most certain in- formation, is archaeology. The desert air of Chinese Turkestan, like that of Egypt, has preserved intact the memorials of ancient civilization, and the researches of British, French, German, Rus- sian and Japanese expeditions have made it possible to recon- struct the history and daily life of these western outposts of China during the first thousand years or more of our era. One result of this research has been clear testimony to the accuracy of the Chinese records of the period. Another result bearing more directly on the subject in hand has been the discovery in different parts of Turkestan and its border lands of a large number of block prints and block books of varying date, which shed light both on the progress of the art of printing in China and on its westward course. Excavations in Egypt also have revealed the products of a hitherto unsuspected block printing activity continuing through the time of the Crusades, the significance of which must still be regarded as something of a mystery, but which may eventually lead the way toward the discovery of the connection between the block printing of the Far East and that of Europe. An examina- tion of these archaeological discoveries, in books, in the museums where they are preserved and more especially in personal conver- sation with the archaeologists themselves, has been the most in- teresting part of the study on which the present work is based. Further source material on particular phases of the problem will be found in the bibliography, which, on account of the variety of material, has been arranged by chapters. As indicated above, it is not only to books that the writer is indebted. A far more personal debt must here be acknowledged. The keenest pleasure in the preparation of the work has been the counsel, guidance and criticism—and the friendship—of some of XV1 INTRODUCTION the world’s leading scholars in the realms of Chinese, Central Asiatic and Arabic history. In this work nationality has been for- gotten. In Berlin and Vienna, as well as in Nanking, Paris and London, unfailing kindness and codperation have been met. The expert guidance of Dr. Albert von Le Coq, given freely day after day in the study of the Turfan discoveries at Berlin, the inspiration given by Dr. Adolf Grohmann of Prague in the study of the block prints of Egypt at Vienna, the help afforded by Mr. Arthur Waley and Mr. Lionel Giles in the examination of the Tun- huang finds at the British Museum, the well-nigh perfect library assistance afforded by Dr. Hermann Hille of Berlin, and the pa- tience of my colleagues at Columbia University, Professor Lucius C. Porter of the Chinese Department, Professor A. V. Williams Jackson of the Indo-Iranian Department, Professor Richard J. H. Gottheil of the Semitic Department and Professor William L. Westermann of the Department of Ancient History, in reading the manuscript and making valuable suggestions, all place the writer under a debt of gratitude such as can never be repaid. But deepest of all is my obligation to Professor Paul Pelliot of the Collége de France. Not only has Professor Pelliot set a new standard of accuracy and acumen in Chinese research to which all investigators are indebted. Not only have his researches in literature and in archaeology furnished a mass of facts on which many of the conclusions of this book are based. The debt of the writer to Professor Pelliot goes further. For Professor Pelliot has patiently gone over the first draft of the manuscript chapter by chapter, has gradually introduced the writer to more clear-cut and accurate methods of Chinese research, has made on almost every page suggestions and corrections which the writer has sought to follow up and incorporate, and has given freely of his store of his- torical understanding. In such a work as this, it is impossible to acknowledge one’s debt to all who have freely rendered assistance, but to the following, who, in addition to those already mentioned, have given largely of their time and their expert knowledge, a word of gratitude must INTRODUCTION XVil be expressed: Dr. Vasseely Alexeiev, professor of Chinese Philol- ogy, University of Leningrad (Petrograd); Mr. Laurence Binyon, curator of Oriental Art, British Museum; Professor Edward G. Browne, Department of Arabic, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge; M. Henri Cordier, Membre de Institut, professor of Chinese History in the Ecole des Langues Vivantes, Paris; Pére Henri Doré, author of Superstitions en Chine; Dr. Erich Ha- nisch, professor of Chinese, University of Berlin; Dr. Sven Hedin, head of the Swedish expeditions of exploration in Central Asia; Mr. John Hefter, librarian of Chinese books, Columbia Univer- sity Library, New York; Dr. Friedrich Hirth, former Dean Lung professor of Chinese, Columbia University; Mr. T. S. Hsii, of the faculty of Chinese History, Peking University; Mr. Homer B. Hulbert, author of The History of Korea; Mr. Y. F. Hung, head librarian, National Southeastern University, Nanking; Rev. William C. Kerr, American Presbyterian Mission, Seoul, Korea; Dr. Sten Konow, professor of Sanskrit, University of Kristiania; Dr. Berthold Laufer, curator of anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Mr. S. Y. Li, acting li- brarian of the Chinese collection, Library of Congress, Washing- ton; Dr. David S. Margoliouth, professor of Arabic, Oxford Unt- versity; Dr. Bernhard Moritz, professor of Arabic, Seminar fir Orientalische Sprachen, Berlin; Dr. F. W. K. Miller, director of the Chinese and Indian departments, Museum fur VGlkerkunde, Berlin; Professor Rudolf M. Riefstahl, Department of Fine Arts, New York University; Dr. Clementz Scharschmidt, professor of Japanese, Seminar fiir Orientalische Sprachen, Berlin; Dr. Theo- dor Seif, curator of Arabic papyri and papers in the Erzherzog Rainer Collection, Austrian National Library, Vienna; Dr. Adolf Stix, curator of European incunabula, Austrian National Library, Vienna; Dr. Walter T. Swingle, chairman of Library Committee, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington; Dr. Clark Wissler, curator of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York. Grateful acknowledgement should also be made of the sources XVill INTRODUCTION from which illustrations have been received. These are in the main from original photographs taken in the museums where the objects are preserved. The writer is specially indebted to Mr. Waley and to Dr. von Le Coq for their courtesy and assistance in obtaining photographs from the British Museum and the Museum fiir Vilkerkunde. Where illustrations are reproduced from other books, acknowledgment is made in abbreviated form beneath the illustration concerned, and the full title, with date and place of publication, will be found at the close of the bibliography. The romanization of Chinese words is that of Giles, which, in spite of serious drawbacks, seems to be the one most generally used among scholars. Exceptions are made of the names of prov- inces and large cities like Peking, where the post office romani- zation has been followed. The names of those dynasties that are easily confused in Giles’ romanization are here spelled in the more easily recognized form, Ts’in, Tsin and Kin. The hope with which this book goes forth cannot be better expressed than in the words of the Chinese writer Tai T’ung, who wrote and had printed during the thirteenth century a book on the history of Chinese writing: Were I to await perfection, my book would never be finished, so I have made shift to collect the fruits of my labors as I find them. It was said by the Master, “In preparing the governmental notifications, P’i Shen first made the rough draft; Shih Shu examined and discussed its con- tents; Tzii-yii, the manager of foreign intercourse, then made additions and subtractions; and finally Tzii-ch’an of Tung-li gave them the proper elegance and finish.” Such a rough draft is the present work. For the examination and discussion of whatever truth it contains, it awaits the judgment of a master-mind, . . . one whose wise and lofty spirit will lead him, without looking down upon the author, to . . . correct and suppress where the text is in error, to add where it is defective, and to supply new facts where it is altogether silent. ‘ Date B.C. 200 100 100 300 400 500 600 700 200 PAPER AND PRINTING Chinese History HAN DYNASTY B.C, 206-A.D. 220 Corresponding to the period of the Roman Empire in the West. Period of national expan- sion. Literature characterized by intensive study of the models of the past rather than by originality. Conquest of Eastern Tur- kestan and earliest recorded contacts with the West. Silk trade between China and the Roman Empire assumes importance. Chinese expedition reaches Persian Gulf 97 A.D. Buddhism advancing across Central Asia and beginning to touch China. SIX DYNASTIES 220-589 Corresponding to the Dark Ages in Europe. Era of internal anarchy and of successive barbarian in- cursions from the North. Paper Invention of the hair pen by Meng T’ien (ab, B.C. 220) followed by the use of silk rolls as a writing material in place of bamboo and wood. Use of a near-paper made of silk fiber. This era is divided into three | ‘ main periods: (1) The period of the Three Kingdoms (220-265), when three Chi- nese dynasties fought for the mastery; (2) The Tsin Dynasty (265-420), when the country was more or less loosely united and put up a | ; rather weak fight against the Northern Barbarians; and (3) The Period of Divi- sion between North and South (420-589), | when North China was held by Turk and Tartar dynasties. The destruction of Classical civilization by the Northern invaders was not as com- plete as in Europe. Hence China recovered more quickly. The advance of Buddhism in China in this period cor- responds roughly with the advance of Christianity in | Europe. SUI DYNASTY 589-618 Reunites Empire T’'ANG DYNASTY 618-907 Block Printing The use of seals (first mentioned about B.C. 255) becomes general. Seals made of a great variety of materials. Impressions very beautiful and per- fect. Impressions on clay—without ink, 175. Standard text of the Classics cut in stone. Some time after this date the practice began of making inked rubbings from these inscriptions. About 400. Earliest use of ink from lamp black, similar to modern Chinese ink, now used both for writing and for printing. Fifth Century (?). Earliest use of d | inked seals—inked with red cinnobar Corresponding with the res- | toration of the empire under | pe Charlemagne in Europe, but culturally far more ad- vanced than Charlemagne’s Empire. The ancient glory | of the Empire is restored, and, refreshed by new blood, a new religion and new contacts with the out- side world, China becomes | the world’s most highly de- | veloped empire, reaching |” her highest point of achieve- | ment in military prowess, in painting, and in lyric poetry. The beginning of the period | is marked by magnificent and stamped on paper. Sixth Century (?), Large Taoist seals, made of wood, used for making charms. Between 627 and 649. Earliest extant rubbing from inscription, Seventh Century (?), Experimentation in Buddhist monasteries with various forms of reduplication,—seals, rub- bings, Buddha stamps, stencils, and textile prints, leading the way, proba- bly early in the eighth century, to true | block printing. Their Evolution in China and Their Spread Westward Western | Date History | B.C. 200 100 Fall of Jerusalem 100 Marcus Aurelius 200 300 400 500 700 is marked by magnificent religious toleration—a wel- come to all world faiths. The later reigns, torn by relig- ious persecution, do not maintain the same stand- ards of national vigor. 800 900 FIVE DYNASTIES 907-960 Short period of disruption. SUNG DYNASTY 960-1280 Having much in common sance in Europe, but com- ing earlier, because the de- struction of classical culture by the barbarian inroads had never been so complete. 1000 Anera of national weakness, the boundaries of the Em- pire constantly shrinking before the inroads from the North. An era of intellectual great- ness—of philosophical, his- torical, and scientific writ- 1100] '"&: Earliest practical use of the | compass and of gunpowder. | with the Classical Renais- | 793 Bagdad Ab. 1100 Intercourse with Western | Asia less than in the preced- | ing and subsequent periods. a : 1200 The Classics of the Confu- Buddhist or Taoist thought, are made the basis of cul- tural advance. YUAN (MONGOL) DYNASTY 1280-1368 1300} Corresponding to the Period if of the Crusades, Era of Asi- atic Empire. China and Europe meet for a moment | face to face, China passes the torch to Europe, and China’s progress for a time ceases. MING DYNASTY 1368-1644 Parallelism with Europe ends. Era of strong na- tionalism, of isolation, and of comparative stagnation. The first century of the dy- nasty is marked by a strong national and cultural re- vival in Korea and by a re- newed Chinese influence in Japan. 1400 1500 |__| Chinese Getriral Domain cian Age, as opposed to] — 772 EARLIEST EXTANT BLOCK PRINTS. One million charms in Sanskrit lang- uage and Chinese character, printed in Japan. Several still extant. 868 EARLIEST PRINTED BOOK Diamond Sutra, printed by Wang Chieh, found by Stein at Tun-huang. Roll 16 feet long. 883. First mention of printing in literature. Szechuen the center of a printing activity which included non- religious works. Early Tenth Century. First printing of paper money in Szechuen. 9375953 PRINTING OF THE CLASSICS by Feng Tao ushers in the era of large scale official printing. About fifty printed charms and votive offerings found at Tun-huang. Dates run from 947 to 983. 969. Earliest clear mention of playing cards, 972. Printing of Buddhist Canon (Tripitaka) in 130,000 pages. 994-1063. Printing of the great dynas- tic histories. 1016. Earliest of the printed books (Buddhist) in Chinese and Tangut, found at Kara-Khoto in Mongolia. The Sung dynasty marks the high tide of Chinese printing. All important literature was printed. Quality never surpassed. Many original editions are still in the hands of private collectors and libraries. Ab. 1100. Currency inflation begins, leading to reckless issues of printed paper money, which lasted to the end of the dynasty. Throughout the Sung and Mongol periods China was on a paper money basis. Twelfth Century. Printing of Bud- dhist books in Japan begins. Through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (and probably earlier) Tur- | fan in Turkestan was a great Bud- | dhist printing center. | sutras and charms in six yon peck Quantities of vi Through the same period (and per- ‘| haps earlier) block printing was car- | ried on in Egypt. Fifty or more of | these prints extant. ; | 1289 and 1305. Letters with large Chi- nese seal impressions sent from Persia to King of France. Still extant in Paris. 1294. Issue of printed paper money at Tabriz, Persia, in Chine in Chinese and Arabic. 1297. Chinese paper m paper money described by Marco Polo (also withia a century” by seven other European writers). Ab. 1307. Chinese block rinting accurately described in ic and Persian by Rashid-eddin. " | dating from about 1300. Charle- magne 800 900 1000 1041-1049 INVENTION OF MOVABLE TYPE by Pi Sheng. Type made of earthenware, set in an iron form. Norman Conquest Improvement of Pi Sheng’s system. Both type and form made of earthenware. 1100 Type made of tin, per- forated and held in place by a wire. Neither the type of earthen- ware nor the type of tin were ever largely used, on ac- count of difficulty in get- ting a satisfactory ink. First Crusade {1200 Magna Charta WOODEN TYPE | The use of wooden type ex- tends to borders of Turke- stan and is taken up by the Uigur Turks. Font of type in Uigur language, found by M. Pelliot at Tun-huang, 1314. Full and accurate de- scription of wooden type and of a new type-setting device by Wang Cheng in | the Book of Agriculture. —_— Neel Word a hewritale “a Moalen World Wyclif Chaucer Korea. 1400 1403. First issue of type from the Korean royal foun- dry. 1409. Earliest extant book printed with movable type in Korea. 1420. Sec- ond Korean font. 1434. Third Korean font. Last Crusade Fall of id Wea oe 1500 ; Christendom BA KTS! THE BACKGROUND OF PRINTING IN CHINA CHAPTER I THE INVENTION OF PAPER ACK of the invention of printing lies the use of paper, which B is the most certain and the most complete of China’s inven- tions. While other nations may dispute with China the honor of those discoveries where China found only the germ, to be developed and made useful to mankind in the West, the manufac- ture of paper was sent forth from the Chinese dominions a fully developed art. Paper of rags, paper of hemp, paper of various plant fibers, paper of cellulose, paper sized and loaded to improve its quality for writing, paper of various colors, writing paper, wrapping paper, even paper napkins and toilet paper'—all were in general use in China during the early centuries of our era. The paper, the secret of whose manufacture was taught by Chinese prisoners to their Arab captors at Samarkand in the eighth cen- tury, and which in turn was passed on by Moorish subjects to their Spanish conquerors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, is in all essential particulars the paper that we use to-day. And even in our own times China has continued to furnish new develop- ments in paper manufacture, both the so-called “India paper” and “papier maché” having been introduced from China into the West during the nineteenth century.? Though the invention of paper is carefully dated in the dynastic records as belonging to the year a.p. 105, the date is evidently chosen rather arbitrarily, and this invention, like most inventions of our own day, was a gradual process. Up to the end of the Chou Dynasty (255 B.c.), through China’s classical period, writing was done with a bamboo pen, with ink of lacquer made from tree sap,* upon slips of bamboo or wood. Wood was used largely for short messages, bamboo for longer writings and for books. The bamboo was cut into strips about nine inches long and wide enough for a s) THE BACKGROUND tPrzck single column of characters. The wood was sometimes in the same form, sometimes wider. The bamboo strips, being stronger, were capable of being perforated at one end and strung together, either with silken cords or with leather thongs, to form books. Both the wooden strips and those of bamboo are carefully described in books on antiquities, written in the early centuries of the Christian era. The abundance of wooden and bamboo slips dug up in recent excavations in Turkestan conform exactly to the early descriptions. The invention of the writing brush of hair, attributed to the general Méng Tien in the third century B.c., worked a transfor- mation in writing materials. This transformation is indicated by two changes in the language. The word for chapter used after this time means “roll”; the word for writing materials becomes “bamboo and silk” instead of “bamboo and wood.” There is evidence that the silk used for writing during the early part of the Han Dynasty consisted of actual silk fabric.4 Letters on silk dat- ing probably from Han times, have been found together with the earliest extant paper in a watch tower of a spur of the Great Wall. But as the dynastic records of the time state, “silk was too ex- pensive and bamboo too heavy.” The philosopher Mé Ti, when he travelled from state to state, carried with him three cart loads of bamboo books. The emperor Ts’in 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. The first step was probably a sort of paper or near-paper made of raw silk. This is indicated by the character for paper, which has the silk radical showing material, and by the definition of that character in the Shuo-wén, a dictionary that was finished about the year A.D. 100. A bit of this early near-paper may also be among the finds of Dr. Stein, but it is not yet certain. The year A.D. 105 is usually set as the date of the invention of paper, for in that year the invention was officially reported to the emperor by the eunuch Ts’ai Lun. Whether Ts’ai Lun was the real inventor or only the person in official position who became the patron of the invention (as Féng Tao did later with printing) is Cu. J] THE INVENTION OF PAPER 8 uncertain. In any case his name is indelibly connected with the invention in the mind of the Chinese people. He has even been deified as the god of paper makers, and in the T’ang Dynasty the mortar which Ts’ai Lun was supposed to have used for macerating his old rags and fish nets was brought with great ceremony from Hunan to the capital and placed in the imperial museum. The following is the account of the invention, as written by Fan Yeh in the fifth century in the official history of the Han Dynasty, among the biographies of famous eunuchs: “During the period Chien-ch’u (A.D. 76-83), Ts’ai Lun formed part of the Imperial Guard. The emperor Ho Ti, on coming to the throne, knowing that Ts’ai Lun was a man full of talent and zeal, appointed him a privy counsellor. In this position he did not hesitate to bestow either praise or blame upon His Majesty. “In the ninth year of the period Yung-yiian (a.p. 97) Ts’ai Lun became inspector of public works. By his plans and according to his arrangements, engineers and workmen made, always with the best of materials, swords and arms of various sorts. Later gen- erations could do no better than imitate his methods of work. “Jn 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 Yiian-hsing period (a.p. 105) he made a report to the emperor on the process of paper making, and re- ceived high praise for his ability. From this time paper has been ne J 26 in use everywhere and is called the ‘paper of Marquis Ts’ai’. The biographical note goes on to tell how Ts’ai Lun became involved in intrigues between the empress and the grandmother of the emperor, as a consequence of whi¢h, in order to avoid ap- pearing before judges to answer for statements that he had made, “he went home, took a bath, combed his hair, put on his best robes, and drank poison.””? 4 THE BACKGROUND [Pr. I Two statements in this quotation have received ample confir- mation from discoveries along the Great Wall and in Turkestan. The rapid spread of the use of paper, attested by many notices in Chinese literature, is rather surprisingly shown by the discovery along with letters on silk and wood, of nine letters on paper in a watch tower of a western spur of the Great Wall, which must have been written some time within the first fifty years after Ts’ai Lun’s invention.® The statement concerning the materials used has also been thoroughly confirmed. Examination of paper from Turkestan, dating from the second to the eighth centuries of our era, shows that the materials used are the bark of the mulberry tree; hemp, both raw fibers and those which have been fabricated (fish nets, etc.); and various plant fibers, especially China grass (Boehmeria Nivea), not in their raw form but taken from rags. The discovery of rag paper in Turkestan, while confirming the statement in the Chinese records, came as a surprise to many western scholars. From the time of Marco Polo till some forty years ago, all oriental paper had been known as “‘cotton paper,” and it had been supposed that rag paper was a German or Italian invention of the fifteenth century. Wiesner and Karabacek in 1885-1887 showed as a result of microscopic analysis that the large quantity of Egyptian paper that had at that time recently been brought to Vienna, and that dated from about A.D. 800 to 1388, was almost all rag paper. A subsequent examination of the earliest European papers showed that they too were made in the main from rags. The theory was then advanced and generally believed that the Arabs of Samarkand were the inventors of rag paper, having been driven to it by inability to find in Central Asia the materials that had been used by the Chinese. In 1904 this theory suffered a rude shock. Dr. Stein had submitted to Dr. Wiesner of Vienna some of the paper found by him during his first expedition to Turkestan, and Dr. Wiesner, while finding in that no pure rag paper, did find paper in which rags were used as a surrogate, the main material being the bark of the paper mulberry. The theory STATIONERY OF BAMBOO AND WOOD OF THE HAN DYNASTY Bamboo 20 x 1.3 cm, Wood 11 x 2 cm. Schretb und Buchwesen. IDV SMS xP ON oh Pe ee ~ yrds ss yykacy axedgus : 2 Be Noa in tecsh” pear etdnue as segs SPREE kc | 2 ‘Dees ¢ : £ : a RL ate ag AS sa trie” mnt S4 _ys9 5 iy S485. vs? t oe Witieyeen Gch a ee ted cb gig” bebe CSE ee ie aoe ys J RE ETON ON *. Ae iam = SPROUL SCS ce setae c Beis Jee yay a0yst >t AO teas Se ETRE $41 Nae gsssene_yerst Bd std, 94 dr 9b. IDES? aaa ee yah be ake Sin poasged yS5) Aunt ty Sec f2 44> 49 its a Ry. i Se isaes) whe oral toy ym S49 VE BHI N 4 Soa) orn LY tbe Demis Psat ees SATE ee gsttes 9 8y pehid os sirrart 499 ie palsii—ront BA ASYIAK AYES 3G presen re © Cents —_secktig See to NO mee Ss rot ivan He 4 aS SS toe BS ~ ee ee ~ , otet, a teas i ce uso RS Sas % “3 . eet ge ; ; Penson eC TENA suc gigs Seu en silaws ; gies dol Ab5y 23579 MM eA D ad / A Vs +7% We THE EARLIEST PAPER THAT HAS SO FAR BEEN DISCOVERED Date about A.D. 150. Found in 1907 by Sir Aurel Stein in the ruins of a spur of the Great Chinese Wall, together with some fragments in Chinese of about the same date, and eight other letters which like this are in the Sogdian language. When found, the letters were sealed in envelopes of paper and rag (19 X 24.5 cm.) British Museum. Cu. I] THE INVENTION OF PAPER 5 was changed to suit the facts. The Arabs of Samarkand were no longer the first to have used rags in the production of paper, but the first to have produced paper so/e/y of rags. Finally in rgitr, after Dr. Stein’s second expedition, the earliest paper—that from the watch tower in the Great Wall—was laid before Dr. Wiesner, and was found to be a pure rag paper! Rag paper, supposed till 1885 to have been invented in Europe in the fifteenth century, supposed till 1911 to have been invented by the Arabs of Samar- kand in the eighth century, was carried back to the Chinese of the second century, and the Chinese record, stating that rag paper was invented in China at the beginning of the second century, was confirmed. The use of paper, so far superior to bamboo and silk as a writing material, made rapid headway. Extensive improvements in its manufacture were made by Tso Tziti-yi, a younger contemporary of Ts’ai Lun. The records of the next centuries contain abundant references to the use of paper and to certain special fancy and beautiful papers that from time to time appeared. In Turkestan, at each point where excavations have been undertaken, the time when wooden stationery gave way to paper can be fairly accu- rately dated. By the time of the invention of block printing all Chinese Turkestan, so far as excavations show, was using paper. ° The use of paper in China proper had apparently become general much earlier. The papers found in Turkestan show a certain amount of progress, especially in the art of loading and sizing to make writ- ing more easy. The earliest papers are simply a net of rag fibers with no sizing. The first attempt to improve the paper so that it would absorb ink more readily consisted of giving the paper a coat of gypsum. Then followed the use of a glue or gelatine made from lichen. Next came the impregnation of the paper with raw dry starch flour. Finally this starch flour was mixed with a thin starch paste, or else the paste was used alone. Better methods of maceration also came into use that proved less destructive of the fibers and produced a stronger paper. All these improvements 6 THE BACKGROUND [Pr. I were perfected before the invention was passed on to the Arabs in the eighth century and before the first block printing in China began. So far as an invention can ever be said to be completed, it was a completed invention that was handed over to the Arabs at Samarkand. The paper making taught by the Arabs to the Span- iards and Italians in the thirteenth century was almost exactly as they had learned it in the eighth. The paper used by the first printers of Europe differed very slightly from that used by the first Chinese block printers five centuries or more before. CHINESE PAPER MAKERS IN PEKING Asia Magazine. CHINESE SEALS AND SEAL IMPRESSIONS These impressions are made with ink on paper like the impressions of a rubber stamp Schreib und Buchwesen. CHAPTER VAL THE USE OF SEALS print and seal is suggestive. A study of the history of the word sheds considerable light on the origin of Chinese printing. During the Han Dynasty the word yin! meant to authenticate by the impression of a seal on clay. When clay impressions gave way some time about the fifth or sixth cen- tury of our era to inked impressions in red, the same word was used. When Taoist priests used as charms the impressions of wooden seals several inches square inscribed with the name of Lao-tztii or some other worthy, these larger seals were yin. When later the manifolding of Buddhist pictures and texts began, this block printing was yin. With the advent of every new invention, from that of moveable type in the eleventh century to that of the linotype in the twentieth, the same word has done duty, and the word yin to-day, which still means seal, signifies also every form of printing, taken in the broadest sense. As the relation between Chinese printing and Chinese seals has not previously been traced, so far as the author is aware, it may be well to examine this genealogy in more detail. Back of the seal and the seal impression—away back in the Chou Dynasty (before 255 B.c.)—lies a practice that reminds one of the tearing of the laundry check in the Chinese laundries of America.2 When a contract was made, it was written in duplicate on the two ends of a stick of bamboo. The bamboo was broken and one end retained by each party. The fitting of the broken ends was the authentication of the contract. In like manner, when the emperor bestowed a patent of nobility, the token of that patent was one half of a broken piece of jade—the other half being kept in the imperial possession.$ ch fact that the same Chinese word to-day denotes both g THE BACKGROUND (Pr. I With the advent of the great emperor Ts’in Shih Huang (246-209 B.c.), the unifier of China and the builder of the Great Wall, and with the more complex organization that then began, the broken pieces of bamboo and jade gradually gave place to seals and seal impressions.‘ The great seal of the conqueror, brought from the southern state of Ch’u by the minister Li Sst, and engraved with eight characters, was for centuries the seal of empire, and its fortunes figure both in history and in romance. The transition from the broken jade to the seal—from the prim- itive matching of broken edges to the more advanced and compli- cated matching of impression and die—was a natural one. But it may have been hastened by events that were taking place in an- other part of Asia. Just a hundred years before Ts’in Shih Huang’s conquests, Alexander the Great had conquered a part of India and had brought Greek culture to certain countries of Central Asia which were not so far removed from the expanding borders of China. In the land that lies between Alexander’s empire and that of China—the country now called Chinese Turkestan— there was found a few years ago by Sir Aurel Stein a collection of deeds, the seals upon which show the strange mingling of influ- ences, Eastern and Western, that was going on during the Han Dynasty, the dynasty that followed Ts’in Shih Huang. The docu- ments, written on wood, are all closed, bound with cords, and sealed, the devices of the seal impressions being in some cases Chinese characters, in others elephants and Indian emblems, in still others heads of Zeus, Eros and Medusa.® It is of course far from certain that this Hellenistic influence had penetrated beyond Turkestan and‘into China—still less certain that it had pene- trated as early as the reign of Ts’in Shih Huang. On the other hand it is not an impossibility.® With the Han Dynasty (B.c. 206-A. D.220) the use of seals grew steadily more common, both for private and for imperial use. Seal cutting came to be a fine art, and for perfection of workman- ship the seals of this time have never been surpassed.? They were Cu. IT] SEALS 9 made of jade, of gold, of silver, of copper, of ivory and of rhino- ceros horn.® The seal impressions of the Han Dynasty that have been found are in one respect quite different from those of later times. The impressions were made, like those of Europe,’ in a soft substance (in China a sort of clay was used) and without coloring matter, like the seal impressions in wax to which we are accustomed in the West. From the T’ang Dynasty on, on the other hand, such seal impressions as have been found have been made not in clay, but with ink (usually red ink of cinnobar) on paper, like the impressions of a rubber stamp. It is this stamped seal impression that developed naturally into the block print. For the stamping of a seal with ink on paper is not very far removed from block printing. The seal was small and its purpose was authentication. The block print was larger and its purpose was reduplication. The idea of authentication—a survival from association with the seal— was never quite lost in Chinese printing. When Rashid-eddin of Persia in the fourteenth century—in the days of large scale book publication—described Chinese printing, he described it as a method of authentication of documents. When the transition took place from the clay seal impression of the Han Dynasty to the paper and ink impression of later times, it is impossible to determine with accuracy. Very few seal impres- sions of the transition time have been found in Turkestan. From Chinese records, combined with such evidence as can be gathered from Turkestan finds, it would seem that the transition took place about the fifth and sixth centuries of our era." At one point in Turkestan where documents of the transition period were found, those written on wood were sealed with clay, while those written on paper were sealed with ink.2 The transition was without doubt gradual, and followed naturally the increasing use of paper. As for the transition from the stamped seal to the true block print, there seem to have been two lines of development. The Buddhist line—the line which finally bore fruit and yielded not only charms but woodcuts and books in abundance—will be 10 THE BACKGROUND [Prot traced in a later chapter. The Taoist line of approach is much more vague and uncertain, yet it seems rather likely that the Taoists in their desire for charms developed the seal impression into something very closely resembling a block print even earlier than the Buddhists. A Taoist writer, Ko Hung, in the fourth century made the curi- ous statement, “‘The ancients, whenever they entered the moun- tains, wore a ydieh-chang seal of the Yellow God, four inches in breadth and bearing a hundred and twenty characters, with which they made impressions in clay, in consequence of which, whenever they halted, neither tigers nor wolves ventured to ap- proach. If while travelling they saw a fresh foot-print and im- pressed the seal there in the same direction in which the beast moved, they made the tiger proceed, and, if they did so in the reverse direction, they made it return... . A Taoist doctor in Wu named Tai Ping made some hundreds of yiieh-chang impressions in clay, and strewed that clay broadcast into the abyss; on which after a while a large tortoise rose to the surface more than ten feet in diameter. When it was slain the sick all recovered.’ These large charm seals, large enough to contain a hundred and twenty characters, were used not to print with ink, but to make impressions on clay—but they were made in the fourth century when all seal impressions were on clay. Some time in the next two hundred years or so, the fashion in non-Taoist seal impressions changed from clay to red ink. The question is, whether the Tao- ists with their large seals kept abreast of the times. There is evi- dence that these large seals were made of wood," and there is abundant evidence that the Taoists loved red ink—that they loved it especially for their charms, on account of the extra author- ity that the red seemed to give. Exact evidence that their stamped seals, as well as their written charms, were made with red ink is yet to be found. The earliest block printing of which we now have clear proof consists of Buddhist charms and dates from the eighth century.» When the evidence is all in, it is likely to show that before this date the Taoists had dipped their wooden PRIMITIVE CHARM PRINTS IN THE TIBETAN LANGUAGE (Charms 10.4 x 2.06 cm. each) Museum fiir V olkerkunde. CLAY CONTAINERS IN WHICH TIBETAN CHARM PRINTS WERE FOUND To find the charm, the clay container must be broken open. Though these charms may not be earlier than the twelfth century, they represent a sur- vival of the most primitive form of block printing. From Sangim Agiz near Turfan Museum fiir V Glkerkunde. Cu. IT] SEALS II seals in red ink of cinnobar and had made charms of such form that they will take rank as the world’s first block printing. It is not impossible that these Taoist seal-charms were the an- cestors also of playing cards, but before that can be stated with confidence much fuller research must be done.!” In any case, whether Buddhist or Taoist, the charm was the transition from the seal to the block print. For with the advent of the stamped charm, reduplication, and large scale reduplica- tion, came to be the dominant purpose.'® CHAPTER III RUBBINGS FROM STONE INSCRIPTIONS HILE the connection of seals with the beginnings of \) \) block printing has never been especially noted by Chinese writers, there is a practice of taking inked rub- bings or squeezes from stone inscriptions, which has always been recognized as having directly led the way to the making of books by inked impressions from wood. The process is very simple. A piece 4 felt is laid on the surface of the stone inscription, and over this is applied a thin tough sheet of cohesive paper that has previously been moistened. The paper with the felt behind it is then hammered with a mallet and rubbed with a brush till it fits into every depression and crevice of the stone. As soon as the paper is dry, a stuffed pad of silk or cotton is dipped in sized ink and passed lightly and evenly over it. When the paper is finally peeled off, it is found to be imprinted with a perfect and durable impression of the inscription, which comes out in white reserve on a black ground. The process is similar to block printing, but the characters of the inscription are cut into the stone instead of standing out in relief as they do in wood. Furthermore, as the ink is applied to the surface of the paper that is away from the stone, the text on the stone is not reversed. The direction of the text on the paper is the same as that on the stone from which it is taken. As the seal charm was the Taoist preparation for printing, de- veloping in Buddhist hands into the printing of religious texts and pictures, so these rubbings from stone may be said to have con- stituted in the main the Confucian preparation. The practice of cutting in stone the text of the Confucian Clas- sics in order to insure permanency and accuracy goes back as far as the year a.p. 175. The statement in the annals of the Han Dynasty is as follows: A STONE INSCRIPTION AND A PAPER RUBBING MADE FROM IT Schreib und Buchwesen. Cu. III] RUBBINGS FROM INSCRIPTIONS 13 “Because the time of writing the canonical works of the sages was long past and many errors had entered in and were being passed on by scholars of inferior worth, it was found that for later students there would be no correct text. Therefore in the fourth year of the period Hsi-ping (a.v. 175) Ts’ai Yung and others [names and titles] joined in a memorial to the emperor to have the text of the Six Classics thoroughly revised. The emperor granted the request. Ts’ai Yung then wrote the corrected text with his own hand on stones outside the gates of the state academy. Thereupon later scholars and students all took these inscriptions as standard. As soon as the stones had been set up, the people who came to see them and to make exact copies' were so many that there were thousands of carts every day and the streets and avenues of the city were blocked by them.’” The traditional interpretation of this passage is that the words here translated ‘‘make exact copies” actually refer to the making of rubbings, and that this form of printing or pre-printing goes as far back as the second century.* Whether this is true or not, the process certainly began early, and there is little doubt that it was earlier than the taking of impressions from wood. The earliest date that can be set with certainty is the reign of T’ai Tsung of the T’ang Dynasty, during whose reign (4.D. 627-649) a rubbing was made which was discovered by M. Pelliot at Tun-huang.‘ The practice of cutting in stone the text of the Classics per- sisted, each important dynasty considering it a duty thus to con- serve the results of the best textual criticism of the day. The Stone Classics of the T’ang Dynasty, of which very many rub- bings were made, and which served ultimately as the model for the printing of the Classics, were set up between the years 836 and 841, and a portion of this ancient stone inscription has been re- cently discovered. The official history of the T’ang Dynasty re- records the appointment of certain officers called “makers of rubbings,” whose duties seem to have been to issue authorized rubbings of the inscriptions in stone.* But the discoveries at Tun-huang reveal the fact that these 14 THE BACKGROUND hex Confucian texts were not the only ones that were being cut in stone and reproduced by rubbing. Parallel with the early devel- opment of block printing this sort of lithography was also going on in Buddhist monasteries—developing until whole books were being produced. The manuscript chamber at Tun-huang, that contained the earliest block printed book, the Diamond Sutra of 868, contained a copy of the very same book in the form of litho- graph rubbing. The two copies, the one printed from wood, the other from stone, both date from the ninth century. The stone prints found at Tun-huang make it evident that already in the ninth century the practice had begun of preparing stones with the special purpose of taking rubbings from them, and that at least as early as the first books from blocks of wood (and probably earlier) both single sheets and roll-books were thus being printed from specially prepared blocks of stone.’ However it was in orthodox Confucian circles and as an aid to the correct transmission of the Classics that the stone inscription and the inked rubbing had their chief importance. Even after block printing began, and had remained for a century or two locked away in the Buddhist monasteries, the rubbing from stone was still the one official and orthodox method for the reduplica- tion of standard texts. It was the union of these two processes, the Buddhist block print (itself perhaps based on the earlier Taoist seal charm) and the Confucian rubbing, that produced the great official block printing activity of Féng Tao’s time and instt- tuted the era—during the tenth to the fourteenth centuries—when all of China’s great literature was printed. The important mem- orial of 932 by Féng Tao and Li Yu, that lay back of this awaken- ing, began, “‘In the time of the Han emperors Confucian scholars were honored and the Classics were cut in stone in three different scripts. In T’ang times also inscriptions of the Classics were made in the Imperial School. Our dynasty has too many other things to attend to and cannot undertake such a task as to have stone in- scriptions erected. However we have seen men from Wu and Shu (Kiangsu and Szechuen) who sold books that were printed from Cu. IJI] RUBBINGS FROM INSCRIPTIONS ne blocks of wood. ‘There were many different texts, but among them no orthodox classics. If the classics could be revised and thus cut in wood and published, it would be a very great boon to the study of literature.’’® It is thus evident that when the Confucian Classics were cut in wood—the event that marked the beginning of large scale block printing—those in charge of the work had no idea of printing, but thought they were continuing the ancient practice of cutting in- scriptions, using wood instead of stone—after the analogy of cer- tain Buddhist prints that they had seen—for the sake of ease and economy. It was thus that the wooden block and its printed im- pression developed naturally from the stone inscription and its rubbing. The Buddhist prints—which had developed from charms and seals—gave the idea of cutting the inscription in reverse and gave also a new technique for taking the rubbing. The stone inscription gave the official precedent. Having thus been one of the influences that gave birth to wide-spread block printing, the use of rubbings did not cease, but continued a parallel existence. Gradually during the tenth cen- tury, the century that showed the greatest activity in the de- velopment of all duplicating processes, the emphasis veered more and more from the inscription to the rubbing made from it. In the year 992 there is a record of the making of lithograph books which contained duplicates of the autographs of the great men of the Tsin and the Wei dynasties, taken from some tombs that had recently been looted. Lithography was thus the recognized method of preserving exact copies of beautiful calligraphy." When the stone blocks became broken through constant use, they were mended with silver wire, the impression of which could often be detected in the rubbing. During the later years of the Sung period these lithograph books of 992 were treasured as great rarities. Throughout the Sung Dynasty books from stone blocks con- tinued to be published. From China the art spread to Japan and in 1315 a large collection of books was there printed by this 16 THE BACKGROUND (Prat process. The taking of rubbings still continues in China as a means of making exact duplicates of ancient inscriptions, and there is no indication that the method has materially changed from the earliest times. CHAPTER IV THE DYNAMIC FORCE THAT CREATED THE DEMAND FOR PRINTING, THE ADVANCE OF BUDDHISM dependent for its greatest manifestations on strong reli- gious feeling. It can be said with equal truth that every advance into new territory made by printing has had as its mo- tive an expanding religion. In the whole long history of the advance of printing from its beginnings in China down to the twentieth century, there is scarcely a language or a country where the first printing done has not been either from the sacred scriptures or from the sacred art of one of the world’s three great missionary religions. China began by printing Buddhist pictures and texts.! Japan had printed for six centuries and brought the printing of books to the highest degree of perfection before the printing of anything but Buddhist sacred literature was at- tempted. The great mass of printed literature found in Central Asia continuing up to the time of the Mongol Conquest is almost exclusively religious, consisting of Buddhist pictures and Bud- dhist books. The printing that was going on in Egypt through the time of the Crusades consists of verses from the Koran and of prayers. The block printers of Europe produced biblical pictures and the Poor Man’s Bible, while Gutenberg printed the Bible it- self. And in the nineteenth century the languages of Africa and the islands of the sea have been reduced to writing and to printed form almost wholly by missionaries for the purpose of printing the scriptures. Even in China herself after the use of movable type had been almost forgotten, it was missionaries who re-introduced them to the land of their birth. . RT is not the only expression of human genius that has been 18 THE BACKGROUND [Pret If we expect then to find a strong religious impulse back of the invention of printing in China, we shall not be disappointed. The time when all sorts of experiments were being tried in various forms of reduplication—experiments that finally led the way to printing—was the one strongly religious period in Chinese history. Under the powerful Han Dynasty that ruled China for two cen- turies before and two centuries after Christ, men had not felt so strongly the need of religion. Reverence for the masters of the classical age just gone by seemed to be enough. True, there are records of Buddhism in China during the first century of our era, but so long as the united empire remained, the new religion made rather slow progress. About the beginning of the third century however the Han Empire broke up, and four hundred years of anarchy set in, corresponding to the Dark Ages in Europe, and caused by that same restlessness among the populations of Cen- tral Asia that spread such terror in Europe. For four centuries war was chronic, civil war and war with the northern barbarians. This age of anarchy may be roughly divided into the time of the Three Kingdoms, when three warring Chinese Dynasties strove for the mastery; the Tsin Dynasty, when China was again rather weakly united and fighting a losing battle against the barbarians on the north; and the period of division between North and South, when north China was in the hands of various Tartar dynasties. During this time literature went backward, and the settled, rather static culture of the Han times was broken up. It was no time for the conservative virtues of Confucian society. A religion that offered a way of escape from this sinful, distressed world had more chance. Through the four centuries Buddhism steadily advanced. Everywhere, wherever there was an especially beautiful spot or a location hallowed by some sacred memory, a temple or a pagoda was built, and the religious life, the life of retirement from the world, came to be the ideal of an ever increasing multitude. A number of the pagodas of this period are still standing—among the oldest monuments we have of China’s Buddhism. The age of anarchy, especially its last century, was also an age of faith. A METAL STAMP FOR MAK- ING FIGURES OF BUDDHA, MARKING THE TRANSITION BETWEEN THE SEAL AND DBs UO CKke PRN (Height 6 cm.) Museum fiir V élkerkunde. FRAGMENT OF A ROLL OF THIN PAPER WITH STAMPED BUDDHAS, showing the Buddhist fondness for reduplication Such rolls and fragments have been found in various parts of Turkestan in great quantities by British, French, German and Japanese expeditions (15.5 X 22 cm.) Museum fiir V olkerkunde. Cu. IV] BUDDHISM AND PRINTING 19 With Buddhism came art. Not that all Chinese art is of Bud- dhist origin, as has sometimes been claimed. There was an art of purely Chinese growth, that formed the foundation for the de- velopment of this and the succeeding age. But it was the new life that came in with Buddhism which touched that old art and made it great. All through the dark ages, while literature languished, art grew. For the “barbarians” who ravaged China were not the rude hordes of Attila. They had become strong Buddhists, and, as Buddhists, were the inheritors of that Greco-Indian art which had grown up in the wake of Alexander’s armies. Ku K’ai-chih, the father of Chinese painting, lived in the fourth century. Through the fifth and sixth centuries most of the little dynasties that strove for the mastery have more names of artists recorded than they have years to their credit. The painters were in the Chinese South rather than in the Tartar North. Their art was Chinese. But it was the new religion, pouring in through the North and seen first in the sculptures of Northern Wei, that transfused it and gave it new life. Soon after the establishment of the T’ang Dynasty, Chinese art entered upon its greatest, most creative period. With religion had come art. With religion and art came the impulse to print. Bie ee cat eit | hey at nay { a ne BAR Delt BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA es FAR) 7, ee ae, . 7 ia? aie sak ! haa GHAPTERGY. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA, THE INK, AND THE METHOD USED the time when typography was invented, and considers block printing as merely an important step in preparation. The Far East reckons the invention of printing from the time when block printing began, and considers movable type as rather an unimportant later addition. This distinction lies in the dif- ference between ideograph and alphabet. The writing of the languages of Europe is based on an alphabet: for them the inven- tion of typography is fhe invention of printing. The writing of the languages of the Far East is based on some forty thousand separ- ate symbols: for them, until the large wholesale printing of re- cent years, movable type have seldom been practical or econom- ical. For any land the invention of printing is the invention of that form of printing which transforms the education and culture of the nation. China invented movable type, Korea and Japan made great use of them—all glory to the courage of the inventors who applied typography to a language of forty thousand signs when it had not yet been applied to an alphabet. But the printing on which the Renaissance of the Sung era was based, the printing which both in quality and quantity has always been preéminent in the Far East, is printing from wooden blocks. The invention of xylography then or block printing is the truly significant form of the invention for China. Block printing in Europe was always a more or less rude art as it was at first in China, an art down among the common peo- ple, that won scant attention from scholars. When the finer work of Gutenberg appeared, the ruder art naturally came to an end. In China early block printing was equally rude. It was displaced | she tn reckons the date of the invention of printing from 24 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Prat however not by type but by a better form of block printing. Féng Tao, who a century or more after the beginning of block printing improved the art and applied it to new uses, is usually regarded by Chinese as the inventor of printing, and holds much the same place in Chinese history that Gutenberg holds in that of Europe. From his day printing became a fine art. The books of the Sung Dynasty have never been surpassed in printing skill. Chinese books printed from modern type cannot compare with them. In fact one reason why movable type never succeeded in displacing the block book is Chinese love of calligraphy as a fine art. In the making of pictures too the wood-engraver’s art has been carried to a very high degree of perfection, especially in Japan.! The invention of printing from wooden blocks was therefore the invention of printing in China. It is the invention that by quantity production has largely transformed China’s culture. It is the invention that in its quality has produced China’s finest books. A necessary pre-requisite for printing is ink. De Vinne in his Invention of Printing has pointed out how large a part the dis- covery of an oily ink played in preparing the way for Gutenberg’s invention.? In the same manner the way was prepared for the invention of block printing in China by the use of an ink which is known in English as “India ink,” but is described more accu- rately by the French word, encre de Chine. During the classical period and up through the Han Dynasty this ink was apparently unknown, its place being taken bya material called ¢s’7 or lacquer.’ The invention of a true ink from lamp black,‘ such as has been used ever since in China both for writing and for printing, has been ascribed by Chinese writers to a man named Wei Tang, who lived in the fourth or fifth century of our era.’ Although there have been many improvements and fancy inks described, - especially by Sung Dynasty writers, there has apparently been CHINESE WRITING Showing the ink stick and the stone on which it is rubbed and moistened Schreib und Buchwesen. “UISINYING PUN GIddyIy MYOM LV WHLINIYd AOOTH YSHNIHO V HSOUd V HLIM ONIPAENYS ONILNIYd YOu Ad NOISSHUdWI AHL ONIAVL ALV1Id FHL dO ONIXANI AHL Cu. V] INK as little change since Wei Tang’s time in the main constituents of the ink ordinarily used. This ink is made by placing a number of well lighted wicks in a vessel full of oil, while over this is placed a dome or funnel-like cover of iron. When this is well coated with lamp black, the lamp black is brushed off and collected on paper. It is then well mixed in a mortar with a solution of gum or gluten, and, when reduced to the consistency of paste, it is put into little moulds. The best ink is produced from the burning of particular oils, but the common and cheaper kinds are produced from fir wood.* This ink is sold in sticks or elongated cubes. To prepare it for writing, it is rubbed in water on a smooth ink stone. Chinese ink is excellent for printing from wooden blocks. It makes a clean neat impression and is peculiarly indelible—so in- delible in fact that on certain blocks of paper found in Central Asia, that have lain so long under water as to become petrified, the writing is still clearly legible. The ink used in block printing, whether in China, in Central Asia, in Egypt? or in Europe, is practically uniform. The makers of the primitive block prints of Europe were not so accus- tomed to the making of this sort of ink, and most of their work has faded into a sort of brown, but the essential elements are the same. Whether this uniformity of ink indicates a line of connec- tion, or whether it indicates merely that block printers everywhere used the ink that would make a clear impression, it is too early as yet to determine. On the other hand, Chinese ink is not satisfactory for taking impressions from metal. It stands in globules on the metal sur- face and makes a rough impression. The first typographers of Europe, faced with this problem, solved it by using an ink whose pigment was dissolved in oil—after the analogy of the early oil painters. China also experimented with printing from metal blocks, and in Korea printing with metal type was done on an extensive scale. It seems probable that there too the use of an oily ink for printing from metal must have been discovered, though no 26 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA EProit evidence of such use has yet been found. For use with wooden blocks—which constituted the great bulk of all China’s printing— Chinese ink was eminently satisfactory. There is no indication that the method of block printing has greatly changed through its long history. A description of the art as it is now carried on will give some idea what block printing in China means and has meant at least for the past thousand years—since the time of Féng Tao. The material used is generally pear wood. The wooden plate or block, of a thickness calculated to give it sufficient strength, is finely planed and squared to the shape and dimensions of two pages. The surface is then rubbed over with a paste or size, occa- sionally made from boiled rice, which renders it quite smooth and at the same time softens and otherwise prepares it for the reception of the characters. The future pages which have been finely tran- scribed by a professional person on thin transparent paper, are delivered to the block cutter, who, while the above mentioned application is still wet, unites them to the block so that they adhere; but in an inverted position, the thinness of the paper dis- playing the writing perfectly through the back. This paper being subsequently rubbed off, a clear impression in ink of the inverted writing still remains on the wood. The workman then with his sharp graver cuts away with extraordinary neatness and despatch all that portion of the wooden surface which is not covered by the ink, leaving the characters in fairly high relief. Any slight error may be corrected, as in our woodcuts, by inserting small pieces of wood. But the process is on the whole so cheap and expeditious that it is generally easier to replane the block and cut it again; for this mode of taking the impression renders the thickness of the block an immaterial point. Strictly speaking, the press of China would be a misnomer, as no press whatever is used in their print- ing. The thin paper receives the impression with a gentle contact, Cu. V] THE METHOD 27 and a harder pressure would break through it. The printer holds in his right hand two brushes at the opposite extremities of the same handle; with one he inks the face of the characters, and, the paper being then laid on the block, he runs the dry brush over it so as to take the impression. This is done with such expedition that one man can take off a couple of thousand copies in a day. Sometimes the work is divided, one man inking the block, another taking the impression. The paper, being so thin and transparent, is printed on one side only and each printed sheet (consisting of two pages) is folded back, so as to bring the blank sides in inward contact. The fold is thus at the outer edge of the book and the sheets are stitched together at the other.® This is the form of printing on which the development of culture in the Far East for the past thousand years is based. It is this printing that will be considered in the next chapters. CHAPTER VI THE BEGINNINGS OF BLOCK PRINTING IN THE BUDDHIST MONASTERIES OF CHINA HE period of the T’ang Dynasty (618-g07)—the period during which Chinese printing had its birth—was one of the most glorious in the history of China. The four cen- turies of disunion and weakness—China’s Dark Ages—which were roughly contemporary with the Dark Ages of Europe—had been brought to an end some thirty years before the T’ang era commenced, and under the first emperors of the new dynasty— during the seventh century and the early part of the eighth—the ancient glory of the empire was revived and enhanced. Not only China itself, but Tibet, East Turkestan, Korea and a large part of Indo-China were at one time or another brought under the control of the court at Si-an-fu, while armies were sent over the passes of the Himalayas into Kashmir against certain Indian states and over the T’ien Shan range into the region of Samarkand against the rising power of the Arabs. The early T’ang emperors of the century or more before Charlemagne did in China much the same work that Charlemagne did in Europe in restoring the old Empire on a new basis and bringing to an end the long era of chaos and dis- order. But the chaos of China’s Dark Ages had never been so complete as that of Europe, and classical civilization was first re- stored, then surpassed, far more quickly than in the western world. The early emperors of the T’ang Dynasty were great patrons of literature, of art and of religion, and ruled over a people whose mental vision was rapidly expanding. Under T’ai Tsung (627- 649), a library was erected at the capital which contained two hundred thousand volumes. At the same time China’s attainment in the domain of painting was rapidly approaching its high water mark. Cu. VI] BEGINNINGS IN CHINA 29 For impartiality in religious toleration, T’ai Tsung and his immediate followers have seldom been surpassed in history. While themselves leaning toward Taoism, and considering their family to be of the lineage of Lao-tzu, they were liberal patrons of Confucian scholarship, and welcomed with open hand every for- eign faith. Within the space of thirty years, in the early part of the seventh century, the court at Si-an-fu had the opportunity to welcome the first Christian missionaries, to give refuge to the de- posed king of Persia and his Mazdean priests, to do honor to Hsiian Tsang, the greatest of all the apostles of Chinese Bud- dhism, returning from India to give new impetus to the Buddhist faith, and finally to receive the first missionaries of Islam. All re- ceived the heartiest welcome. All propagated their respective faiths with the emperor’s favor and help. Contact with men of many lands and of varied opinions produced an alertness, a re- newing of youth in the land, such as China had never before known. Of all these faiths, it was Buddhism that took deep root, and it was Buddhism that gave to the world the art of printing. This Augustan age lasted for more than a century. It culmin- ated in the reign of Ming Huang (712-756) in whose time the Hanlin Academy was founded, and about whose court gathered such men as Li Po and Tu Fu, Wu Tao-tzt and Wang Wei, the greatest poets and the greatest artists whom China in all her long history has known, During this golden age of Chinese genius, a great variety of de- vices was being evolved in the Buddhist monasteries of China for the reduplication of sacred books and texts—an activity that reached its climax in block printing some time before the end of the “golden age.” This activity in devising methods of reduplication can best be studied from the finds of Tun-huang and those of Turfan, the two places where the manuscript records of early Buddhism on the borders of China have been preserved.! Here are found not only rubbings from stone inscriptions, but also stencils and pounces, 30 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA Piaget printed textiles, seals and seal impressions, and a great profusion of little stamped figures of Buddha, all of which led the way di- rectly to the art of the block printer. The rubbing from stone was in the main the Confucian prepar- ation for printing. But discoveries at Tun-huang show that the Buddhists used the device too and by means of it printed one of their favorite scriptures, the Diamond Sutra.? The stencil or pounce was a means of reduplication of which the Buddhist monasteries were especially fond. Several of these paper stencils have been found, with large heads of Buddha first drawn with a brush, then outlined with needle pricks like a modern embroidery transfer pattern.? Among the finds are also stencilled pictures—on paper, on silk and on plastered walls. Printed textiles! appear in considerable number at Tun-huang. These are sometimes in two colors, sometimes in several. The de- signs are all conventional and non-religious, an entire contrast to all other early printing and pre-printing in the Far East. Conven- tionalized animal designs—horses, deer and ducks—are popular. There is also one example of design-printing on paper*—it looks like heavy modern wall paper with dark blue geometric design. Small stamped figures of Buddha mark the transition from the seal impression to the wood cut. Thousands upon thousands of these stamped impressions have been found at Tun-huang, at Turfan and at other places in Turkestan. Sometimes they appear at the head of each column of a manuscript. Sometimes great rolls are filled with them—one such roll in the British Museum is seventeen feet long and contains four hundred and sixty-eight impressions of the same stamp. The only difference between these Buddha figures and true wood cuts, other than the primitive work- manship shown, is that the impressions are very small, and hence were evidently made by hand pressure like the impressions from seals. The stamps found have handles for this purpose.?- When the idea occurred to some inventive genius to turn his stamp up- side down, lay the paper on it and rub it with a brush,® the way was open for making impressions of any size desired, and the way A PAPER STENCIL OR POUNCE One of the earliest devices for reduplication. The lines in the picture are pierced with fine pin pricks. Pictures, made by means of such pounces, have been found both in the Turfan region and at Tun-huang,—some on paper, some on silk, and some on plastered walls (14 X 9.9 cm.) Museum fiir Volkerkunde. Cu. VI] BEGINNINGS IN CHINA 31 was open also for such improvement of technique as made the new invention a force in the advancement of civilization. But first it seems to have brought about only the making of better Buddha figures. One roll at London, though similar in other respects to the others, was evidently made not by stamping but by rubbing, as it shows much larger and better Buddha impressions.° A per- fected woodcut in the Louvre shows a still further advance—a number of Buddha-figures in concentric circles of varying form and all made from one block.!° Such are some of the steps—rubbing from stone, printed silk, stencil, seal, and stamp—that were leading at the same time toward the block print. All these objects have been found in Buddhist monasteries, and back of all, or most of them, lies that duplicating impulse that has always been a characteristic of Buddhism. That these actual objects found at Tun-huang and Turfan are earlier than the first block books is by no means cer- tain. None bear clear indication of date except one stone rubbing and!! one stamp.” But there is every indication that those which are not themselves earlier than the first block printing, at least represent survivals of earlier and more primitive processes. 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 Wén Ti in 593, 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." 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 imper- ceptible. 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 de- veloped product. It is evident that the feverish activity in devising new ways of reduplication that was going on in the Buddhist mon- asteries of China before this time must have culminated in some 32 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pratt sort of block printing before 770, and long enough before that date to have been by that time carried across to Japan. Perhaps the nearest approach to an approximate date that can be given would be the reign of Ming Huang (712-756), the time when China’s national greatness and China’s cultural achievement reached their height. The reign of Ming Huang ended in a disastrous revolution. The glories of the T’ang Dynasty from that time began to fade. The policy of perfect toleration for all religious faiths that marked the reigns of T’ai Tsung and Ming Huang was abandoned, and in its stead there grew up a policy of persecution of foreign faiths, in- cluding Buddhism. This persecution culminated in the famous edict of 845, through which forty-six hundred Buddhist temples were destroyed and two hundred and sixty thousand Buddhist monks and nuns forced to return to lay life.“ It is owing to this destruction of temples, as well as the civil wars of the last century of the T’ang Dynasty, that most of the great works of art of the T’ang period have perished. It is doubtless due to the same cause that no Chinese printing earlier than the Diamond Sutra of 868 has survived, and that for the earliest extant block prints it is necessary to turn to Japan. CHAPTER VII THE EMPRESS SHOTOKU OF JAPAN AND HER MILLION PRINTED CHARMS C. A.D. 770 printed charms, Japan had been undergoing a process of complete transformation under the influence of China.! It was a period similar to that which Japan passed through during the latter half of the nineteenth century, except that China was the model instead of the West. A steady succession of Buddhist missionaries from China poured into Japan, and a steady succes- sion of Japanese students went to China for study and on their return brought about sweeping changes in the customs of their native land, bringing Japan gradually abreast of what was then the world’s most cultured country. In 701 the annual celebration in honor of Confucius began, and in 708 the first mint was estab- lished for the making of coins in Japan. In 735 a Chinese scholar became head of the newly established university at Nara, Japan’s new capital, which was seeking in every way to mould itself after the pattern of the Chinese capital at Si-an-fu. In the same year Kibi-no-mabi returned from Si-an-fu after nineteen years of study, and, entering into the service of the government, intro- duced all sorts of Chinese customs. To him is ascribed the inven- tion of Kata-kana, the Japanese syllabary or script. He was the tutor of the empress Shotoku, by whose order the first recorded block printing was done. A recent Japanese writer has given the following account of the zeal with which Japan was at this time adopting Chinese ways: “During the eighth and ninth centuries there was scarcely any- thing good in Si-an-fu, the great T’ang capital, that was not in- troduced into Japan or copied by the Japanese in their capital at NOR a century and a half before the making of the first block 34 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pr. II Nara sooner or later. If the court buildings at Si-an-fu were painted red, so were those at Nara. If a temple was built and supported by the Chinese government in each province, so must it be in Japan. If the birthday of the Chinese emperor was ob- served as a national holiday, so was it here. If the nobles and the upper class in the Chinese capital played football, it was soon imitated by the Japanese aristocracy in Nara. . . . We can trace all this back to the Chinese origin of Japanese Buddhism.’” In Japan as in China, block printing was preceded by the use of seals. As early as the year 629 reference is made in the Nihongi to the imperial seal.? In 704 official seals for the provinces were established, and it was stated that they were to be two sun square (a little more than two inches). In 739 a seal of the same size was granted to the Ise shrine. These seals without doubt followed the fashion that was already in use in China and were used for making impressions with ink. That some of them, at least, were made of wood is indicated by the statement in the Nihongi that in 692 the office of the Shinto cult gave a wooden seal to the empress. Japan, the country that has never been conquered, is remarkable for the careful way in which ancient antiquities have been pre- served. This is particularly true of the town of Nara, where the capital was established from 710 to 784, and where a large variety of objects from this ““Nara Period” have been kept. Among the precious objects preserved at Nara are a number of pieces of printed silk fabric which were apparently made by the use of wooden blocks. The patterns include plants, flowers, willow trees, pheasants, small birds and butterflies. Two of the pieces of silk have the date printed into the design—dates corresponding to the years 734 and 740.° Printed textiles * are mentioned in the Shoku Nihongi 7 under the date of 743. Armor belts of leather with designs in blue, red and purple dye printed upon the leather, were produced at various times in the provinces of Hisen and Higo in the southern island of Kiushu, and some of them have been preserved. One is dated the eighth month of the twelfth year of the period Tempyo, which corresponds to Cu. VII] BEGINNINGS IN JAPAN 35 740. It is even more close to being a true block print than are the textiles, for the printing includes not only design but also a picture of the divinity Fudo and a number of words in Chinese and San- skrit as well as the date. During the whole of the Nara period (710-784) the control of the Buddhist hierarchy over the affairs of the empire was very strong. The resources of the state were drained for the casting in 732 of the forty-nine ton bell—the fourth in size in the world—and for the erection in the years 735-749 of the great bronze statue of Buddha at Nara, weighing over five hundred and fifty tons and covered with fifty pounds of gold. The priest Gembo, who re- turned from China in 736 after a nineteen years’ stay, and who brought back with him five thousand Buddhist books and many holy images, had a large share in managing the affairs of state until his death in 746. But it was under the empress Shotoku, who reigned, with interruptions, from 748 to 769, that priestly control reached its climax. This empress, remembering the terrible small- pox epidemic of 735-737, kept a hundred and sixteen priests at- tached to her court for the driving out of disease demons, in addi- tion to those employed for other purposes. Dokyo, the head of the Buddhist priesthood, was her chief physician and adviser and had a controlling voice in all state decisions. He was emperor in everything but name, was even given several of the titles usually reserved for the emperor, and was lodged in the palace. To the zeal for Buddhism of the Empress Shotoku, the world owes its first certain and clearly attested record of printing with wooden blocks upon paper.’ The empress ordered the printing of one million charms to be placed in a million tiny wooden pagodas, and some time about the year 770 the work was finished and the pagodas and the charms distributed.'? This event, so important in the history of the world, rests fortunately on as clear evidence as any event in early Japanese history. It is described both in the dynastic annals and in the records of the temple where many of the prints were deposited; and, more than that, a number of the original prints are still extant. 36 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pratl The account in the official history, the Shoku Nihongi," is as follows: “In the fourth month of the year 770,'° after the eight years of civil war had been brought to an end, the empress made a vow and ordered the production of one million three-storey pagodas, four and a half inches high and three and a half inches in diameter at the base. Within these were to be placed the following dharani charms [here follow the names of the six charms]. When this work was finished, they were distributed among various tem- ples.” The record in one of the temples” is more explicit with regard to the means by which the charms were made: “In the year 76719 there were built two small halls for pagodas on the east and west sides of the temple. . . . There were made one million pagodas, which were divided among the following ten temples [names of the temples]. In each was preserved a charm (dharani) from the Muku o-k6 Sutra in block print.” Not only have we these two clear contemporary accounts of the printing of a million charms. We have also the charms themselves. A number of the original impressions are preserved in the Ho- riu-zi monastery in the province of Yamato, together with the little pagodas in which they were contained. The British Museum also has in its possession three charms and the museum at Leipsic one. The charms are about eighteen inches long by two wide. Each one contains about thirty columns of five characters each. They are not all alike, as six different charms were printed." Two different kinds of paper were used, one thick and of a woolly texture, the other thinner and harder, with a smooth surface, which did not absorb the ink quite so readily. All the charms on both kinds of paper are brown with age. Whether the blocks used were of wood or of metal is still uncertain," but they were prob- ably of wood. The text of these earliest block prints and of the whole Sutra from which they are taken indicates clearly the incentive that was back of their production, and sheds light on the powerful impulse _ that Buddhism gave to early printing. This Buddhist Classic, known in Sanskrit as the Vimala Nirbhasa Sutra," consists of six Cu. VII] BEGINNINGS IN JAPAN 37 sections, each of which in turn contains a narrative portion and a charm, the narrative portion indicating the use of the charm. When in 705 the Sutra was translated into Chinese by Mi T’o- shan—sixty years before the printing of the charms in Japan— only the narrative portions were translated. The charms were merely transliterated, the Sanskrit sounds being represented as nearly as possible by Chinese characters. It is these Sanskrit charms in Chinese characters that were printed and rolled up and placed in the wooden pagodas. A small section from the narrative portion of the Sutra, which forms as it were the introduction to the charms, is enough to indicate how this printing naturally fitted into the Buddhist scheme of salvation: “A Brahmin who was sick went to visit a seer in a garden. The seer said, ‘You must die in seven days.’ So he went to Buddha, pleading that Buddha would save him, and offering to become his disciple. Buddha said to him, ‘In a certain city a pagoda is fallen. You must go and repair it, then write a dharani (charm) and place it there. The reading of this charm will lengthen your life now and later bring you to Par- adise.’ The disciples of Buddha then asked him wherein the power of the dharani charm lay. The Buddha said ‘Whoever wishes to gain power from the dharani must write seventy-seven copies and place them in a pagoda. This pagoda must then be honored with sacrifice. But one can also make seventy-seven pagodas of clay to hold the dharani and place one in each. This will save the life of him who thus makes and honors the pagodas, and his sins will be forgiven. Such is the method of the use of the dharant. . The size of the pagodas shall be from an inch to a cubit in height or yet ten feet. From these pagodas, if the heart is set at rest by contemplation, shall come forth a wonderful perfume.’ The Boddhisattva said, ‘. . . I will speak of the impressing of the law of the dharani upon the heart. This dharani is spoken by the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand Boddhisattvas, and he who repeats it with all his heart shall have his sins forgiven. . So shall ninety-nine copies be made of each of these dharant, and they shall be placed within the pagodas. . . . These shall be 38 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pratl honored with offerings and incense and flowers and there shall be a procession around them seven times while the dharani is recited. Then will great salvation be wrought.’ ”’ In the face of the discrepancy in numbers between the directions given by Buddha and by the Boddhisattva, the empress evidently tried to be on the safe side and ensure long life by ordering a million copies of the charm—and by so doing, she introduced printing to the world. The immediate purpose of her project failed, for she died about the time the pagodas were distributed, but the by-product of her act became one of the world’s greatest civilizing forces. It is typical of the international character which printing has always possessed that this first printing project was in an Indian language in Chinese character and carried out in Japan. In 782, thirteen years after the empress’ death, the great - emperor Kwammu moved the capital away from Nara in order to escape the domination of the Buddhist hierarchy, and the period of the domination of the state by the church was at an end. For two hundred years Japanese history is silent on the subject of printing—till the year 987, when it entered Japan once more as an importation from China. But meanwhile printing in China itself had undergone a transformation. “UUNISNAY YStAg (‘wa gt x 9) urewrr [Qs wey3 jo Aueur asaya ‘saduraz snowea ul sey Aq pagisodap puv “sazovrvyo asoulyy Ul pur adensury warysueg ayy ut ‘oLL avad ay} ynoqe urdef yo nyoloys ssoudury oy} Aq pajutid stwureyo asryppng ONILNIYd LSAGTO §S GTYOM AHL < “DIPULdIy SUAS punoj sva “ggg Jo vsjng puowricy oy} ‘yoo pazutid ysarjiva 9y3 a19Y AA ONVOH-NOL LV SVHGCdGNd GNVSNOHL AHL 40 SYAVO AHL CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK Tue Diamonp Sutra oF 868 GLANCE at the map of China will show a slender arm of Ae province of Kansu—a peninsula, so to speak—extend- ing far out into the desert of Turkestan. The historical reason for this peninsula of Chinese civilization is the great trade route and military road, along which a narrow line of Chinese settlements grew up, extending far into the Northwest. Here on this “panhandle,” as it would be called if it were in America, lies the city of Tun-huang, near which are the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. While in China itself, on account of the climate, very few manuscripts of ancient date have been preserved, Eastern Turkestan has a climate like that of Egypt which preserves in- tact all that is buried beneath its sands. Turkestan is therefore one of the world’s great treasure houses of archaeology, and in the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, in a region that combines the cultural heritage of China with the climate of Turkestan, there has been found the greatest store of ancient Chinese manu- scripts that has yet been unearthed. The setting in which the manuscripts of Tun-huang have been found is unique. Cut into the rock in the side of a cliff are a very large number of caves, some of which have served con- tinuously as Buddhist shrines for more than fifteen hundred years. Several of these caves are very large, and two of them contain colossal images of Buddha, each ninety feet high. A stone in- scription in one of the caves, itself dated a.p. 698, describes the founding of this cave colony in the year 366. While the whole series of caves is of archeological interest, the supreme interest for our study lies in the sealed manuscript chamber. This was discovered in the year 1900 by a mendicant 40 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA Leet Taoist priest, who had by begging collected money for the pious act of restoring one of the caves to its ancient magnificence, and who was actually engaged in beautifying (as he thought) one of the early frescoes. In so doing he found that the plaster of a part of one of the frescoes was laid on a background not of stone but of brick. Removing a bit of the fresco, and cutting into the brick, he found behind it a secret walled-up chamber piled high with manu- scripts. How Dr. Stein on his visit to Tun-huang seven years later learned of the secret chamber, obtained access to it, and finally was able to transport a part of its contents to India and to the British Museum, is told in a vivid narrative in the second volume of Serindia. The chamber proved to be about nine feet square and piled solid some ten feet high with the precious manuscript rolls. Exam- ination showed that the dates ranged from the beginning of the fifth century to the end of the tenth.! There is good reason to be- lieve that this chamber was walled up about the year 1035, in order to prevent its contents falling into the hands of enemies, and that it was so effectually sealed that its existence was altogether forgotten until it was rediscovered in 1900. The manuscripts within were in almost as good condition as if written yesterday, though the whole library of fifteen thousand or more books—all written on paper—was closed and sealed a century before the first introduction of paper into Europe. Within this small room were piled 1130 bundles, each carefully sewed up in cloth and each containing a dozen or more manuscript rolls. Of these Dr. Stein succeeded in purchasing from the Taoist priest and in transporting to London some three thousand rolls, together with five or six thousand detached pieces and fragments. The next year Prof. Pelliot, the famous French sinologist, visited the cave and procured for France about an equal number. These books are in the main Chinese. There are however many rolls in Tibetan and a certain number in Sanskrit, Sogdian, Eastern Iranian and Uigur (Turkish), and even a book of selections from the Old Testament in Hebrew. Cu. VIII] THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK 4I It was among the manuscripts of this ancient library, sealed up nearly nine hundred years ago, that the world’s oldest printed book was found.? This book, which is almost perfectly preserved, shows already an advanced technique, behind which there must have been a long evolution. It is less crude than any of the Euro- pean block printing of pre-Gutenberg days. The book consists of six sheets of text and one shorter sheet with woodcut, all neatly pasted together so as to form one continuous roll sixteen feet long. Not only the excellent technique, but the size of the sheets as well, shows that this is no primitive bit of printing like the charms from Japan. Each sheet is two and a half feet long by nearly a foot wide, indicating the large size of the blocks used. At the end, printed into the text, is the statement that the book was “printed on May 11, 868, by Wang Chieh, for free general distri- bution, in order in deep reverence to perpetuate the memory of his parents.” 3 Of Wang Chieh nothing is known except this statement, which tells us that he was the first printer of books of whom the world has record. It is possible however to see something of his motive in undertaking this printing project. The Diamond Sutra,‘ the section of the Buddhist scriptures which appears in this roll, was a favorite book with early printers, whether in China, in Japan or in Central Asia. It consists of a number of discourses by the Buddha to his aged disciple Subhuti on the subject of the non- existence of all things. While it is taken up in the main with very abstruse teachings, the author has a very high opinion of the im- portance of the book that he is writing. Over and over again the Buddha is represented as describing to Subhuti the infinite merit and rewards to be gained by him who transcribes the book and thus spreads abroad its doctrine. “Whatever place,” he says, “constitutes a repository for this sacred scripture, there also the Lord Buddha may be found.” “If a good disciple whether man or woman, in the morning, at noonday and at eventide, sacrificed lives innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, and thus without intermission throughout infinite ages; and if another disciple, 42 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pr. II hearing this scripture proclaimed, steadfastly believed it, his felicity would be appreciably greater than the other. But how much greater must be the felicity of a disciple who transcribes the sacred text, . . . and repeats the scripture that others may be edified thereby.” ® The transcription of the sacred text of the Diamond Sutra became a favorite method of acquiring merit among Buddhists, and so it still remains. I have known a Chinese student at Columbia University who, on the eve of his coming to America, made a vow that, if his mother should be cured of a serious illness, he would transcribe five copies of the Diamond Sutra. His mother recovered and he fulfilled his vow. It 1s easy to imagine the pious delight of Wang Chieh in the new invention that enabled him to transcribe not five copies but a multitude of copies for free general distribution, in order to do honor to his parents. The printing of books did not however immediately supersede the making of manuscripts, even among the Buddhists. For though the manuscripts of the Tun-huang cave did not come to an end for nearly a century and a half after the time of the Diamond Sutra, there were found among the great mass of manu- script rolls only three other printed books in roll form ® and one small folded book. The making of single-page block prints would seem to have pro- gressed rather more rapidly than the making of books, judging from the fact that several score of these were found at Tun-huang. They are of various forms, but all religious. The larger number are either votive offerings or charms. The votive offerings are the more numerous and include many duplicates. While it was evi- dently the custom for people of wealth to present paintings at the shrine in payment of vows, and many of these paintings have been preserved, each one with a picture of the donor at the base, it seems that those who could not afford a painting wanted some- thing that could be produced more cheaply—and so these prints came into being. They are usually about a foot high by seven or eight inches wide. The top half is a picture of the Goddess of THE WORLD’S OLDEST PRINTED BOOK—THE DIAMOND SUTRA OF 868 Printed by Wang Chieh. Found in 1907 by Sir Aurel Stein. The roll is sixteen feet long by one foot wide, and is made up of seven sheets pasted together British Museum. 5 6; lade | * 5 SLY 4% 63:08 Twin gy pees OD ae YS 5 Theo rad Kay ¥ a ee a A BLOCK PRINT PRESENTED IN PAYMENT OF A VOW ATONE, OF “THE SHRINES) INS THES CAVES 0 KOeLEE THOUSAND BUDDHAS Date about 950 (cr x occem,) British Museum. Cu. VII] THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK 43 Mercy or some other divinity. The lower half consists of text, usually an ascription of praise. Sometimes the whole sheet ap- pears to have been printed from one block; sometimes it is clear that the picture and the text are from separate blocks. A few of these votive offerings are hand-colored and present an appearance strikingly like the early image prints of Europe. Several of them still have tabs pasted at the top for hanging them on the wall. A number of the prints from Tun-huang are charms, and of these there is considerable variety. The text is always Sanskrit or a cabalistic script allied to Sanskrit, with some words of explana- tion in Chinese. One of them is marked as having power to blot out sins—not so far removed in idea from the Latin Indulgence which was one of the first things printed by Gutenberg. Akin to the charms is a calendar, illustrated by many woodcuts, and con- taining full information about lucky and unlucky days. One roughly printed little Buddhist sutra is of interest as mark- ing the transition to a new form of book. It is not a roll, but a tiny folded book, one of the first of its kind. Chinese records tell us that books first took the form of rolls when writing on silk be- gan, a century or two before Christ, and that this form of book continued after the invention of paper and down to the end of the T’ang Dynasty, when, under the influence of printing, paged books began to appear.’ A transition stage between the roll and the stitched book was the folded book, a continuous piece of paper like the roll, but folded in pages like a modern railroad time table. This little sutra is such a folded book. It consists of eight pages. It is printed like all block prints on one side only, then folded, and finally has the folds at one edge all pasted together, so that it opens quite like a modern book. The feeling of modern- ness is enhanced, when one sees the name of the printer and the date clearly printed on the inside of the outer sheet. The date is 949. While the Diamond Sutra bears the date of 868, and the three other roll books found at Tun-huang have all been assigned with a fair degree of probability to the ninth century or the opening 44 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA iPrall decade of the tenth,® those of the single sheets that bear dates, as well as the folded book just described and a seven-page charm from Paris (excluding duplicates there are altogether nine books and sheets bearing dates *) range from 947 to 983. On the other hand these sheets are far more primitive than the rolls. This fact leads to the suggestion that the books were importations, probably from the province of Szechuen, while the single sheets were of local manufacture.!° If this is the case, it is not unlikely that these votive offerings and charms represent survivals in this far western outpost of a form of printing which in China proper had already preceded the Diamond Sutra, and that they make it possible to reconstruct still further the development that led up to the printing of that book. Meanwhile from an entirely different set of sources comes docu- mentary evidence that parallels the evidence of archeological dis- covery. The first ' clear reference to block printing in Chinese literature is an account of printed books which were seen by the official Liu Pin ” in the province of Szechuen in the year 883, just fifteen years after the appearance of the Diamond Sutra. Liu Pin accompanied the emperor Hsi Tsung into temporary exile in Szechuen during the troubles that were rife during the last years of the T’ang Dynasty. His statement reads, “In the summer of the year 883, during my three years sojourn with the emperor in the province of Shu (Szechuen), I was examining books on the south-east side of the imperial residence on behalf of an official named Hsiin Hsiu. These books consisted mostly of works on divination," portents, dreams and féng-shui, and writings of the Chiu-kung “ and Five Planet sects; but there were also some ‘character books’ * and elementary school books. Most of these books were printed with blocks on paper, but they were so smeared and blotted that they were not readily legible.” This earliest clear description of Chinese printed books brings out several important facts. It is evident that printing was con- fined to non-canonical works, and in the main to the books of the ignorant and the poor, to whom the cheapness of the new Cu. VIII] THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK 45 method appealed. It is also clear that Taoists as well as Buddhists were making use of the new art, and that though their work was still crude, it had progressed far since the days of the charm-seals described in chapter two. But “there were also some character books and elementary text books.” Here may be seen the beginning of the emergence of the art of printing from the realm of Buddhist lore and Taoist magic. Not till printing began to emerge into the secular field did it find its way into literature, for the Confucian historians—those who were chiefly interested in the progress of civilization—had a wholesome contempt for what was going on behind the doors of monasteries. It is not without significance that Liu Pin was usually ignored by Sung and Yiian writers who tried to trace the origin of printing, and that when he was quoted, the “‘books of divination, dreams and portents’’ were omitted and only the “character books and school books” remained. It is these latter that prepared the way for the great advance of the next century— the printing of the Confucian Classics. There are two other early authorities who mention printing in the T’ang Dynasty, and both of them, like Liu Pin, locate the centre of the industry in the province of Szechuen, then known by the name of Shu.!7 Chu I,!8 a careful writer of the Sung Dynasty, is authority for the statement, “Inked blocks were first used at I-chou !? (Ch’eng-tu) at the end of the T’ang Dynasty.”” The Kwo- shih-chih »° confirms this statement, and adds, “‘The books printed were usually books on magic art, school books and character books.””#! Some leaves of a dictionary ” found at Tun-huang are believed to have been produced by this early secular printing activity of Szechuen. They are not dated, but there are certain indications that have led M. Pelliot to assign to them a date of about goo. They are almost the only bits of non-Buddhist printing that have been found at either Tun-huang or Turfan. Although Buddhist printing was already highly developed dur- » ing the ninth century, as indicated by the Diamond Sutra, the art 46 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pr. II of printing had still awakened little interest in the empire at large, and as late as 932 it was still confined to two localities, of which Szechuen was one. The printing activities of T’ang times made little impression upon the Chinese world. Féng Tao, whose pub- lication of the Classics occupied the years 932-953, just after the T’ang Dynasty came to a close, has almost universally been re- garded in China as the inventor of printing. Only a few writers have pointed out the earlier printing that formed the foundation of this work, and not until the discovery of the Diamond Sutra in 1907 was anything definite known of the character of that early printing. ©) ae? Ge In other words, this was probably the beginning of official printing, undertaken by the state. Another writer tells of Wu’s interest in education: ‘‘From the end of the T’ang Dynasty all schools had been in ruins. Wu Chao-i of Shu from his own private funds contributed a very large sum (lit., millions) to reéstablish them. Besides this he petitioned the king to have the Nine Clas- sics printed. The king granted his petition. From this time there was a literary renaissance in Shu.” ® Meanwhile back nearer the center of the country, with their capital at Ch’ang-an or Si-an-fu, one dynasty was succeeding another on the ruins of the old T’ang empire. The second of these so-called “Five Dynasties,” known as Later T’ang, was able to gain considerable strength in Central China under the able admin- istration of the prime minister Féng Tao—one of those strange figures in history who succeed in winning and retaining the good will of various persons in spite of the enmity of those persons to each other. Under four of the “Five Dynasties” and under seven emperors,’ Féng Tao held his position, and thus a semblance at least of continuity was attained in the conduct of the empire, for each founder of a short-lived dynasty, though killing his predeces- sor, Was wise enough to retain his predecessor’s chief adviser. In the year 929, near the beginning of Féng Tao’s career, and near the beginning of the career of his rival, Wu Chao-i, the cen- tral empire in which Féng held authority conquered the state of Shu and held it for five years. As the imperial authority was ex- tended over that new territory, two things were found in the far 50 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Prrtt western capital that Féng Tao was quick to seize upon and adapt to the use of his own growing empire, the Classics engraved in stone—hitherto an imperial prerogative—and the new and as yet little known process of block printing. That the prime minister and his associates quickly saw the necessity of the central empire taking over this work from its newly conquered province, is indi- cated in the epoch-making memorial of 932, issued just three years after Shu was added to the imperial domain and two years before it was again lost. “During the Han Dynasty,” they wrote in their memorial, “Confucian scholars were honored and the Classics were cut in stone. . . . In T’ang times also stone inscriptions containing the text of the Classics were made in the imperial school.§ Our dynasty has too many other things to do and cannot undertake such a task as to have stone inscriptions erected. We have seen, however, men from Wu ® and Shu who sold books that were printed from blocks of wood. There were many different texts, but there were among them no orthodox Classics. If the Classics could be revised and thus cut in wood and published, it would be a very great boon to the study of literature. We, therefore, make a memorial to the throne to this effect.” !° Printing was evidently the last thing that Féng Tao and his associates were interested in. It came as a by-product. Their whole interest lay in fixing forever the canon and the correct text of the Classics, a prerogative that they felt belonged to them, as representations of the real empire, and not to the upstart “em- pire” of Shu. They believed that recent scholarship had thrown new light on certain questions of textual criticism which rendered the text current in Han and T’ang times obsolete, that for this reason the whole text needed a thorough searching revision, and that their empire must be the one to set the standard. The material on which the revised text was to be cut was incidental. ' In fact the cutting in wood instead of stone was regarded as a make- shift, the impoverished state having no money to cut the text in stone as previous dynasties and as the rival state of Shu had done. Cu. IX] THE PRINTING OF THE CLASSICS gi This emphasis on sound scholarship in getting at the correct text is brought out in the emperor’s reply and in the arrange- ments that were made for the work. The Kuo-tzti-chien, or National Academy, where leading scholars of the empire were gathered together, was ordered to select for each one of the Clas- sics a commission of five or six specialists in order to revise the text. A government board headed by a scholar named Ma Kao was appointed to examine and revise the work of these commis- sions, ‘‘and since the establishment of the text of the Classics is of great importance,” the decree ran, ‘‘an importance not to be com- pared with that of all other books, although I have already or- dered the National Academy to appoint officers to edit the work, yet, because the work is so vast, and I still fear that errors may creep in, I order Ma Kao and the men with him (who are all great scholars and each one a specialist in the Classics), to make a final, exact examination in order that everything may be brought to absolute perfection.”” The Academy was then ordered to select skilled calligraphers to prepare the final copy which should be fixed to the blocks for cutting, and finally to select careful workmen to cut the blocks. At the head of the calligraphers, the famous writer Li O was chosen, while T’ien Min, as director of the National Academy, was appointed to be head of the whole undertaking." The work of editing and of printing lasted for twenty-one years, twenty-one years of civil war, during which four dynasties, three of them founded by Turkish or Uigur adventurers, followed one another in rapid succession. But somehow or other Féng Tao retained his post as head of the civil administration, while T’ien Min and his associates worked steadily on at the task of editing and printing the Classics. To those who are acquainted with the China of our own day, and have seen government education steadily pushing forward in spite of governmental anarchy, it is not hard to understand how the National Academy and the vari- ous commissions appointed went their quiet way unruffled by the storm that was beating about them. Several state documents have been preserved indicating the 52 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pridl progress of the work and the difficulties met. None is of especial interest until the final statement made by T’ien Min in 953 in presenting to the emperor the completed edition of the Classics and their Commentaries # in one hundred and thirty volumes: “From the third year of the period Chang-hsin (932),” he de- clared, “‘we have been at work on the revision and printing of the Nine Classics and their Commentaries. The Classics and their Commentaries are so voluminous and come from such an ancient time and so many errors have crept in through frequent copying that in many cases the original reading has been lost. Our function has been to superintend the work of the National Academy and to watch over the revision of the books. We have sought in all things to find the correct standpoint for fixing the text and to pre- pare everything perfectly for printing. Fortunately through the favor of your Majesty we have been able to bring the great work to completion. Through this work the virtues of peace will be spread abroad and the universal doctrine made eternal. We re- spectfully submit our finished task.” Meanwhile the printers of Szechuen were not inactive. Wu Chao-i’s initial work, which had inspired Féng Tao to competition, was followed by the printing of at least a part, if not the whole, of the Nine Classics. The records of this official printing of the state of Shu are very meager, compared with the full records of the work of the central empire under Féng Tao, but it is probable that the Classics in whole or in part were published in Shu at about the same time that they were published in the imperial capital—one authority says in the same year." Yet with all this printing activity both in Shu and in the central empire, the old idea of authentication still clung to that word yin, that had meant seal and now meant print. The chief purpose of printing was not yet to make literature more accessible to the masses, but rather to authenticate the text. For more than a century after Féng Tao—up to the year 1064—the private print- ing of the Classics was forbidden. All printing must be done by the government and must give the orthodox accepted text. Cu. IX] THE PRINTING OF THE CLASSICS 53 Of the Classics printed under Féng Tao’s administration, noth- ing of undisputed genuineness has come down to us. There is an old edition of the Er-ya in Japan which is marked as “written by Li O,” the calligrapher who wrote the copy for Féng Tao’s work. While this is probably a Sung Dynasty reprint," it is likely that it reproduces fairly faithfully the original and gives an idea what the Classics printed by Féng Tao looked like. It isin the form of a book with pages but each page conforms closely to the style of the pasted sheets of the T’ang manuscript rolls. Each half page con- tains eight columns, and each column either sixteen or twenty-one characters. The printed matter found in the Tun-huang caves and described in the preceding chapter comes in the main from just the time that Féng Tao was printing the Classics. Of the nine dated specimens at London and Paris, six * contain dates ranging from 947 to 950, and almost all the Tun-huang prints date from Féng Tao’s cen- tury. But this is not Féng Tao’s work. The work of the National Academy was Confucian—orthodox—the Tun-huang finds are Buddhist. What the Tun-huang finds reveal is that, side by side with the official Confucian printing of Féng Tao, which so many literary men described, Buddhist printing continued to pursue its quiet course, ready to culminate in that great undertaking, the printing of the Tripitaka, which ushered in the Sung era, and which will be described in the next chapter. During Féng Tao’s administration Buddhist printing spread to Korea. The first recorded printing in Korea was a popular apo- cryphal sutra that was written originally in Chinese, and not, like the true sutras, translated from Sanskrit. This bears the date 950.17 The work of Féng Tao and his associates for printing in China may be compared to the work of Gutenberg in Europe. There had been printing before Gutenberg—block printing certainly and very likely experimentation in typography also—but Guten- berg’s Bible heralded a new day in the civilization of Europe. In the same way there had been printing before Féng Tao, but it 54 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Past was an obscure art that had little effect on the culture of the country. Féng Tao’s Classics made printing a power that ushered in the Renaissance of the Sung era. It is too much, however, to call Féng Tao the inventor. Not only had printing existed before his day—and printing which differed very little in technique from that which took place under his administration—but also Féng Tao had no part, so far as we know, in the technical work. He was the prime minister who saw the value of the new invention and gave the order to print on a large scale. His name has gone down in history as one of China’s great inventors, but his glory should be shared with others who did more than he to inaugurate the new invention. eS fine y mh © 2g ¢ = a an a ee ta) ee eee eee re ry. ve ree » 7 frre E ——— —_ Fe a ae ee Ne ts [RvORReE ema 3 Eee nee ee eet ae —_—— pene ne Mn x : i fi vir a URE ee sie = oe | Awe = ame lege : eee - a Hee Lie cme emi mier ae Cla Jeg we Spe Eaks ee a aoe Saal A —— Se RON J sanbee Lares va da | cose ether ee a x or - ? oe te Wee ip ei ee ' ss [seraemy cleric’) ‘bh es ae ee a Nac scurees ooe A PRINTED BOOK OF THE SUNG DYNASTY of Southern Ch’i. Printed books of the Sung aries of China and Japan and in the leading re From the Dynastic Histories Dynasty (g60-1280) national libraries of E »—History of the Dynasty can be found in many private lib urope. They are as a rule the mo _ t perfect specimens of the block printer’s art re usually paged and stitched like modern S 2) a k (Size of double page 40 x 28 cm.) and have never been surpassed in technique. They Chinese boo Collection of George A. Plimpton, New York City. CHAPTER X THE HIGH TIDE OF CHINESE BLOCK PRINTING THE SUNG AND MONGOL DYNASTIES (960-1368) NE of the many generals, who had been contending for authority during the anarchic period of the Five Dynas- ties, succeeded in the year 960 in placing himself on the throne and uniting the empire under his sway. This was the be- ginning of the Sung Dynasty, a period which rivalled that of the T’angs in cultural achievement. The T’ang Dynasty had been a time of rapidly extending frontiers, and of contact with the lands of the West, a period of freshness and youth, an era of lyric poetry and religious faith. The Sung Dynasty, shut out from the West by the steadily encroaching nomads, was a time of ripe maturity. Lyric poetry gave way to learned prose—great compendiums of history, works on natural science and political economy, of a character and quality such as neither China nor the West, except for a short period in Greece, had ever dreamed of. Religious faith gave way to philosophic speculation, and the great systems of thought were produced that have dominated China to this day. In art the lofty tradition of the earlier period was carried on and brought to fruition, so that the greatest and best Chinese paintings that are now extant come from the period of the Sungs. In invention, what the T’ang period conceived, the Sung era put to practical use. The magnetic needle, used in the main in earlier times either as a toy or for the location of graves, was applied to navigation.! Gunpowder, already known and used for fireworks, was during the Sung Dynasty applied to war.? Porce- lain was so developed as to become an article of export to Syria and Egypt. A similar development took place in printing. From an obscure Buddhist art at the end of the T’ang Dynasty, it was already mak- 56 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pr. II ing rapid strides forward during the half century interregnum. But as Féng Tao’s Classics were published only seven years before the first Sung emperor ascended to the throne, it was not until that dynasty had become established that his work bore fruit. The printing of the Classics was one of the forces that restored Confucian literature and teaching to the place in national and popular regard that it had held before the advent of Buddhism, and a classical renaissance followed that can only be compared to the Renaissance that came in Europe after the re-discovery of its classical literature and that there too was aided by the invention of printing. This is the reason why Féng Tao’s work has been considered of such importance by Chinese historians. Another result of the publication of the Classics was an era of large scale printing, both public and private, that characterized the whole of the Sung Dynasty. In quality the block printing of the Sung epoch has never been surpassed. The fine workmanship of these artist-craftsmen— beautiful calligraphy perfectly reproduced in print—sets a stan- dard for all time. The importance of calligraphy to the book- lovers of the day is shown by the fact that in almost all Sung editions the name of the calligrapher who prepared the copy is recorded in the colophon along with those of the author and the printer. This also was a time of improvements in the technique of printing of which the most noteworthy was the invention of mov- able type. But that new development must be reserved for dis- cussion in a later chapter. The advent of the Sung Dynasty caused little change in the printing administration that had been organized by Féng Tao. The National Academy was still in charge of the work. The first books published by the government were further commentaries on the Classics, literary compendiums and classical dictionaries.‘ In the order for the printing of one of these earliest works, it is expressly stated that the arrangements as to paper, ink and ex- pense should be the same as in the case of the Nine Classics. The printing of this work was in charge of a man from Szechuen.’ The Cu.X] | SUNG AND MONGOL DYNASTIES 57 next important work was a voluminous commentary on the Clas- sics in a hundred and eighty volumes,’ containing at the end a page of “errata,” in which ninety-four misprints were corrected. The conquest of Szechuen (Shu) in 965 brought the printing of that province and of the central empire together. Wu Chao-i, who had been for years the patron of printing in Shu, and who had had more than any other the vision to see the possibilities of the new art in making literature available to the common people, was found by the conquerors, an old man, living in retirement and ob- scurity. He was brought with great honor to the imperial capital, his printing blocks were searched out and again used under his direction, and from that day the printing that had circulated in Shu became current throughout the empire.” By the end of the tenth century the printing of the great dy- nastic histories had started. This was a monumental work in many hundred volumes and occupied nearly seventy years. Like the printing of the Classics it was entrusted to the National Academy.$ From 1063 little is heard of the National Academy till after the conquest of North China by the Kin Tartars and the removal of the capital to Hangchow. This was a time of constant warfare and frequent invasion. In 1139, a dozen years after the setting up of the capital at Hangchow, a new edition of the Nine Classics from the old plates was ordered by the emperor. As some of the plates were lost, the work was still unfinished in 1157. An order was then issued for the preparation of new. plates where needed, and the edition was soon complete. From one authority it seems that a part at least of the dynastic histories was printed at the same time.® Meanwhile it is clear that private printing was gaining ground and spreading through the empire. Although the only records of this private printing are the title pages of the books that have been preserved, yet from these a certain amount of incidental and disconnected information can be gleaned, as for instance the fact that the poet Ch’en Ch’i!? was also a publisher. Two hereditary 58 BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA [Pavel publishing houses figure century after century in these title pages, the I" family at Hangchow and the Yu” family in Chien-an." This latter place was located in Fukien, very near the birthplace of the philosopher Chu Hsi. Here printers by the name of Yii were publishing books before the advent of the Sungs, and con- tinued down into Ming times, over four hundred years. The names of the family through generation after generation have been preserved in old Sung editions, which are, by the way, the finest editions of the Classics that are now in our libraries. Be- tween 1265 and 1275, just a few years after the conquest of southern China by Kublai, an edict was issued closing this print- ing establishment, and this edict has been preserved in the annals of the Mongol dynasty. The edict could not have remained long in force, however, for books with the mark of the Chien-an print- ing house continued to appear for still another century.“ The question naturally arises what kind of books were printed in these private establishments. Classics, commentaries, and histories seem to have been the favorite subjects, just as they were in the government printing office. The feeling of sacredness that in China has always surrounded and still surrounds the written or printed page—the feeling that impels men to-day as a pious act to gather and burn printed scraps of paper and thus save them from being defiled—prevented the printing of any books that were not considered to be of great worth and dignity. There is evidence, however, that the practice began early in the Sung Dynasty of printing the winning essays in the great national exam- inations.!° Local histories—histories of provinces and of cities— were also printed, probably in great number, judging from the number of those still extant.* Later in the dynasty the field of printed literature grew constantly wider, including works on botany and agriculture and collections of poetry. While Sung editions are rare and consequently valuable, there are a few in the possession of each of the great central libraries of Europe as well as in the Far East. A monumental work in 2100 volumes was recently published in China consisting of photo- - Splatearecy ater, a eerie = ween { Skea eae whist af #8 f Swollen al at yest te a Sa | S RES Coe J ping ciaet at Shae <4 af xt % = seth FCs Sasthones %,,. Ss z ainterieet io ts She aed a Pang RE RO viet panko Nor Gat PSS aah K Sarak = 4 ‘ hale Ste | Tui FAL ) ‘ ‘ : Te Aa 4 l ee. A Tab | hen, ; A a ESA) A ha i mee Rag fain a ghey tues ath ted RECA te Patek, teach ake? ver ty yj ‘ ‘ P A e ~ - FPS SSSSSSCEREASSTEC ESSE TSS SSS ERSS ESSE TES SSS TSS SSS TES SS SES SESS STS SHEETS SESE SESE EEEEEEESESEEE ESE R ESE RSS SERS ROKK SETS RRR eee , S PAPER’S THOUSAND YEAR JOURNEY S E FROM CHINA TO EUROPE ; Figures (except in Chinese Turkestan) represent the earliest recorded {{ local manufacture of paper. In many cases the earliest import of paper preceded the earliest local manufacture by from one to two centuries. S SSeS SSSSSSSEEES SSH ETESEEHOEE ESET ERR eee NUREMBERG 1391 PHILADELPHIA 1690: i MONGOLIA a Cc gl I N IK S E 3 AUSTRIA HIRAULT 1189 K ESTAN' 7 @MONTEFANO Se teoon i TUREFAN 399 ar, ¥27 ,m ; Discovered by ag . » $ S <=? } Prussian Expedition patie e et ey tet TUN HUANG A 4. Before 150 “ : Oo Discovered by Stein “About 200 ah oo Discovered by Hedin owe ‘ . oe Y : : e ec Ree NZ iM IP i iD : Ri ie we: yer Aes HA 4 es > o, a Se ANA ee ¢ as ( “+s 250-300 Bee BT Net ; Discovered by Stein /AFGHANISTAN- of A.D. 105 TS‘AIL LUN ; DAMASCUS $ & TIBET ~~. 5 E R FEZ About 1100 i ; } MOROCCO SeUO AT - ; Ey 3 . ae hs CHINA vw Nene, f { } / a } f 4 5 nl sf : oe \ - \ ~ : “1 Ny waa patria pont he ee ie ee i eo a 3 é 3 CHAPTER XII EARLY COMMERCE IN THOUGHT AND IN WARES ALONG THE GREAT SILK WAYS r XO understand the westward movement of printing it is necessary to form some picture of the ways by which early culture passed between the West and the Far East. The idea that the history of China has until recent times been a closed compartment, affected by nothing and affecting nothing in the Western world, is being rapidly dispelled by investigation. Each new journey of exploration into Central Asia and each new study of ancient literature makes it possible to follow a little further the silken thread that has bound the civilization of the West to that of the distant East. Imperial Rome wanted silk, China had it. Here is the key to the development of a great caravan route that crossed Turkestan, Persia and Syria, and reached the Mediterra- nean at the ports of Phenicia and Palestine. Modern scholarship has not yet answered the question why the Birth of Thought—the age of Confucius, of Buddha, of the He- brew prophets and of the early Greek philosophers—came to the widely separated lands of ancient culture at the same time. Much less has it explained that earlier Neolithic pre-civilization that developed similar stone implements and even similar pottery designs at various places along the route from Greece to China.! With the establishment of Roman dominion in the West and the Han Dynasty in China, the connection between East and West first begins to emerge into the light of history. Somewhere about B.C. 170 a tribe known to Chinese annals as the Yiieh Chih, and later to the Greeks as Indo-Scythians, a people probably of Indo- European origin, living within the borders of China in what is now the province of Kansu, left their ancestral home and moved west- ward. Within a little more than two centuries they had conquered 86 THE SPREAD WESTWARD (Pr. IH the eastern provinces of what had been Alexander’s empire, and had shown their ability to absorb diverse elements of culture by striking coins in Greek style, bearing the effigies of the gods of Greece, of Persia, of Egypt, and of India and even portraits of Augustus Caesar and of Buddha. All the gods, including Buddha (who looks strangely like Apollo) are clearly labelled in Greek. It was in this Indo-Scythian empire that Buddhism was trans- formed to suit its more cosmopolitan environment, and that the new Buddhism started on its long journey eastward to China and Japan. At the court of one of the Indo-Scythian kings, some time before their Buddhist and coin-striking days (cir. B.c. 126), Chang Ch’ien, an emissary of the Chinese emperor, gained for China its first clear reports of the lands of the West. Chang Ch’ien also brought back the seeds of alfalfa and the grape vine, which were planted in China by the Emperor, and are, so far as known, the first plants introduced into China from the West.2_In the wake of Chang Ch’ien’s mission came the Chinese conquest of Eastern Turkestan, opening up the pathway across the Indo-Scythian kingdom to the Roman Orient, and with this conquest came an enlarged silk trade. Armies, ambassadors and caravans were sent frequently to the West, one Chinese embassy in the year A.D. 97 got as far as the Persian Gulf and was deterred from going on to Rome only by the reports which they heard of a “kind of home- sickness which men have when they are long upon the sea.” The frst travellers recorded from Rome to China came by sea as far as Tongking in the year A.D. 166, and were led from there overland to the Chinese capital, Lo-yang. They are known in the Chinese annals as envoys from the Emperor An Tun, who has been iden- tified as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.’ During this period silk was the chief article of export from China, the Chinese keeping the process of silk production a strict secret. Roman writers thought of silk as a vegetable product, which was stated by Virgil to be combed from trees. Silk came into the Roman Empire in ever increasing quantities during the classic period, and continued to come into Constantinople after Cu. XII] THE GREAT SILK WAYS 87 Rome had fallen. The re-opening of the silk routes was one of the central features of the foreign policy of Justinian (A.D. 527-565) and his immediate successors. These routes had been closed by the Sassanian power in Persia out of fear of the fast growing Turkish kingdom on the northeast, which was at this time first heard of in western history. Justinian tried to interest the king of Abyssinia and certain Christian princes in India in a project to open a new trade route with the East that should avoid the Per- sian dominion altogether. When this plan fell through owing to the lethargy of the king of Abyssinia, advantage was taken of an embassy from the Khan of the Turks, and a return embassy was sent in 568 around north of the Caspian Sea to the Turkish court (in Turkestan) and an alliance formed, the purpose of which was to compel Persia to allow a resumption of the silk trade. Meanwhile some Nestorian priests returning from the East had brought to Justinian the astonishing news that silk was not “combed from trees,’ but was produced by caterpillars, whose eggs they believed they could obtain. With the emperor’s encour- agement they proceeded either to China, or—more likely—to the kingdom of Khotan in Chinese Turkestan, whither silk culture had been brought in the year 41g by a Chinese princess. To avoid detection as they carried the precious eggs over the frontier, they hid them in the long bamboo staff that one of the priests carried. From the eggs carried in this bamboo staff—if the story told by the Greek chroniclers is to be credited—are descended all the silkworms that have been reared in Europe down to modern times.° The century after Justinian saw marked changes in the face of Asia. Two great empires, that of the T’ang Dynasty in China and that of the Caliphs in the West, had divided most of Asia between them, and the two empires had met in Turkestan. From this time on it was the Arabs who supplied Europe with silk. Imported silk they drew from China through Samarkand. Silk culture they learned from Constantinople. Throughout the Middle Ages Europe bought the bulk of its silk—both Chinese silk and silk of 88 THE SPREAD WESTWARD (erat Arabic manufacture—from the Arabs. Not till the Crusades were well under way did the art of silk culture become known in West- ern Europe, being first introduced into Italy in the thirteenth century and into France in the fourteenth. Silk was thus, so far as known, the first of China’s great gifts to the West, reaching Europe some time before the Christian Era; but the art of. producing silk, like most Eastern arts, reached Western Europe only through the Crusades. To-day there is no part of the world, except the Polar Regions, less known and less often traversed by civilized man than the lands that lie between China and the Near East. Some Germans, escaping from internment in China during the World War, were reported in the newspapers to have made the journey, and it was thought at the time to be an incredible feat. This is the one great trade route of the world where the means of communication are poorer to-day than they were one or two thousand years ago. Other ways of commerce by sea and land have opened up and have left the ancient route from China to the Western world scarcely even a memory. It is hard to-day to imagine that great highway over which the world’s long distance caravans plied to and fro. Two or three years were spent on the journey—often more, for it is seldom that one man or one caravan made the whole trip. Men of all races and creeds relayed the silks of China and the varied wares of the West stage by stage over the long road. Great cities grew up, both in the fruitful lands and in the oases of the desert along this now deserted trail. Turfan and Capernaum, cities at the two extremes, that once profited by being near the great trade route, to-day are ruins. Samarkand and Bagdad have lost their glory. But there was a day when that whole road lay through the lands of prosperous peoples who gathered together the elements of culture from all the East and all the West, an eclectic and cosmopolitan culture that has been buried and pre- served wherever the route lay across what is now desert, espe- cially in Chinese Turkestan. Nor was it through a short period that this prosperity of the Cu. XII] THE GREAT SILK WAYS 89 cities along the Silk Ways continued. Whether Western Asia was ruled by Caesar or Caliph, Western Asia loved to clothe it- self in silk, and Western Asia had products that it was willing to send in exchange. Great empires—the Romans, the Indo- Scythians, the Caliphs and the T’angs of China—facilitated the trade, which continued to grow till finally in the Crusades Europe broke through and began to have her part also in the traffic along the Great Silk Ways. Owing to the fact that until the later Arab period goods were generally carried by relays and few caravans went the whole dis- tance, people at the one end of the line knew very little about peo- ple at the other end. But that did not prevent ideas and products from making the long journey, even though the recipients seldom knew from whence they came. Pliny called the apricot and the peach “Armenian tree” and “Persian tree,” little knowing that the Armenians and Persians had received them from China.°® Aristophanes called chickens “Persian birds” without realizing that chickens came from Burmah.? When Saladin made a present of porcelain to the Sultan of Damascus, he called it Chinese, but when some centuries later porcelain began to be manufactured in Venice, it was called Arabic. So during the long period from Roman times down through the Middle Ages there was a steady give and take. The peach and the apricot, silk and tea,® porcelain and paper, playing cards,° and probably gunpowder and the compass were among China’s gifts to the West. The grape and alfalfa, the carrot,"° glass manu- facture, Nestorian Christianity and Mohammedanism, the al- phabet,! and some impulses of Greek art were a few of the things that the countries of the Far East received in return. Laufer traces the history of some twenty-four agricultural products, the knowledge of which was carried westward from China to Persia or beyond from the Christian Era down to Mongol times, and sixty- eight that were carried in the opposite direction." The greatest gifts of Southern and Western Asia to the Far East were their religions, and these formed the closest cultural link be- go THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Preity tween East and West. The advance of Buddhism from India through Central Asia to China and Japan is well known. Less known but of great importance as forming a point of connection across the continent is the advance of Nestorian Christianity and Manicheism. The latter, the religion of Mani, which was founded in Persia during the third century on a substructure of Zoroastrianism and’ Gnostic Christianity, and which greatly influenced the thought of the Roman Empire (St. Augustine himself being a Manichean before he became a Christian), has been little known until recent discoveries in Chinese Turkestan have brought to light a large quantity of Manichean scriptures and other writings in Persian, Sogdian, Chinese and certain dialects of Turkish. It is now known to have been the state religion of the Uigurs, whose capital was at Turfan. Certain of the Manichean scriptures were printed in China in the twelfth century (see chapter ten). Christian missionaries of the Nestorian sect came from Persia and Syria into Chinese Turkestan sometime in the fifth or sixth century. In almost every site excavated by the German expedi- tions in Turkestan, remains of Christian churches were found, with manuscripts in Syriac and Persian as well as in Chinese and the languages of Central Asia. Even the correspondence of some of these priests with their mother churches in Syria has been un- earthed. Recent discoveries tend fully to confirm the record con- tained in the famous Si-an-fu inscription of the introduction of Christianity into China in the seventh century and of its per- sistence, both in Central Asia and in China down to Mongol times. The metropolitans of Central Asia and of China were sub- ject to the Nestorian patriarch of Bagdad, a dignitary who, strange to say, was given by the Moslem Caliphs great freedom in the exercise of his authority. During the latter part of the period, by special dispensation the metropolitan of China was re- lieved of reporting to his superiors in Bagdad except once in four years. At one time (during the Mongol period) a Christian of Turkish extraction from northern China was made patriarch of Cu. XII] THE GREAT SILK WAYS gl Bagdad.” The exaggerated reports that reached the Crusaders of the exploits of Prester John have now been traced as referring to the Nestorian king of one of the tribes of Central Asia. The Mohammedan penetration of the Far East began within a few years after the death of the prophet, when about the year 652 the first Mohammedan envoys reached the Chinese court. From that time Arab trade with China steadily increased. How the early Arabic trading posts flourished is indicated by Abti Zeyd, who, writing about goo, stated that, in the rebellion of 878 in the city of Canton,'® one hundred and twenty thousand Moslems, Jews, Christians and Parsees, who were there on business of traffic, were killed. Even allowing for Arab exaggeration, there is evidence here that trade between China and the Saracen Empire had already reached large proportions. The infiltration of religious ideas from the West is again illus- trated in the account of the Arab traveller Ibn Vahab, who visited China in the latter part of the ninth century and describes his audience with the emperor. The emperor, after discoursing with considerable accuracy of the five great kingdoms of the world— the Chinese, Turkish, Indian, Arab, and Greek—is said by the Arab narrator to have pulled from a box beside his throne pictures of Noah in the Ark, of Moses and his rod, of Jesus upon an ass, and of the Twelve Apostles. The surprising modernness of this Chinese emperor as seen by his Moslem visitor is illustrated by the fact that though he marvelled at what Jesus accomplished in the short space of thirty months, he combatted the idea that there had ever been a universal deluge and laughed heartily when his Arab visitor tried to tell him that the world had been created only six thousand years. The Mohammedans in China always retained a close connection with their home base either by sea or across Central Asia. They were under a system somewhat similar to present-day extra-terri- toriality, and it was not until after Mongol times that they began to be submerged as an integral part of the Chinese people. The large number of Moslems in China to-day, who as a rule are of g2 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III Arabic ancestry, shows the extent of this early infiltration and - adicates how close must have been the contact between China and the West that was thus established. In return for religious ideas, which were moving eastward and northward across Asia, China sent back her inventions. Some of the inventions with which the Chinese have been credited still await the research student and nothing clear and definite can be stated until a large amount of careful study has been made. The invention of paper, which has been more fully studied than the others, is described in chapters one and twelve. Though gun- powder and the compass are still obscure in their beginnings, a few words about them as well as about porcelain may present some useful analogies to the student of printing. | It is known that gunpowder was used in the T’ang dynasty, though probably not for warfare. The first use of gunpowder in warfare was in the form of explosive hand grenades, or grenades thrown by various mechanical devices. When the use of these grenades first began is still obscure. They were apparently used mn the battles of 1161 and 1162, and again by the northern Chi- nese against the Mongols in 1232. The Arabs became acquainted with saltpeter some time before the end of the thirteenth century and called it Chinese snow, as they called the rocket the Chinese arrow. Roger Bacon (c. 1214 to ¢. 1294) is the first European writer to mention gunpowder, though whether he learned of it through his study of Arab lore or through his acquaintance with De Rubruquis, the Central Asiatic traveller, is uncertain. All that can be said certainly is that the use of gunpowder in warfare be- came known among the Saracens and in Europe very quickly after its first use in warfare in China." With respect to the compass, the Chinese had known the prop- erties of load-stone since before the Christian era, and during the frst millenium after the Christian era there are many curious stories, the interpretation of which is still obscure, with regard to the construction of “‘south-pointing chariots.” The earliest clear mention in Chinese literature (or any literature) of a magnetic Cu. XIT] THE GREAT SILK WAYS 93 needle is by Shén Kua (1030-1093), the same man who first de- scribed movable type printing. The first mention in Chinese literature of the use of the compass for navigation is a little after 1100 but refers to the period from 1086 to 1099. At this time, according to the statement of Chu Yi, it was used by foreign (that is probably Arab or Persian) navigators between Canton and Sumatra. The first mention of the compass in Europe is in a poem by Guyot de Provins about r1go and again a few years later by Cardinal de Vitry, who visited Palestine in the fourth Crusade, and who describes load-stone as having been brought from “India.” The indications would seem to be that the Chinese first knew the use of the compass but had not applied it to navigation;18 that Arab traders in Chinese waters were the first to use this Chinese device for sailing ships; and that from them the secret was carried to Europe during the Crusades." The gradual evolution and westward movement of porcelain is better known. As far back as the Han Dynasty (i.e. before a.p. 220) the Chinese had discovered that at a sufficiently high tem- perature a very fine glaze could be obtained with powdered fels- pathic rock mingled with lime. It is not, however, until about the seventh or eighth century that this glazed pottery was so per- fected that it can be called porcelain. The first appearance of porcelain in the Near East was in 1171 (or 1188) when Saladin sent a present of forty pieces of Chinese porcelain to the Sultan of Damascus. Porcelain manufacture was not known in Europe till after the Crusades. It is first mentioned in 1470 in Venice and the statement is made that the Venetians learned the art from the Arabs. It is in this world of varying and increasing currents of trade and intercourse that block printing started on its westward way. The trade that began under the wide empires of the Caesars and the Hans and was furthered by the Caliphs and the T’angs, reached its culmination in the time of the Mongol Empire and the Crusades. Immediately after the Crusades new ideas of all sorts, some of which had their origin in the East, began to sweep 94 THE SPREAD WESTWARD (Pr. LI over Europe. Whether or not the discovery of printing, that foundation stone on which modern education is built, is one of the gifts which Europe received from the East through the medium of the Mongol Empire and the Crusades, will be the sub- ject of investigation in the next chapters—the discussion in Part Three being confined to Block Printing and in Part Four to the use of Movable Type. CHAPTER XIII PAPER’S THOUSAND-YEAR JOURNEY FROM CHINA TO EUROPE APER has everywhere been the forerunner of printing. Pivvinee this strong economical material, printing could never have made headway. Moreover the westward move- ment of paper not only prepared the way for printing, but its history is often suggestive of the ways in which printing may have travelled. In order to investigate the course of block printing, it 1s therefore necessary to understand clearly the history of paper. This history of paper is open before us. As compared with that of block printing, the advance of paper was a triumphal progress, hailed by literary men, and displacing quickly the old writing ma- terials in every place it touched. Typography later met with a like welcome, first in Korea, then in Europe. But block printing was always in its beginnings an obscure and despised art, whose history can be traced only with the greatest difficulty. A study therefore of the progress of paper affords the best introduction to the more difficult study of the westward course of the block printing which followed in its wake. The invention of paper from hemp, tree bark, fish nets and rags, as officially announced to the Emperor of China in the year a.p. 105, has been described in the first chapter. The history of the later Han Dynasty, written about 470, states, “From this time on it was used universally.” Other references confirm the impression that its spread through China was very rapid. West China is especially noted by several writers as one of the early seats of the paper industry.! The first point at which paper is met on the journey from China westwards is one of the watch towers of a western spur of the 96 THE SPREAD WESTWARD ewes DLE Great Wall. In this ruined watch tower near Tun-huang, amid a mass of documents written on wood and one or two on silk, Dr. Stein discovered nine letters which are without doubt the earliest bits of paper that have yet been found. They are neatly folded sheets about sixteen inches by nine, each contained in an addressed wrapper. Microscopic examination shows that the material is a pure rag paper. The language is not Chinese like that of the sur- rounding wooden slips, but Sogdian, an Iranian language written in a script derived from Aramaic. None of the letters are dated, but as the Chinese documents in these watch towers cover the years A.D. 21-137 (one possibly 152) it seems certain that the garrisoning of the watch towers ended at about the mid- dle of the century, and that the paper there found must have come from the first half century after T's’ai Lun’s official announcement of his invention. In another watch tower were found several frag- ments in Chinese, which are presumably of about the same date. Gradually paper made its way westward in Turkestan. The earliest paper found by Sven Hedin’s expedition—up to that time the earliest paper known—was found at Loulan, and is believed to date from about a.D. 200.2. Each of the older sites excavated in Turkestan yields both wood and paper as writing material. At several places the gradual displacement of wood by paper in the third, fourth and fifth centuries can be traced. At Loulan for ex- ample, abandoned about A.D. 350, some twenty per cent. of the many documents found by Dr. Stein are on paper, the balance on wood. At Turfan the oldest paper found by the Prussian Expeditions dates from 399. Here paper coming from the east met the culture currents that were coming from the west and south. From here we have early Aramaic texts on paper, and even some three or four words of Greek. Also written on paper is a fragment of a Bible manuscript (from the Book of Psalms) in Persian, which has by some been dated as early as 450. The early paper from Turfan includes Manichean texts, Buddhist canons, and a variety of Cu. XIII] WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF PAPER 97 Christian literature—among other things a delightful fairy story based on the visit of the Wise Men to Bethlehem. Step by step paper penetrated around both edges of the Takla- makan Desert, till by the end of the fifth century, through all the Central Asian territory which then as now was under Chinese control, except in certain backward spots, the use of wood for writing had stopped and paper was in general use.° In the early years of the eighth century the Arabs mastered what is now known as Russian Turkestan. Here in July, 751, paper manufacture entered the Arabic world and started on its career from Samarkand to Spain. The circumstances are related in detail in the Arabic annals. There was war between two Turkish chiefs. One appealed for help to China, the other to the Arabs. The Arabs defeated the Chinese army and drove them back as far as the Chinese frontier. Among the prisoners taken were some paper makers, who taught the art of paper making at Samarkand.‘ The Chinese annals of the T’ang Dynasty describe the same battle and the date exactly agrees.® The Arabic report states that the paper introduced into Sa- markand was made of “‘grasses and plants.” On the other hand, all early Arabic paper that has come down to us, including the great Rainer collection, is rag paper. An examination of a number of papers of just this period from Eastern Turkestan (768-787) shows that they are made of a mixture of rags and raw fibers, the raw fibers predominating.’ The Arabs seem to have found diff- culty in getting all the materials that had been used by the Chinese and made their paper wholly of rags, like the earlier Chinese paper found by Stein in the Great Wall. “Paper of Samarkand” soon became well-known through the Asiatic dominions of the Caliphate—so much so that a century later (869) Juhith wrote, “The papyrus of Egypt is for the West what the paper of Samarkand is for the East.”’ A writer of the eleventh century, Tha’alibi, writes, “Among the specialties of Samarkand that should be mentioned is paper. It has replaced the rolls of Egyptian papyrus and the parchment which were for- 98 THE SPREAD WESTWARD hee nit merly used for writing, because it 1s more beautiful, more agree- able and more convenient. It is found only here and in China. The author of the work ‘Journeys and Kingdoms’ tells us that paper was brought from China to Samarkand by prisoners. It was Ziyad, son of Salih, who took those prisoners, among whom were found the paper makers. Then the manufacture grew and not only filled the local demand but also became for the people of Samarkand an important article of commerce. Thus it came to minister to the needs and well-being of mankind in all the coun- tries of the earth.” But long before this a rival factory had started at Bagdad. In the year 793-794 Harun-al-Rashid of Arabian Nights fame brought Chinese workmen for the starting of the first paper fac- tory in the capital. Bagdad however does not seem to have seri- ously rivalled Samarkand as a source of supply. Already in the tenth century we find Arabic scholars debating with warmth whether the Omayyids or the Abbassids had the honor of the introduction of paper at Samarkand, the change of dynasty having occurred in 750. The third factory recorded in the Arabic empire was on the south-east coast of Arabia. The fourth was Damascus. It was Damascus that for several centuries was the main source of sup- ply for Europe, paper in Europe being generally known as charta damascena. Mambij or Bambyx, another Syrian town, seems also to have given its name to paper in Europe, with strange conse- quences. For charta bambycina, paper of Bambyx, was corrupted to charta bombycina, paper of cotton, and from the time of Marco Polo down to 1885, when the view was disproved by the micro- scopical investigations of Dr. Wiesner, Arabic paper and early European paper have always been known as “‘cotton paper” and the invention of rag paper was attributed to the Germans and Italians of the fifteenth or sixteenth century.’ But while Damascus became the center of the export of paper to Europe, the secret of its manufacture was destined to enter Christendom by a longer route. It had come the full length of Cu. XIII] WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF PAPER 99 Asia; it was yet to go the full length of North Africa and enter Europe through Saracen Spain. Paper in Egypt has special interest because it is here in the desert that almost all the old Arabic paper has been found—just as the desert of Turkestan has been the storehouse for old Chinese paper. The Erzherzog Rainer collection at Vienna contains more than twenty thousand documents on paper dating from about 8008 to 1388. It is the examination of this Egyptian paper which has thrown the greatest light on the history of paper manufacture. The steady displacement of papyrus by paper is interestingly illustrated by the dated documents in this collection. Of the second century of the Hegira (719-815) there are thirty-six dated documents all on papyrus. From the following century (816-912) there are ninety-six documents on papyrus and twenty-four on paper. From the fourth century (913-1009) only nine are on papyrus and seventy-seven on paper. The last papyrus dates from 936. A polite letter of thanks, whose date lies between 883 and 895, closes with the words, “Pardon the papyrus.”’ As the letter is written on a most beautiful piece of papyrus, the writer is evi- dently apologizing for not using paper, which although just in- troduced from Bagdad or Samarkand, was already the stylish material for letters. A Persian traveller, writing about 1040, recorded with surprise how in Cairo “‘the venders of vegetables and spices are furnished with paper in which everything that they sell is wrapped.” A physician from Bagdad, writing a century later, tells the source of this wrapping paper used by the grocers: “‘ The Bedouins and fel- lahs search the ancient cities of the dead to recover the cloth bands in which the mummies are swathed, and when these cannot be used for their clothes, they sell them to the factories, which make of them paper destined for the food markets.’”’ Let us be grateful that no paper mill was set up to use the textiles in the tomb of Tutankhamen! 100 THE SPREAD WESTWARD PPayebel From Egypt paper manufacture passed to Morocco and thence to Spain. The first clear mention of the making of paper in Spain —which is also the first in Europe *—indicates already a well established industry. It was in 1150 that El-Edrisi said of the city of Xativa, ‘‘Paper is there manufactured, such as cannot be found anywhere in the civilized world, and is sent to the East and to the West.” For a century still, the paper manufacture of Spain was alto- gether in Saracen hands, though Christians seem gradually to have learned the art as the Christian conquest advanced. The first recorded paper mill in Christendom was set up in 1189 at Hérault on the French side of the Pyrenees, though for still an- other century Europe’s needs were largely supplied by paper from the Saracen mills of Damascus and Spain. So for its first six hundred years paper making was a Chinese monopoly, till taught to the conquering Arabs by Chinese pris- oners at Samarkand. For the next five hundred years paper mak- ing in the West was an Arab monopoly till the Arabs in turn taught their Christian conquerors in Spain, and Christendom made ready to take the lead. Meanwhile paper was entering Europe by two other routes. Paper of Damascus was becoming a large article of commerce, chiefly through Constantinople, and paper from Africa was enter- ing through Sicily. It was probably by the latter route that the manufacture of paper penetrated into Italy. The earliest extant paper document from Europe comes from Sicily. It is a deed of king Roger, written in Arabic and Latin, and dated 1109. A manuscript on paper, a part of which dates from 1154, is still preserved in the archives of Genoa. Emperor Frederick II. in 1221 forbade the use of paper for public docu- ments, but the prohibition was not altogether effective. The im- port into Italy of paper from Damascus increased steadily through the thirteenth century. By 1276 the first Italian paper factory had been set up at Montefano, in the same year that wit- nessed the first recorded manufacture of paper by Christians in Cu. XIII] WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF PAPER 10! Spain. Italian paper manufacture spread rapidly, and Italy in the fourteenth century soon rivalled and then out-stripped Spain and Damascus as the source of Europe’s supply. In Germany the use of paper increased steadily during the fourteenth century, especially during the latter half, but all paper was imported—largely from Italy. Toward the end of the cen- tury, when block printing first appeared, South Germany was buying its paper supply from Venice and Milan, and the Rhine- land from France, though import from Damascus had not alto- gether ceased. The use of the new writing material was just be- ginning to be general. Its employment was not yet as common as that of parchment. Nuremberg, which was one of the earliest cen- ters—perhaps the birthplace—of the block printer’s art, has also. the honor of being the first place in Germany, so far as known, where paper was made.'® This first paper mill was started in 1391. The date of the earliest block printing is uncertain, but it was probably at just about the same time." The slow advance of paper manufacture in Europe, which can readily be seen from a glance at the accompanying chart and map, is in startling contrast to the very rapid advance of printing when it once started on European soil. Paper seems to have ad- vanced less rapidly in Europe than it had advanced either in China or in the Arabic world. The European parchment with which paper had to compete was a far better writing material than either bamboo slips or papyrus. Furthermore, there were few in Europe who read, and the demand for a cheaper writing material, until the advent of printing, was small. While it was the coming of paper that made the invention of printing possible, it was the invention of printing that made the use of paper general. After Europe began to print, first from blocks and then from type, paper quickly took its place as the one material for writing as well as for printing, though, strange to say, the first paper mill in England was not set up till seventeen years after Caxton began to print.” CHAPTER XIV THE PRINTING OF THE UIGUR TURKS IN THE REGION OF TURFAN HE important position held by China’s western border- land in the early history of block printing has already been noted. Both the earliest literary references and the oldest prints that have been found come from the two far western provinces of Szechuen and Kansu, while printed books of the eleventh century have even been found across the border in Mon- golia. Though the better preservation of documents in such places as Tun-huang and Kara-khoto is chiefly due to the climate, yet there can be little doubt that the earliest printing centers were in the western part of China, and that from this part of the country the new art spread not only eastward but westward. The region where the greatest quantity and the greatest variety of early block prints has been found is the oasis of Turfan in what is now Chinese Turkestan. This oasis of Turfan, some four hundred miles northwest of Tun-huang, is a strange depression in the earth’s surface almost as deep as that of the Dead Sea, and surrounded on all sides except that toward China by high mountains. An Indo-European people developed the first recorded civilization in the Turfan basin, going back to a period before the Christian era. In the early cen- turies after Christ, Buddhism swept through the region, bringing in its train a highly developed literature and art. Manichean and Christian (Nestorian) missionaries began coming to the Turfan oasis about the fifth or sixth century and their influence soon rivalled, though it never displaced, that of the Buddhists, bringing into the country a considerable element of Persian and even By- zantine culture. In the seventh century the oasis was conquered by the Chinese and from that time on down to Mongol times Turfan -apunysayjo 4 inf unasnpy (‘wo Sof x 11) UMOYS aJdY SI JUdUBLAy [Tes v ATUQ “puNog jou pue 2/qv3 aur Avayjies & ay] pappoy sea ‘potsod oy3 jo aanjvsay1] IsIyYppNg Isour oy] “Yoo ey], “esaulyD Ul sroquinu aSed puv yWysueg Ul Saj}oU IvoUTPIAIUE YIM “sysN], NTI] eya Jo eensuey ay3 ur parti VuLoASs LSIHGGNdA V LEAF FROM A SANSKRIT BOOK PRINTED TO IMITATE THE POTHI OR PALM LEAF BOOKS OF INDIA Sanskrit manuscripts and even printed books were often made up like the ancient books of India that had been written on palm leaves. Such books are known as pothi. When the folded book came into use, and the hole in the center was no longer needed for binding, a hole was still printed in—often a highly conventionalized hole—as seen in this illustration. About twelfth or thirteenth century (5550 X.33cm:) Museum fiir V élkerkunde. Cu. XIV] THE REGION OF TURFAN 103 was usually more or less under Chinese control, though the hand of Chinese overlords was rather lightly felt, and the country was left to develop its own peculiar institutions. More important was the conquest by a powerful Turkish tribe called the Uigurs in the eighth and ninth centuries, for these Uigurs soon made Idiqut, near the modern Turfan, the capital of their empire, and adopted as their own the older civilization that they found. From this time Turfan, located as it is in the very centre of Asia, may be said to have been a focal point where culture streams of all Asia met, open on the south and west to the religious influ- ences of India, Persia and Syria, open on the east to the political hegemony of China, and on the north forming the cultural center of a loose empire that stretched far away over the nomad tribes of Mongolia and even Siberia. The Uigur civilization came to its height in the ninth and tenth centuries of our era, but Turfan remained an important cultural center till after its conquest by the Mongols under Jinghis Khan. This Turfan basin was first excavated by the Prussian Expedi- tions of Dr. Griinwedel and Dr. von Le Coq in the years 1go2 to 1907. The results of these excavations, including a large quantity of woodcuts and block prints, are in the Ethnological Museum at Berlin. It is the mingling of races and religions that gives to the Turfan discoveries their peculiar fascination. Chinese and swarthy Indians, Turks and blue-eyed, fair-haired mountaineers of Indo- European race, all stand out clearly in the wonderful wall fres- coes, while the manner of portrayal is a blending of the art of Greco-Indian Gandhara with that of China, not to speak of con- siderable Persian or Iranian influence. Nor is there less mingling in the domain of religion. Side by side stood the churches of the Christians and the temples where Buddhists and Manicheans seem to have worshipped together.’ All three religions flourished during the period before the Turkish conquest, and the conquest of the country by the Uigur Turks brought little change, except that Manicheism became the religion 104 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III of the reigning house. Christianity was apparently always tol- erated and Buddhism encouraged by the new overlords. Islam, though sweeping over the lands directly to the west, left the older religions in the Turfan basin undisturbed till after Mongol times. Manicheism was the religion of the royal house, Buddhism that of the majority of the people, Nestorian Christianity that of the minority. The Confucian culture of Chinese overlords made little impression. Needless to say, Turfan was a polyglot community. Seventeen different languages are represented among the documents found by the Prussian expeditions, including Syriac, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese and a few words of Greek, as well as the local Tocharian and Turkish. Some of these appear in as many as four or even five different alphabets. There seems to have been a mania for fitting new alphabets to the various languages of the oasis. Back of all this literary, linguistic and art activity was the religious impulse. It is in the ruined monasteries and temples that the ancient documents have been preserved. Christian scrip- tures, Manichean hymns and prayers, and, more than all, Bud- dhist sutras, form the bulk of all the manuscripts found. In this melting pot of race, language and religion, with its high valuation of literature and art, block printing early found itself at home. It has already been pointed out how Buddhism had a par- ticular genius for reduplication, and some of the earlier, cruder manifestations of that genius as found in the Turfan monasteries have been described. It is a significant fact that all the block printing of Turfan so far found is Buddhist. As in China and Japan, it was the instinct of the Buddhist for repetition and re- duplication to which the new art specially lent itself. Woodcuts and block prints were found in almost every site excavated in the Turfan region. Toqsun at the western edge of the Turfan oasis is the most western point at which Central Asiatic block printing has been discovered. The state of preservation of the Turfan texts is very different from that at Tun-huang. In contrast to the neatly piled rolls of an Cu. XIV] THE REGION OF TURFAN 105 undisturbed sealed chamber, the Turfan manuscript treasures show signs not only of the natural destruction of the centuries, but of wanton destruction as well. In certain of these monasteries the floors were littered with papers, all either hacked to pieces, or else crushed, piece by piece, by hand. In the monastery at Idiqut, for instance, the floor was covered knee deep with this ‘waste paper.” One could have carried away many hundred pounds of it. In the midst of this deposit were the corpses of several Buddhist priests, evidently killed while the systematic destruction of their library was going on. Manichean documents were mingled with those of Buddhist origin, but, whether by design or by accident, they do not seem to have been so thoroughly destroyed. One box of this deposit that I examined at Berlin—a box that had re- mained packed away ever since it came from Turfan and from all appearances might have been the crumpled-up contents of a waste-paper basket in a modern Chinese school-room, plus a gen- erous accumulation of dust—contained, among crumpled and torn manuscripts in Uigur, Sogdian, Chinese and Sanskrit, a dozen very primitive Buddhist woodcuts, two printed texts in Uigur, a sheet of stamped Buddhas (hand-colored), a Chinese manuscript with a stamped Buddha at the top of each column, several bits of silk with Buddhist figures stencilled upon them, and a bit of printed silk. Most of the printing of the Turfan region has had to be rescued from such crumpled deposits. But one notable exception is the monastery at Murtuk, in which a large proportion of the best block prints were found. This monastery seems to be later than most of the others. Perhaps its documents were produced after the persecuting zeal that destroyed the other libraries had spent itself. Murtuk as compared with other sites is remarkable for three things—a larger proportion of its docu- ments is printed, its printing is better done, and its printing is far better preserved. Of all the printed documents found in the Turfan region, not one is dated. Nor is the approximate dating easy, especially of 106 THE SPREAD WESTWARD Perfil the earlier pieces. With regard to the later ones, it is possible to speak with more clearness. There are four fragments in the Mon- gol language, also a beautiful large Sanskrit book in Lantsa script, and a fragment containing the name of Jinghis Khan—all of which could not be earlier than the opening decades of the thirteenth century. Moreover, as it is known that the Uigur civilization did not long survive the drain on its man power caused by the Mongol wars, the date at which the Turfan documents come to an end cannot be much later than the close of the thirteenth century. It may therefore be said with a fair degree of certainty that a number of the best printed pieces—and perhaps a very considerable num- ber—belong to the thirteenth century and the opening years of the fourteenth, when Uigur printing came to its climax and ended. How far back of this the art goes can be only matter for conjecture. It may possibly go back as far as that at Tun-huang or further. It is certain that there is a large amount of very primitive printing and near-printing, which may indicate several centuries of devel- opment. Some would assign much of the printing in the Uigur language to an early date, because the Uigur civilization rose to its height during the ninth and tenth centuries. But all this is conjecture. Whatever may be the date at which Uigur printing began, there seems to have been continued progress both in quantity production and in quality. Late monasteries like Mur- tuk are much richer in block prints than the earlier ones, and the printing is better. It may then safely be said that there was dur- ing early Mongol times in the monasteries of the Turfan region a highly developed and widely extended printing industry, which had very likely been going on for several centuries. Six languages are used in the Turfan blockprints: Uigur, Chi- nese, Sanskrit, Tangut, Tibetan and Mongol, the Uigur, Chinese and Sanskrit prints predominating. The Uigur books and fragments are in the Sogdian alphabet— an adaptation of Syriac that had penetrated into Central Asia early in the Christian era, and from the Indo-European popula- tion had been taken over by the Uigur conquerors. The language ‘apuny4ayjo4 nf unasnpy (ura $*$1 x $9) y2Ud93z INO; Ayava to Ainquad yyusayryy, “eseuryD ul saded ajvusaye uo svadde sroquinu ased pur apry ‘Buoy Jay OM} noe SI ased yoeq ‘vis [esqUed Jo syooq YSo[q ay} jo pazurid Ayadayaad ysOU dU] VULNS GNOWVIC LIYASNVS YHL WOU AOVd V PabibirleReeBEt bribe PlEL le ee ek bene Set ain ty abit PEEP Elie siek Pelee RriEReB LEE BRIERE Ale HERBIER ERI sitesi BelEiee RERRER I A BIT OF TANGUT PRINTING The Tanguts were a people akin to the Tibetans who set up a strong kingdom on China’s western frontier during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Their kingdom was de- stroyed by Jinghis Khan soon after 1200. Block printed sutras in the Tangut language have been found at Turfan, at Tun-huang and at Kara-khoto (1330 3.6 cin,) Museum fiir Vilkerkunde. Cu. XIV] THE REGION OF TURFAN 107 is a pure Turkish, which, though not the direct ancestor of modern Ottoman, presents a striking likeness to it. As the books are all translations of Buddhist sutras, they contain many translitera- tions of Sanskrit names and words. Where this occurs, the San- skrit original is printed in between the lines, much as English words are introduced in a modern Japanese text. The page num- bers in Uigur books are as a rule in Chinese, as is also the title of the book, which appears at the side of many of the pages. These Buddhist printed books in a Turkish language with Sanskrit notes and Chinese page numbers, in a script brought from Syria, are in themselves an epitome of the eclectic character of the Uigur civilization. The Chinese books, of which there are also a large number, are as a rule excellently printed in the large bold-faced style char- acteristic of the Sung era. They are better printed and easier to read than any modern Chinese block books. The Chinese books, like those in Uigur, are in the main translations of Sanskrit sutras. Both the Uigur and the Chinese books are usually in the folded form,? but there are also a few printed rolls, which may very likely indicate an early date. The Sanskrit prints are of two kinds. The larger number are in an older script, which shows little change from that which was already in use in Central Asia several centuries before block print- ing began. A few Sanskrit prints are in the later Lantsa script, which was not in use before Mongol times. The most beautiful specimen of printing in the entire collection is a Sanskrit “ Dia- mond Sutra” in Lantsa script. Each page is more than two feet long by six inches wide, with broad margins and beautiful clear print. The titles and page numbers on every other page are San- skrit, on every other page Chinese. This Sanskrit edition is later than the Chinese editions of the same book found at Tun- huang, at Kara-khoto and in Japan, and, judging from the script, it may be said with a fair degree of certainty to date from the thirteenth century. It has the unique distinction of being ap- parently printed on both sides of the page. A close examination 108 THE SPREAD WESTWARD PPTL Bt however, reveals the fact that each sheet actually consists of two leaves pasted together with such nicety that the pasting can scarcely be detected.® This, like many of the Sanskrit printed books, retains the Indian form rather than the Chinese. It is a pothi, that is, it is like the ancient books that were written on palm leaf in India, many long narrow sheets laid between two boards and bound through with a thong. The printed books of Turfan afford an interesting study in the competition that was going on between different book-forms—the roll, which was the earlier form both in China and in the West; the folded book, which under the influence of printing had gradu- ally displaced the roll in China; and the Indian porhi. The one form lacking is the stitched book, familiar in the West. This omis- sion is interesting, as Christian and Man‘chean stitched books had begun to circulate in the Turfan region not so very long after their first use in Syria in the fifth century. The stitched book reached China early in the Sung Dynasty (about the eleventh cen- tury) and most of the printed books of that period from China that are now extant are stitched. Somehow the Buddhist has never taken kindly to this form. In Turfan it was used in the main by Christians and Manicheans; in China it was the mark of Confucian and secular literature, and as such it came in time to be the usual form, as in the West. The Buddhists always preferred the folded book—or sometimes in Central Asia the Indian potht. In fact a curious form frequently met among the Turfan printed books is a cross between the two—a folded book copied exactly from a manuscript pothi, with the old holes for the pothi thong copied in the printing. The Tangut printing is not extensive. It is in a script as yet undeciphered, ideographic and evidently based on Chinese, yet differing radically from Chinese—one of man’s very few attempts within relatively modern times to create an ideographic script. It was the language of a powerful kingdom—radically akin to the Tibetans—which held sway in Kansu and adjacent territory dur- Cu. XIV] THE REGION OF TURFAN 10g ing the two centuries before the Mongol conquest. This Tangut printing can therefore be dated with a fair degree of accuracy.‘ The Tibetan prints, though not the oldest, are the crudest of those found at Turfan. They are mostly charms of two or three words each, contained in little clay Buddhas, which have to be broken in order to remove the printed charm. There are just four fragments of Mongol printing. They are bits of sutras, printed in the ’Phags-pa script that was derived from Tibetan, and not in the more usual script that the Mongols took over from the Uigurs.5 The Turfan finds include also a large number of woodcuts and fragments of woodcuts, without text. These are apt to be on very thin paper and rather primitive in workmanship, though there are notable exceptions. The discovery at Tun-huang of a font of Uigur wooden type be- longing to early Mongol times, naturally arouses the question whether any of the Turfan printing, especially that in the Uigur language, could have been done with movable type. This Uigur type will be more fully discussed in a later chapter. All that can be said here is that there is no evidence of the use of type at Turfan. Nor is there evidence to the contrary. The difference between a block-printed book and one printed from such type as that found at Tun-huang would be difficult to detect. The part played in the spread of printing by peoples of Turkish extraction is an interesting study. The tenth century was a great century for the Turks. During parts of this century, while the Turkish civilization of the Uigurs of Turfan was at its height, Turks of other tribes were ruling China, Egypt and the Bagdad Caliphate. While this vast territory under Turkish rule, stretch- ing from the Pacific to beyond the Nile, did not in any sense con- stitute a single empire, and while it is doubtful if the Turkish emperors on the throne of China were even aware that men of their own race were ruling in Cairo and Bagdad, it was yet Turkish individuals—adventurers—who had seized the power in all three lands and it was Turkish armies by which they held that 110 THE SPREAD WESTWARD Beta AI power. The founders of the three short-lived dynasties that ruled China from 923 to 951 were, like their contemporaries in the Moslem empires, Turkish mercenaries, who became sufficiently strong to usurp power. The birthplace of these adventurers in China was in the region of Hami, not far from Turfan. The home of the rulers of Egypt and Mesopotamia was a thousand miles or so to the west across the mountains. Yet in language and racial affinity they were closely related. The fact that the tenth century was a time in which block print- ing made such progress—the century of Féng Tao in China, of most of the block prints of Tun-huang, and possibly of the earliest prints both of Turfan and of Egypt—brings up the question whether there is any connection between the spread of block printing and the spread of the various branches of the Turkish race—an interesting subject for further study. The theory has even been advanced that block printing was primarily a Uigur or Central Asiatic invention.’ But the little Chinese page numbers on all the Turfan books, whether the language is Chinese, San- skrit or Uigur, are a sure indication of Chinese workmanship. Block printing comes from China. The fact that a larger number of early prints have been found in Tun-huang and Turfan than in China proper is due to the climate. The great significance of the printing of the Uigur Turks lies in the fact that the Uigur civilization was taken over in toto by the new Mongol empire. The conquest of the Uigur realm was one of the first great achievements of Jinghis (A.D. 1206). From that time not only did the Uigurs form a large part of the Mongol army—they were also the Mongol brains. It was Uigurs who re- duced the Mongol language to writing and applied to it their own alphabet. It was Uigurs who did such writing as was needed at the Mongol court. A Uigur was appointed by Jinghis as tutor to his sons “‘to instruct them in the language, laws and customs of the Uigurs.”® Under Jinghis’ grandsons, the accountants and chief officers of state in Persia and in Mesopotamia were Uigurs.° As Turfan, drained of its man-power for the Mongol armies, Cu. XIV] THE REGION OF TURFAN III dwindled in importance, its culture was transferred bodily to Karakorum, and became the basis of such culture as the Mongols possessed, till it was gradually displaced at the eastward end of the empire by the higher civilization of China and at the west- ward end by that of Islam. During the lightning campaigns of the Mongols that resulted in the conquest of China, Persia, Mesopo- tamia and Russia, it was the culture of the Uigur Turks that fol- lowed the Mongol arms. And the Uigur Turks were a people that knew well how to print. CHAPTER XV ISLAM AS A BARRIER TO PRINTING Europe, all East Asia was printing, from Nara to Turfan— Japanese, Chinese, and Uigur Turks—and through most of this territory printing was being carried on on a large scale. But between the Far East that printed, and Europe where printing was unknown, lay the Moslem world that refused to put its literature in printed form. This barrier between the Far East, where all Buddhist and Confucian literature was being spread abroad in printed form, and Europe where ancient manuscripts were being so laboriously copied by hand in the Christian monasteries, proved in the end to be not impenetrable, but for a time the iso- lation of Europe from the lands of the Far East was complete. It is strange that such a literary people as the Arabs—and such a religious people—refused to use this vehicle for the spreading abroad of religious thought. Paper they found in Central Asia— and with almost incredible quickness it displaced all other writing materials from Samarkand to Spain. But not so with printing. The reason for this prejudice is uncertain. It has been suggested that the Moslem suspected hog’s bristles in the brush used for cleaning the block, and that to touch the name of Allah with this brush seemed to him the height of blasphemy. It is more probable that mere conservatism was back of the prejudice. The Koran was given in written form, therefore the Koran must always be written. Whatever the reason may be, up to to-day the Koran has never been printed in any Mohammedan country except by lithography. In 1727, when permission was asked by a Hungarian by the name of Ibrahim for the erection of a printing press at Constantinople, the Ulema under Sultan Ahmed III. delivered a verdict that it was against the religion and honor of Islam to allow Pe: several hundred years before block printing came into Cu. XV] ISLAM AND PRINTING 113 the printing of the Koran, because the Koran rested upon written tradition, and must in no other way be handed down. Permission to set up a press was finally given him on condition that the Koran should not be printed, and in 1729 ' a history of Egypt appeared, but it awakened such opposition that until the nineteenth century no more printing was attempted in Moslem lands, and even through the nineteenth century printing has had to fight against great odds. There was printing done in Syria in the sixteenth century by Syrian Christians. Printing had been done in Arabic in Italy before the end of the fifteenth century,’ and later the Koran was there printed. Catherine II. had the Koran lithographed in Russia in 1787. But, so far as known, wth the exception of the abortive project of 1729 at Constantinople, the Islamic world never printed a book till 1825, when the first press was set up in Cairo. During all the early period of Chinese printing the Arabic world was in close touch both with China and with Chinese Turkestan, and before the period was over, intelligent Moslems could not have been wholly ignorant of the rdle that was being played by literary and religious printing in the lands to the east. The growth of in- tercourse across Asia during the T’ang Dynasty has already been sketched. There were trade relations by sea, and relations of many sorts—largely hostile—in Turkestan. With Western Turke- stan converted to Islam and under Arab rule, and Eastern Turke- stan a part of the Chinese domain, there was naturally a constant interchange—in the course of which paper making entered the Islamic world. This intercourse was somewhat retarded by po- litical conditions in Central Asia during the Sung period, only to be renewed and greatly increased under the Mongol empire. The extent of Arab penetration of China at this time is borne witness to by the fact that the province of Kansu, the main avenue of Arab trade, is still largely Mohammedan, and that the Mo- hammedans there, as all over China, have a large admixture of Arab blood. In fact all large cities of China and many small ones have a considerable Mohammedan population, who trace their I14 THE SPREAD WESTWARD PP raed descent back to the intermarriage of Arab traders with Chinese women during this period of Moslem penetration that reached its culmination during the Mongol Dynasty. Commerce came by sea as well as by land, the coast cities of South China having been great Arab centers, and having to-day also a large Moslem popula- tion. This peaceful penetration of China by Arab trade is described both by Chinese and by Arabic writers, especially by those of Mongol times. Chou Ju-kua, who was a Chinese inspector of foreign commerce in the province of Fukien some time during the half century before Marco Polo’s visit, has left a detailed descrip- tion, too hazy for that of an eye-witness and evidently derived from Moslem traders, of the various lands of the West from Bag- dad to Spain.* From the other angle, Ibn Batuta, writing toward the end of the Mongol occupation, gives a wonderful picture of how all China was in his day permeated with Arabs. It is no longer a tale of marvellous things he tells. His description sounds as if such a trip as his were an every day occurrence. In one city after another he is met by the Arab merchants and he notes that they are always organized under a judge and a Sheikh-ul-Islam. But most astonishing of all is the narrative where he tells of cas- ually meeting a man at a feast in Hangchow and discovering that he and his new found acquaintance came from neighboring cities in Morocco, and that they had met a long time before in Delhi. The narrative ends, ‘‘I met his brother later in the Soudan; how far these brothers are separated, the one from the other.’ By the time of Ibn Batuta the world was already growing smaller, and considerable information about China was part of the common knowledge of those who gathered about the bazaars of Tabriz and Cairo and Algiers. Yet in spite of all this intercourse with the Far East, Arabic books were never printed. Whether, unrecorded and unheralded, there was an obscure block printing activity—the making of charms or playing cards, is another question and will be discussed later. But as far as literature is concerned, the Arabs did not Cu. V] ISLAM AND PRINTING I1§ print. Rashid-eddin, who was grand vizier of Persia during the Mongol period at just the time when Tabriz was the great bridge between the East and the West, and who wrote a clear account of Chinese printing in his world history,’ seems never to have con- templated having his history printed. Instead, he provided in his will, and left funds for the purpose, that each year two full copies of all his works should be made by hand, one in Arabic and one in Persian, until gradually there should be a complete copy in the mosque of every large city of the Moslem world. Though Arab culture, that so profoundly influenced re-awak- ened Europe, knew of Chinese printing, the refusal of its literary men to profit by the art made Islam on the whole a barrier rather than a bridge for the transmission of block printing to Europe. The story of the penetration of this barrier—by the Mongols from the East, by the Crusaders from the West—and of the obscure forms of printing that succeeded in spite of prejudice in finding lodgment in Moslem soil, will be told in the next chapters. CHAPTER XVI THE MEETING OF CHINA AND EUROPE IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE did of America, for Islam was a barrier well-nigh as impenetrable as the Atlantic Ocean. It was in the early part of the thirteenth century that Jinghis Khan and his Mongol hordes broke through this barrier, and Europe and China stood for a short time face to face. For a century or more—the middle of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth—the con- tact between Europe and the Far East was far closer than ever before and probably closer than at any subsequent period down nearly to the nineteenth century. Cathay to travellers from the West was the land of marvels, of wealth and of intellectual cul- ture—a land to be looked up to. For one century and one century only the way was wide open. With the fall of the Mongols the curtain fell, only to be raised a century and a half later, after Europe had passed through the Renaissance. In the year 1206 Jinghis received the submission of the Uigur kingdom and incorporated into his own rapidly expanding state the brains and the marvellously eclectic culture that had centered about the oasis of Turfan. One country after another was added - to the ever-growing empire—parts of North China in 1215, Korea in the same year, Khwarezm (Russian Turkestan) in 1223, Persia in 1231, the balance of North China in 1234, Russia in 1240, Bag- dad in 1258, and South China in 1280. Devastating raids were made into Poland, Hungary, Germany, Indo-China and Java and a great navy sent against Japan. Almost the whole continent of Asia was under one rule, and with it was united much of Euro- pean Russia. Roads were built, and armies, mounted on fast horses, were continually passing to and fro.' In their wake came Mf eterans Europe knew almost as little of China as it Cu. XVI] THE MONGOL EMPIRE 117 trade—overland trade between the lands of the Near East and those of the Far East over the Turkestan passes and the Mongo- lian deserts flourishing as it has never flourished before or since. China and Europe met—a China that for three centuries had been printing books—a Europe that was just waking up to the need of books. Just at the end of the period of Mongol domination the first primitive block prints appeared in Europe. No clear docu- mentary evidence can be produced to show how block printing entered, but certain phases of the history of the Mongol period show points at which Europe was especially exposed to Far East- ’ ern influence. Upon these different phases are based various hypotheses as to route—hypotheses which are not mutually ex- clusive, and which may show a variety of influences to which the beginnings of block printing in Europe were due. Block Printing in Mongolia As already explained (chapter fourteen), it was through the Uigur Turks that the Mongols first came in contact with civiliza- tion and with the art of printing. One of the first tasks of Jinghis after he had received the submission of the Uigurs was the conquest of the kingdom or empire of Tangut which had established itself for some two hundred years in northwestern China and eastern Mongolia. The Tanguts were a people of Tibetan stock, but the population over whom they ruled was largely Chinese and Tar- tar. Like the Uigurs the Tanguts were printers, using the art largely for the duplication of Buddhist sutras. Such sutras in a peculiar ideographic character? have been found both at Turfan and at Tun-huang, but the larger number have come from Kara- khoto, far out in what is now Mongolia, where they were dis- covered by the Russian expedition of M. Koslov. Here Buddhism was the religion of the state, and block-printed sutras, both in Chinese and in the Tangut language, were printed by imperial order. With these Chinese and Tangut sutras were found two sutras and some paper money? in the language and the character 118 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III of the Mongols, showing how the conquerors naturally took over the culture of the conquered peoples.‘ Printing by the Mongols in China As the Mongol hordes moved eastward they were constantly in touch with peoples that knew how to print, and as they adopted the culture of conquered lands, it was a culture based on printing that they adopted. As has already been pointed out,® printing in China had just reached its highest point of achievement at the time of the Mongol conquest, and during the period of Mongol control there was no diminution in the number of printed books produced. The Mongol rulers made it a point of honor to see that the ancient Chinese literature was printed not only in Chinese but in their own language as well. The Mongols in Hungary and Poland After the conquest of North China, the Mongol arms turned westward, penetrating Persia and Russia and even Hungary and Poland. In the invasions of Hungary and Poland, Mongol domin- ation came nearest to the heart of Europe. The great campaign against Poland took place in 1241, immediately after the conquest of Russia. Cracow and other leading cities were burned, Silesia was invaded, and a combined German and Polish army defeated at Liegnitz in German Silesia. So great was the panic throughout Germany that the herring fisheries on the Frisian coast were abandoned, and, according to a contemporary chronicler, herring about the coast of England became so plentiful that they sold in the English market for half their usual price. Meanwhile Hungary was invaded, Buda-Pesth burned, and the whole country ravaged, even a number of cities along the Adriatic coast being sacked. Fortunately for Europe, the death of the Grand Khan Ogatai re- called the Mongol armies. They occupied Hungary only a year, Poland a still shorter time. A second invasion of Poland took place in 1259, a second invasion of Hungary in 1285. In these in- Cu. XVI] THE MONGOL EMPIRE 11g vasions the capitals of the two countries were again burned, but in neither case was the occupation of long duration. In these campaigns the Mongol armies came very close to those places where the earliest block printing activities of Europe during the next century were carried on—Venice, Prague, and the cities of Bavaria. Did they leave in their wake anything that suggested the art? The fact that the earlier and more important campaigns were fought before the Mongols had attained a high degree of civilization, and that all the campaigns were little more than raids, without much opportunity for cultural mingling with the people of the land, suggests a negative reply, though the communication of such objects as printed charms or playing cards is not impossible, and more important printed matter, such as religious pictures, may have been in the hands of Uigurs who accompanied the Mon- gol armies. The Mongols in Russia The influence of the Mongol occupation of Russia was far dif- ferent. Russia was invaded in 1223, conquered in the campaigns of 1236-1240, and held in Mongol hands for more than two hun- dred years. While distance required the giving of considerable autonomy to the Russian princes, and while Russia was never as directly controlled as were China and Central Asia, yet circum- stances made necessary a large amount of travel between Moscow and the court of the Great Khan. Every Russian nobleman of the higher ranks was compelled to go to Karakorum for investiture, at least during the early part of the occupation, and many internal disputes had to be referred to the Great Khan for decision. Throughout Mongol times the market of Nijni-Novgorod, east of Moscow, was a distributing center for articles from the Far East entering Europe, and here the caravans of China and Turkestan came in contact with the river-borne traffic of the cities of the Hanseatic league. One section of Novgorod is still called the “Cathay Section,” and an important street of Moscow ‘‘Cathay 120 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III Street,” in memory of the time when these areas were devoted to Chinese merchants and their wares. While the hypothesis of Russian agency rests in the main on circumstantial evidence provided by the general history of the period, there are in addition certain clues, a further investigation of which may lead toward more direct evidence. The seal cutter of the Great Khan Kouyouk (1246-1251) is known to have been a Russian by the name of Cosmas,$ a fact of importance in consideration of the close connection that existed between seal cutting and block printing. Furthermore, de Rubruquis states that the currency of Russia under the Mongols consisted of bits of leather or fur “‘marked with colors.”? Whether by this is indicated a stamping process or any- thing allied to printing—after the analogy of the printing of paper money that was going on in the other parts of the empire—is un- certain, but in any case the paper money of China and Central Asia—parts of the same empire and closely connected by trade routes—could not have been unknown in Russia. The statement that printing came into Europe from China by way of Russia is first made by the historian Jovius in 1550, just a century after Gutenberg, in what is apparently the earliest refer- ence to Chinese printing in European literature. Jovius’ statement is, “There are there (at Canton) printers* who print according to our own method books containing histories and rites . Pope Leo has very graciously showed me a volume of this sort, given as a present with an elephant by the king of Portugal. So that from this we can easily believe that examples of this kind, before the Portuguese had reached India, came to us through the Scythians and Muscovites as an incomparable aid to letters.’’® Early Embassies from the Pope and the French King to the Mongol Court John of Plano Carpini was sent by Pope Innocent IV. in March 1245 on an embassy to the court of the Grand Khan. He went by Prague and Kiev to Mongolia, where he presented his letter ‘ 3% 0 TiSIN Gt en, «. * itu meen ae ie pee ae SEY ANE WIGHaTINGH I! In | I. 2! SNH QIGH Rais: ooh IGH2N HIM GA nIGN HOI AGa Ga tea pelones MS Wo Man Sy cman ve i PY Gol NS ily aye Vinay» MAL i SPCR 0" See} A FRAGMENT OF A PRINTED SUTRA IN THE MONGOL LANGUAGE IN SQUARE (’PHAGSPA) SCRIPT The page numbers are Chinese. Found in the ruins of the old city wall of Chotscho near Turfan. Dates from about I 300 (T4:9sx' 20°cm.) Museum fiir V Glkerkunde. Cu. XVI] THE MONGOL EMPIRE 121 and received his reply. This reply—the original—was discovered by accident in the year 1920 in the archives of the Vatican. It is written in Uigur and Persian and contains in lieu of signature the seal of the Grand Khan Kouyouk (grandson of Jinghis). This is the first recorded appearance in Europe of an impression from a seal based on those in use in China and impressed with ink upon paper." The seal was without doubt made by Cosmas, the Rus- sian seal cutter, of whom Plano Carpini tells. This letter, written in the Persian and Uigur languages, sealed with a Mongol seal of Chinese style that had been cut by a Russian seal cutter, and sent by the hand of an Italian monk to the Pope, is a typical ex- ample of the cosmopolitan character of the Mongol Empire, bridging the gap between the Far East and the West. In 1248 and 1253 two embassies were sent by Saint Louis of France, then in Cyprus on Crusade, to the court of the Grand Khan. The leader of the second of these embassies, William de Rubruquis, in his description of the journey tells of the number of Europeans whom he met at the Mongol capital. Among the pris- oners who had been brought from Belgrade and from Hungary and who were still living at Karakorum were the nephew of the Nor- man bishop of Belleville near Rouen; a French woman from Metz named Paquette who was married to a Russian; an Englishman named Basile; and a Paris jeweller Guillaume Boucher, who was serving as goldsmith to the Khan. Other Westerners at Kara- korum in the narrative of de Rubruquis were a Christian from Damascus and an Armenian bishop. The knight Baldwin of Constantinople had just left the court with another knight Templar. All this indicates that even at the beginning of the Mongol régime the men who wrote books were not the only people who went back and forth between the Mongol court and Europe. De Rubruquis, while not describing printing, is the first Euro- pean writer to mention printed paper money. In the same section in which he mentions the leather money of Russia, he says, “The ordinary money of Cathay is made of cotton paper, as large as a 122 THE SPREAD WESTWARD RP rit hand, upon which they imprint certain lines like the seal of Mangu (imprimunt lineas sicut sigillum Mangu).” ” Marco Polo Marco Polo was the one traveller in Central Asia and China who wrote such a clear account of his travels as to make a deep impression on Europe. For this reason a great variety of things that have come from China to Europe have been credited to him, and block printing is no exception. The story is that a certain Pamfilio Castaldi of Feltre, a block printer at the end of the four- teenth century, had learned the art from seeing some pieces of wood that Marco Polo brought back to Venice and that had served for the printing of Chinese books. The story, while not inherently impossible, rests on insufficient foundation.’ It is a strange fact that Marco Polo’s detailed description of China never mentions printing, except in the passage already quoted on paper money," and there his interest is not in the printing but in the money. If the tradition mentioned above is in any way founded on fact, it is more likely that the blocks seen by Castaldi were brought from China by one of the many nameless travellers who came back to Italy from the Khan’s dominions during the half century or more after Marco Polo’s return, rather than by Marco himself. European Missionaries in China The men of education in mediaeval Europe—the men inter- ested in books—were primarily priests and monks. If the bulk of all scientific study of the life, customs and history of China in later times up to the beginning of the nineteenth century was done by Roman Catholic missionaries, the same must have been still more true in a day when the laity were largely uneducated. The first missionary sent by the Pope to China, John of Monte- Corvino, arrived in Cambaluc about 1294, just after Marco Polo left for Europe. He remained at Cambaluc as head of the mission till his death in 1328. In 1305 he wrote home that he had already baptized six thousand converts, that he had built a church in Cu. XVI] THE MONGOL EMPIRE 123 Cambaluc, that he had learned the Tartar language and had translated into this language the New Testament and the Psalter. The next year he wrote that he had built another church in Cam- baluc on land presented by a resident Italian merchant, and that he had prepared six pictures, representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments, for the instruction of the ignorant, with explana- tion in Latin, Tarsic ® and Persian characters. In 1307 Pope Clement V. raised John of Monte-Corvino to the rank of archbishop, and sent three Franciscans with rank of bishop to assist him. They worked for five years in Peking, living on a subsidy from the Khan, then moved to Fukien, where a strong mission was established and a church built with funds given by a local Armenian woman. There were missionaries of the Roman Church at the same time at Yang-chou and in Turkestan." ‘ These missionaries, spending their lives in China, learning the language and mingling with the people, must have come in con- tact with printed literature at every turn. John of Corvino in the first dozen years of his work, even before reinforcements had ar- rived, had already translated the New Testament and Psalter, and prepared pictures and text for the ignorant, and that at just the time when in China it was the natural thing to have every important literary work printed. There is no question that the Chinese who were associated in the work of translation would have suggested that the translations and the pictures should be brought before the public in what to them was the usual and natural way. Whether the missionaries agreed and thus became the first Euro- pean patrons of the art of printing, we have no means of knowing. That religious image prints, prepared, like the pictures of John of Monte-Corvino, “for the ignorant,” began to appear in Europe some time within the half century after these early missionaries laid down their work, may not be altogether a coincidence." European Merchants and Travellers As mentioned above, a Russian seal cutter, a Paris goldsmith and a number of other Europeans were already in the middle of 124 THE SPREAD WESTWARD Ppa tit the thirteenth century at the court of the Great Khan in Mongolia. Marco Polo tells of a German who assisted Kublai’s generals in the preparation of engines of war. But it was during the first half of the fourteenth century, after Marco Polo’s reports of Cathay’s wealth, that trade between Europe and China multiplied.1* The extent of that trade can best be understood by a study of the zeal with which Columbus and his successors more than a century later were ready to brave untold hardships to rediscover the wealth of the “Indies” and find the North-west Passage to Cathay. The traders of Mongol times were not men of letters and there are only a few data, largely furnished by missionaries, from which to form a picture of this early commerce. Andrew, bishop of Zayton in Fukien, wrote in 1326, quoting the opinion of Genoese merchants at that port about exchanges. Odoric, missionary in China from 1323 to 1327, referred for confirmation of the wonders he related about Kinsay (Hangchow) to the many persons whom he had met at Venice since his return who had themselves been witnesses of these marvels. Marignolli, writing after his return from China in 1346, told of the fondaco or “factories” he found attached to the convents at Zayton for the accommodation of Christian mer- chants. But perhaps the best indication of the extent of European trade with China at this time is contained in a handbook prepared by Pegolotti in Florence in 1340. This book, which is a trade guide to the various ports of the world, devotes its first two chapters to Cathay, giving such information as a European merchant travel- ling in that country would need to know—about routes of travel, about imports and exports, about currency, weights and measures, taxes and duties, etc. Like Marco Polo, the writer of this book describes Chinese paper money, even giving particulars about rates of exchange, but—like Marco Polo again—what interests the writer is not the printing but the value of the paper money. There is no record to show that printing was brought from China to the West in the wake of trade, nor is it likely that merchants would have come as closely in contact with Chinese printing as would missionaries and translators. Yet the very fact that, during Cu. XVI] THE MONGOL EMPIRE 126 the half century before block printing appeared in Europe, large numbers of obscure men whose names have not been recorded in history were moving back and forth between China and Europe both by land and by sea, is not without significance. In a later period, when the way to Cathay had been rediscovered by Vasco de Gama, and trade had been reéstablished—some half century or more after Gutenberg—a Chinese printed book found its way very quickly to Portugal and was presented by the king of Por- tugal to the Pope.?° It is not an unlikely hypothesis that a speci- men of Chinese printing or a report of Chinese printing, brought to Europe during the earlier period when trade was more exten- sive, was one of the influences back of the great block printing activity that preceded the invention of type. The Mongols in Persia The one point at which Europe and the Far East came together and mingled most fully was Persia. The significance in the history of printing of the interchange of ideas between East and West that took place in Persia, and especially in the great cosmopolitan center of Tabriz during the enlightened reign of Ghazan Khan and under other Mongol rulers, is so great that a special chapter must be devoted to this natural crossroads between the East and the West. CHAPTER XVII PERSIA THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST conquests, the world of Europe and Asia was divided into three very distinct cultural areas—Christendom in the West, Islam in the center, and the Buddhist and Confucian do- main in the East. In Persia during the Mongol régime the three for a time seemed almost to coalesce. Under the tolerant rule of the IIkhans, Buddhist and Moslem, Christian and Jew succeeded each other in the highest positions of the state with surprising swiftness, while all races of the known world mingled in Tabriz, the cosmopolitan capital. Persia was first overrun by Jinghis in 1221, and in 1231 brought fully under Mongol domination. In 1258 Bagdad was taken by the great Mongol general, Hulagu, brother of Kublai, and Meso- potamia with much of Syria and Armenia was added to the Mon- gol domain. This brought the Mongol armies face to face with the Crusaders. Certain of the Mongol allies even proceeded as far as Palestine and sacked Bethlehem, the Crusaders’ chief shrine. But as a rule the Mongol Ilkhans (as Hulagu and his successors were called) were more or less allied with the Crusaders against their common enemy, the Saracens. Constant embassies were ex- changed between Tabriz, the Mongol capital of Persia, and the later Crusading princes. In the letters that have been preserved, the Mongols with true diplomatic courtesy express their deep attachment to the Christian faith, and the replies of the Crusaders greet them as Christian brothers, as do also letters from James of Aragon and Edward II. of England. A number of embassies were even sent to Europe by the Mongol rulers of Persia, bearing let- ters to the Pope, to the king of France and to the king of England, \ROM the days of Mohammed until the time of the Mongol "UO1tIp Ty 491ps40) “00d OIAD WY £9[NX (Wd OF x OOF 49333] puodsg “wo $z x Cgr 19339] JsaTyy) aSOUIYD Ul adv s[vas ay, “3disds nBIQ ul pue asensur| [OSuoyy Ay} ut auv $19}39| YOY “ssopessequre OM} adv, JO Bury ay} 03 saonpo.jur pur ‘suoluIWop [OSUOJ PY} JO UOTUNAL ayy SaoUNOU “ue dy nyel[~) uvYyYyT] 9Y2 Wor st ‘Buoy jaoj ua} Ajrvau st yorym “Soft ‘Avy payep “19}9] puosas sy ‘aouULA jo Sury ay} 0} A719 9y3 19A0 UN} 07 ‘sJ1OYa paurquiod 11943 Aq uayeI aq prnoys wajesniaf $1 ‘Sursaide pur ‘snosveuec asojaq duresua pur vad 3x0 943 SJopesnin ay ulof 03 Sulssise ‘uos1y uULYyT] ayy Wry st 6gz I ‘payep 19939] Isay ay, YONVUA JO UIVA HHL dITIHd OL VISUAd JO SUATAY TOONOW AHL WOU SUYALLAT SCY rae ms We bee ay ls be. Cu. XVIT] PERSIA THE CROSSROADS 127 and several such letters with their large vermillion seal impressions in Chinese characters are still preserved. One of these letters written in 1305 by the Mongol ruler of Persia and now in the Paris archives, is nine feet long by eighteen inches wide and contains as many as five impressions of the Great Seal which the Ilkhan had received from his overlord in Peking.! These various Chinese seal impressions which were impressed on letters from Mongol rulers, and which as a rule were nearly six inches square, were perhaps the nearest approach to block printing that Europe had yet seen.? In matters of religion the Mongols were always chameleons— taking their color from their surroundings. The extent of their contact with the Crusaders is indicated by certain phrases and expressions that they used. There is a letter from the Ilkhan Ar- gon in which the Chinese date (the year of the Cock) is followed by the phrase, “In Christi nomen, Amen.” The coins of the earlier Ilkhans are inscribed, ‘“‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” and curiously enough the first Moslem Ilkhan, Ahmed Tigudar, kept the same inscription.® Nestorian Christians, especially those of Uigur race, were espe- cially active in bringing about this close relationship between the Mongols of Persia and the princes of Christendom. One such Uigur Christian, Rabban Marcos, born near Peking, was ap- pointed in 1281 patriarch-general of the Nestorian Church with Bagdad as his place of residence. His close friend, Rabban Cauma, another Christian of Uigur race from Peking, was en- trusted by the [khan Argon with an important mission to Europe, where as Mongol envoy he visited the Constantinople emperor, the Pope, the king of France and the king of England.‘ The conquest of Bagdad by Hulagu took place at just the same time that the capital of the Mongol Empire under Hulagu’s brother, Kublai, was being moved to Peking and the Imperial court was becoming altogether Chinese. Chinese influences soon made themselves strongly felt in Hulagu’s dominions. A Chinese general was made the first governor of Bagdad,’ and Chinese engi- neers were employed to improve the irrigation of the Tigris- 128 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III Euphrates basin. The Chinese quarter in Tabriz became an important section of this new capital of the Mongol domain. With the fall of Bagdad, Tabriz soon took its place as the lead- ing commercial center of Western Asia, and so remained during the latter part of the period of the Crusades. Rashid-eddin, a resident of Tabriz at the time, thus describes the city, ‘““There were gathered there, under the eyes of the padishah of Islam, philoso- phers, astronomers, scholars, historians, of all religions, of all sects, people of Cathay, of Machin (South China), of India, of Kashmir, of Tibet, of the Uigur and other Turkish nations, Arabs and Franks.’”’® Friar Odoric, who visited his fellow Franciscans there in 1318, described the place as “‘a nobler city, and better for merchandise, than any which at this day existeth in the world.’’? The first mention of a European settlement at Tabriz is in 1264, when the Venetian, Pietro Viglioni, died there. With the begin- ning of the next century trade relations increased rapidly. There were treaties in 1305 and 1320 between Venice and the court of Tabriz, and the latter treaty gave to Venetians elaborate privileges with regard to residence and trade. By 1324 Venice had formed the practice of keeping a consul regularly at the Persian court,§ and Genoa soon followed her rival’s example. By 1241 the Genoese community at Tabriz was presided over by a council of twenty- four members headed by the consul. Not only were the Italian republics thus represented—embassies frequently arrived from other European states also, including France, England, Aragon and the Papacy. Tabriz is the only place in the Islamic world where there is a clear record of early block printing.? In the year 1294 at this Mongol capital of Persia there was an issue of paper money with text in Chinese and Arabic. The treasury had been exhausted by the extravagance of Khaikhatu Khan, and the paper money was issued at the suggestion of a financial officer named Izzudin Muzzaffar. The notes, which ranged in value from half a dirham to ten dinars, were direct copies of Kublai’s, even the Chinese char- acters being imitated as part of the device upon them. The Chi- Cu. XVIT] PERSIA THE CROSSROADS 129 nese word ch’ao was applied to them.!° Extensive preparations were made for the project, offices called ch’ao-khanahs were erected in the principal cities of the provinces, and a numerous staff ap- pointed to carry out the details. There was an Arabic inscription on each note to the effect that the notes were issued in the year 693 of the Mohammedan era (A.D. 1294),"! that all who issued false notes should be summarily punished, and that ‘‘when these auspicious notes were put in circulation, poverty would vanish, provisions become cheap, and rich and poor be equal.” The prophesy was not fulfilled. After the constrained use of the new ch’ao for two or three days, Tabriz was in an uproar; the mar- kets were closed; Izzudin, the minister who had proposed the issue, became the object of intense hatred, and according to some accounts was murdered; and the whole project had to be aban- doned.” This dramatic issue of a printing project a century and a half before Gutenberg in a great cosmopolitan community near the confines of Europe could not have gone unobserved in the com- mercial republics of Italy. It did not encourage any European issue of paper money,” but it did bring bits of printed paper rather vividly to the attention of a large number of Europeans. Without doubt it brought some of these printed notes as curiosities to Italy—valueless as money, but very valuable to civilization if they got into the hands of some one of an inventive turn of mind. Fur- thermore this issue of paper money indicated that there were arti- sans at hand in Tabriz who knew how to print. It seems not unlikely that other forms of printing were going on in the Chinese quarter of this cosmopolitan city, which formed the natural meet- ing ground of Europe and Asia, and perhaps not only in the Chinese quarter. What these forms were is at least suggested by the block prints of this period that have been found in Egypt and that are described in the next chapter, and by what is known of the history of playing cards. In the year 1295, just one year after the ill-fated issue of paper money at Tabriz, Ghazan Khan," the greatest of the Mongol rul- 130 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Prot ers of Persia, came to the throne and had his court in that city. Under him the cosmopolitan character of the Persian dominion reached its highest point. He threw off his allegiance (which had already become nominal) to the court at Peking, and declared Mohammedanism the official religion of his empire. Yet by yearly embassies he maintained close relations with the Chinese court, and his relations with certain Christian princes in Europe were equally close. Ghazan was himself a man of broad education, and is said to have been able to read eight languages, including Chi- nese, Uigur, Arabic and Latin. Soon after coming to the throne, Ghazan called as his prime minister Rashid-eddin, and entrusted to him the preparation of a history of the Mongol Empire, which was followed later by a history of the world," the first history so far as known that ever attempted to bring within the limits of one work the records of China, of the Near East and of Europe. The world history begins, as is natural, with the Creation, and gives a vivid description hour by hour of the work accomplished by the Creator on Thurs- day of Creation week, in order that he might be ready to rest on the Moslem Sabbath. Turning to Europe, the book tells among other things of the contemporary wars that were going on between England and Scotland, and gives the information that even at that time there were no snakes in Ireland. But the part of Rashid’s work that touches our subject is the section on China. For there, embedded in a short sketch of Chinese history, is the following clear description of Chinese block printing. Having described the care with which the Chinese transcribe historical and other pas- sages from their ancient books, he says: “Then, according to a custom which they have, they were wont and still continue to make copies from that book in such wise that no change or alteration can find its way into the text. And therefore when they desire that any book containing matter of value to them should be well written and should remain correct, authentic and unaltered, they order a skilful calligraphist to copy a page of that book on a tablet in a fair hand. Then all the men of REPRODUCTION OF ONE OF THE RED SEAL IMPRESSIONS FROM THE FOREGOING LETTER OF 1289, BOSSE Ee aeolNG OF FRANCE The Seal of State, in Chinese characters, from which this impres- sion was made was sent from Peking to the ruler of Persia with much ceremony by the Great Khan Kublai. The impression is nearly six inches square ‘ule’s Marco Polo. Cordier Edition. cain oe % hee SAA xe, ae TRAN AWE EAA! Laud ~ w Piss @. =a 4 Z cA j Y ~ ig Ps « * z e ~ @ RUINS OF THE GREAT MOSQUE OF TABRIZ Built during the reign of Ghazan Khan and under the direction of the historian Rashid-eddin. Yule’s Marco Polo. Cordier Edition. Cu. XVIT] PERSIA THE CROSSROADS 131 learning carefully correct it, and inscribe their names on the back of the tablet. Then skilled and expert engravers are ordered to cut out the letters. And when they have thus taken a copy of all the pages of the book, numbering all (the blocks) consecutively, they place these tablets in sealed bags, like the dies in a mint, and en- trust them to reliable persons appointed for this purpose, keeping them securely in offices specially set apart to this end on which they set a particular and definite seal. Then when anyone wantsa copy of this book he goes before this committee and pays the dues and charges fixed by the Government. Then they bring out these tablets, impose them on leaves of paper like the dies used in mint- ing gold, and deliver the sheets to him. Thus it is impossible that there should be any addition or omission in any of their books, on which, therefore, they place complete reliance; and thus is the transmission of their histories effected.” This is the earliest notice of Chinese printing, aside from the making of paper money, outside of Chinese sources. It is evident that Rashid had a reasonably reliable source of information and that the printing in which he was interested was the printing of books, especially historical records. Where he failed was in not grasping the importance of the new art as an economical means of disseminating literature, and in seeing in it merely a means of au- thenticating the exact text—a characteristic of Chinese official printing that has already been noted, but which Rashid without doubt overemphasized and exaggerated. In spite of this over- emphasis, Rashid’s description could not have failed to spread abroad the idea that books could be produced otherwise than by hand labor. For Rashid’s history was a widely read book. Many copies were transcribed, both in Arabic and Persian, and deposited in the libraries of mosques throughout the Moslem domain,!” and at least twenty-six early manuscripts are still preserved, in Persia, in India and in the libraries of Europe.18 Furthermore, Rashid’s description seven years after it appeared was incorporated in another and still fuller world history, the so-called Garden of the Intelligent by Banakati, a history which carried cosmopolitanism Ke) THE SPREAD WESTWARD iPr ale and breadth of view even farther than that of Rashid.'® The world of Islam, even if it refused to print books, was not altogether unacquainted with the printing of China. It is not without sig- nificance that the paper money of 1294, Rashid’s description, and Banakati’s history all were issued from Tabriz during the quarter century when that city’s commercial prosperity and cos- mopolitan character were at their height. In this and the preceding chapter there are suggested some of the points at which China and Europe met across the Mongol Empire—points at which Europe was exposed to the block print- ing activity of China and Central Asia. During the middle decades of the fourteenth century, the Mongol power in Persia, in China and in Central Asia disintegrated, and, some time within the next half century after that collapse of Mongol power, block printing made its appearance in Europe. No positive documentary evi- dence has yet been found to show that block printing entered Europe by any of the routes here described, or that European block printing came from the Far East at all. But strong circum- stantial evidence leads to the conviction that either through Rus- sia, through Europeans in China, through Persia, or through Egypt (see chapter eighteen)—perhaps through several or all of these routes—the influence of the block printing of China entered the European world during the time of the Mongol Empire and the years immediately following, and had its part in bringing about the rise and gradual development of that activity which in turn paved the way for Gutenberg’s invention. CHAPTER XVIII BLOCK PRINTING IN EGYPT DURING THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES ), J ERE it not for one archaeological discovery, it might be thought that the Arab prejudice against printing had completely gained the day. The fact that no books were printed in Islamic countries down almost to our own time might be held as sufficient evidence that the only instance of early printing in the Moslem world was the unfortunate issue of paper money at Tabriz. Against this view stand some fifty bits of printed paper. About the year 1880 excavations in the region of El-Fayyfm in Egypt, near the ruins of the ancient city of Crocodilopolis or Ar- sinoé, brought to light great masses of documents. Whether they belonged to refuse heaps or to archives of an earlier age does not seem to be altogether clear. From this find more than a hundred thousand sheets and fragments of papyrus, parchment and paper have been brought to Vienna and now constitute the Archduke Rainer Collection in the Austrian National Library. They are in ten different languages and their dates range from the fourteenth century, B.c., to the fourteenth century, a.D.—a continuous stretch of about twenty-seven hundred years. The importance of this collection in the history of paper manufacture is well known to the scientific world. The fact that the collection contains some fifty fragments of block printing and that these fragments form almost the only evidence of the printer’s art between China and Central Asia on the one hand and Europe on the other seems largely to have escaped attention.' These printed fragments show endless variety. In size they range from tiny bits up to pieces nearly a foot long and as wide as a column of newspaper. Some are beautifully printed, with per- fect alignment and graceful ornamentation; others show the crud- 134 THE SPREAD WESTWARD (Pr. II] est workmanship. Some are on rough paper, others on fine. On some the printing is black on white; on others white on black; one is printed in red ink. But most important of all from the historian’s point of view, 1s the variety in the form of the Arabic letters. Here scarcely any two of the fragments are alike. It 1s from this that the skilled Arabist can set the approximate date. Judged by this standard, the block prints range all the way from goo to 1350.* With all their variety there are certain particulars in which the fragments are alike. They consist entirely of text and simple geometric ornamentation, conforming thus to the Mohammedan (Sunnite) prohibition against pictures. On the other hand their appearance immediately suggests the printing of China and Turfan. There is every evidence that they are printed not by pressure, but by being laid on the block and rubbed with a brush or pad in the Chinese fashion. The language is always Arabic, though there is one Arabic prayer, around the edge of which in the form of a border is printed a transliteration in the Coptic alphabet. In subject matter the fragments are also similar in that they are all religious. Some are prayers, some are texts from the Koran and some contain special protective charms. One consists of the so-called hundred beautiful names of God. The oldest fragment * is about four inches square and contains verses 1-6 of the 34th Sfire of the Koran, reading as follows: “In the name of God the all-merciful. Praise be to God, to whom belongeth all that 1s in heaven and on earth. The last hour will not bring us to nought. Speak, Verily as the Lord liveth, the hour will come to you. To Him who knoweth all secrets, to Him who knoweth all secrets, to Him is nothing hid, in heaven or upon earth, even if it be so small as an ant. Be it smaller or be it larger, it is yet written in the certain book of judgment, that he may reward them that be- lieve and deal righteously. But they who seek to weaken our tokens, they shall be punished with grievous punishment. They to whom knowledge is given see well that that which is revealed by the Lord is truth and leads to the way of glory and of praise.” THE OEDEST OF THE EGY PPIAN BLOCK PRINTS Found at Ushminein, near el-Fayfim. A tentative date of early tenth century has been assigned by Arabists on epigraphic grounds. Contains the 34th Sdre of the Koran, vs. 1-6 (TOse aT Tyemn:) Guide to the Rainer Collection. Cu. XVIII] BLOCK PRINTING IN EGYPT Ins There is one large and well printed piece ‘ that contains a sec- tion of the Koran and with it, as a very potent charm, the letter that Mohammed is supposed to have dictated to Abii Dudshana after that worthy had rubbed against Satan in the dark and found him covered with porcupine quills. It ends, “Protect the possessor of my letter from the influence of the evil eye and from the evil look.” Accompanying this charm against the evil eye is the fol- lowing conversation between the Talismanic Power and the owner of the charm: (Talismanic Power): Come nigh and fear not, for thou art safe. (Owner): Save me from (blank to be filled out by owner in writing). (T. P.): When thou shalt read aloud from the Koran, we shall cause a thick veil to hang between thee and them who believe not in the eternal life. (O.): Our Savior is God. Full of bounty is God. Full of for- giveness is God. He is the best protector and the best helper. (T. P.): I have met and killed him who thought to bring upon thee destruction and evil. (O.): I place my trust in God, for God looks upon his servants. How are we to account for this printing that apparently was going on for a very considerable time under a culture that has always been known for its hostility to printing—under a religion which in 1727 declared by its highest authority that it was against the religion and honor of Islam to allow the printing of the Koran? On the one hand no books printed, no reference in literature to Arabic printing, and a settled hostility to printing when it tried later to enter from Europe. On the other hand some fifty scraps of printed paper, Arabic in language and Mohammedan in content, many of them passages from the Koran, found in the heart of Egypt, presenting great variety of form and extending from a time that was probably soon after the earliest printing in Central Asia up almost to the beginning of block printing in Europe. The phenomenon is not very different from that which occurred in 136 THE SPREAD WESTWARD PrpLil China before 953. There an obscure religious printing, deep down among the people, spread over much of China and into Japan with scarcely a mention in literature. But for the later development of the art in China, that early Buddhist printing would have been utterly forgotten till brought to light by excavations in the Tur- kestan desert. And again history repeated itself in Europe. Those early rough image prints, now so carefully treasured as the tentative beginnings of the impulse to print, would never have been heard of, if there had been no further development of print- ing. The early block printing of Tun-huang, of Egypt and of Nuremberg are in their essence the same. The language is differ- ent and the religion is different, but they all represent the effort of the common man to get into his hands a bit of the sacred word or a sacred picture, which he believed to have supernatural power, but which he could not himself write or paint and could not afford to buy unless duplicated for him by some less laborious process. In China, in Egypt and in Europe printing was the same in its beginnings. But China had its Féng Tao. Europe had its Guten- berg. Egypt had neither. In China and in Europe printing pro- foundly affected civilizations. In Egypt—owing probably to a peculiar prejudice of the learned—it remained, as it had begun, an obscure art. It is possible that the analogy may be carried one step further. Chinese printing during the period of its obscurity met such a need of the common people that it spread through a considerable area in China, Japan and Central Asia. In the same way the block printing of pre-Gutenberg days spread through much of Central Europe. It is not impossible that there has been preserved in Egypt on account of the dryness of the desert all that remains of a more wide-spread block printing activity that extended through other parts of the Islamic world. This can only be offered as a possibility. Later discoveries may or may not show it to be true. As to the origin of Egyptian block printing, it is not well to be too dogmatic. That it is connected with the printing of China and Central Asia rather than a natural development from textile print- Cu. XVIII] BLOCK PRINTING IN EGYPT 137 ing is the general view of such men as Karabacek and Grohmann who have made a study of the prints, and has not been disputed. This view cannot yet be regarded as absolutely proved, but it is the theory that fits best with such facts as are so far known, and is the natural conclusion to be drawn from the technique, from the religious subject matter and from the materials used.° As to the date of the transference of the new art from China, there is considerable difficulty. Arabists are inclined to place the date early, somewhere about goo, on account of the script of two or three of the prints, notably the one here illustrated. At that time block printing was in its very beginnings in China, and prob- ably it had not yet spread even to Central Asia. Such a date is possible, but a date later in the century, after the printing of the Classics and the Buddhist Canon, and after printing had started across Turkestan, in many ways seems more reasonable. Yet there is the objection that through the Sung Dynasty communication between China and the Near East was less frequent than it had been in the previous period. Another possible view might be that the printing of charms and sacred texts—like so many other things—moved into the Islamic world through Persia during the Mongol period, and that the few prints which exhibit script of an earlier period had their blocks cut from manuscripts that were already ancient. There are difficulties with each of the various views as to date. The best that can be said is that the Egyptian block prints date from somewhere between goo and 1350, and that many, if not all, date from the latter part of this period. The question of route by which block printing may have travelled is closely bound up with that of date. If the date is early, the route may have been by sea direct from China or it may have been overland and connected in some way with the move- ment of great bodies of Turks from Central Asia to Mesopotamia and Egypt.® If the date be put as late as the Mongol period, Persia must almost certainly have been the route, and in that case there was probably a block printing activity in Persia even 138 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Prete more important than that of Egypt, but of which on account of the climate no traces have yet been preserved. The dates of the block printing of Egypt cover at least a part of the period of the Crusades and of the trade activities that sprang up in the wake of the Crusades, the time when pious souls and enterprising souls from Europe visited the Moslem East as never before. As the Egyptian prints came to an end, the block prints of Europe began. Texts from the Koran gave way to texts from the Bible; and, in accordance with Christian tradition and the unlettered condition of those who bought them, pictures appeared. What connection, if any, existed between the charms and Koran texts of Egypt and the image prints of Europe, is a matter for further investigation. CHAPTER XIX PLAYING CARDS AS A FACTOR IN THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF PRINTING NASMUCH as one of the first forms of block printing known | in Europe—perhaps the very first form of printing on paper— was the making of playing cards, a study of the origin of cards may throw some light on the question of the origin of European block printing. A large amount of research must be done in Chinese sources and comparison made with the history of other games in Arabic and Indian sources, before a record can be written with anything like completeness or accuracy of the pre-European history of playing cards. A few facts have however been ascertained and a few con- clusions may be more or less tentatively stated. Cards belong to the group of games that had spread over a con- siderable part of Asia before the Crusades. From such preliminary study as has so far been done, it would seem that the currents had passed in a number of different directions. Dice, known in Egypt from remote times, spread throughout the Roman Empire, and entered China early in the Christian era. Backgammon? and chess ? probably originated in India and entered China, with other Indian influences, either during the T’ang Dynasty (618-907) or a little before. Polo spread from Persia to India and China about the same time, and is easier to trace than other games, because it goes by the same name, pu/u or polo, with only slight modifica- tions, in the various countries where it has been played. The confusion of names and the use of the same name for several games, makes the tracing of chess, cards and dice very difficult, especially in Chinese sources. The earliest reference in China to dice, which form the back- ground of Chinese playing cards, is in the year 501, and records 140 THE SPREAD WESTWARD Dewy? BN the tradition that ‘“‘Lao-tzt brought back the game when he re- turned from the region of the Western Barbarians.”4 We have here a feeling that the game was already ancient, that it had been introduced from the West, and that it was connected in some way with divination or magic—Lao-tzt’s name having by this time gained that peculiar association. There is little doubt that both playing cards and dominoes originated in China and that both games had dice as their back- ground, influenced also perhaps by certain forms of divination and the drawing of lots and possibly by paper money. There are certain indications that the transition from dice to cards took place at about the same time as the transition from manuscript rolls to paged books. As the advent of printing made it more convenient to produce and use books in the form of pages, so it was easier to produce dice in the form of cards. These “‘sheet- dice,” as they were called, began to appear, according to the Tz’u-yiian Encyclopedia, before the end of the T’ang Dynasty,° and if this is true, they were one of the earliest forms of block printing in China, as they were later in the West. With the Sung Dynasty (g60-1280) it seems probable that the evolution of these “sheet-dice” took two forms. Some continued to be printed on cards, and these grew more complicated, develop- ing various picture forms and conventional designs—the ances- tors of both Chinese and European playing cards. Others came to be made on bone or ivory, and as these were more difficult to produce, they remained for some time relatively simple (domin- oes), but later these also developed more complicated forms, one of which has come to the Western world under the name of Mah Jongg. The statement of Abel Rémusat, repeated in the Encyclopedia Britannica and other authorities, that ‘‘cards were invented in the reign of the emperor Hstian Ho in 1120,”* needs considerable modification. In the first place such games as cards are not in- vented—they grow. In the second place there is a passage in the Liao annals that carries playing cards with almost entire certainty Cu. XIX] PLAYING CARDS 141 back to the year 969.7 And in the third place the very authority that Rémusat quotes, the Cheng-tzii-t’ung dictionary, adds the note, “It does not follow that this class of games originated in the Hsiian-ho period.” It is true however that at about this time—the time of the removal of the capital to Hangchow, early in the twelfth century—begin the first clear and detailed references to card playing, references which cannot possibly be confused with chess or dice, and which show a widespread and highly developed game of cards that continued throughout the Southern Sung and Mongol periods. Our next sources for the history of playing cards are European. In all mediaeval Arabic literature they are, so far as known, never mentioned.® Nor is archeology of very much aid, for though two Chinese playing cards—presumably ancient—were turned up by the German expedition near Turfan, there is no material by which they can be dated with certainty. For further clues it is necessary to turn to Europe. Here again in the early records there is confusion of terms. Chess, which had spread from India through the Saracen world, had reached Europe with the first Crusades ® or even earlier, and had been played for two or three centuries before cards began to appear. The Arabic or Persian origin of the European game of chess is clearly indicated in the use of such words as ‘check’ (shah, king) and ‘mate’ (mat, dead).'!° Certain supposed early references to cards in Europe, during the thirteenth century and the early part of the fourteenth, are now generally conceded to refer to chess rather than to cards." The earliest references to playing cards in Europe that can be clearly differentiated from chess, follow each other with rapid succession in various countries—Germany 1377,” Spain 1377, Luxemburg 1379," Italy 1379, France 1392.% By 1397 card playing had become so popular in Paris as to occasion an edict by the provost of the city, in which workingmen were forbidden to play cards and certain other games on working days. In 1404 the Synod of Langres forbade the clergy to play cards. A climax was 142 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [ Packt reached in 1423, when a famous sermon against card playing was preached by St. Bernard of Sienna from the steps of St. Peter’s at Rome, with the result that his hearers rushed to their houses, brought such cards as they possessed to the public square and burned them. A comparison of the dates of the spread of playing cards with the dates of the earliest religious block printing is significant. The most generally received view is that the earliest religious block prints date from the last decades of the fourteenth century. The earliest dated print, which shows a more advanced stage of the art, the St. Christopher of 1423, coincides with St. Bernard’s sermon against card-playing. The period during which playing cards spread through Europe corresponded therefore exactly with the period of the earliest religious prints. It corresponded also with the half century after the collapse of the Mongol Empire. The question how early the playing cards of Europe began to be printed has been much debated.!”? The consensus of opinion is that very early in the fifteenth century or even before 1400, and pos- sibly from the time of their first use in Europe, at least some of the cards were printed. The printing of cards soon came to be an important industry. An edict of the Council of Venice, dated 1441, indicates that the card printing industry, which before that time had flourished in Venice, was already being interfered with by outside competition.!® Card makers, who were presumably card printers, had already between 1418 and 1438 been mentioned five times in the city records of Augsburg and Nuremberg, and at about the same time the records of the city of Ulm in Germany show that cards were being shipped in barrels to Sicily and Italy. By some the first printing of playing cards is believed to have pre- ceded the making of image prints, but it seems more probable that the two forms of printing developed side by side at about the same time, and that they were sometimes carried on by the same persons.’ In determining the source of European playing cards, the stu- dent is faced with a paradox. With the exception of a seventeenth AN = OLD” CHINESE PLAYING CARD Found near Turfan. Date un- certain, but probably about 1400 (9:6 3k CI.) Museum fiir Vilkerkunde. Cu. XIX] PLAYING CARDS 143 century writer who claims that cards were introduced directly from China to Italy,?? European sources are unanimous in indi- cating that the game was derived from the “‘Saracens.”*! On the other hand Arabic sources, so far as has yet been discovered, never mention the game. From them it would seem as if the injunctions in the Koran against games of chance were obeyed to the letter. To solve this apparent paradox, it is necessary to understand the historical situation. Card playing had been gen- eral in China for at least two centuries before it was known in Europe. Presumably cards were in common use in the Mongol armies and among their camp followers. Chinese, Central Asiatics of various sorts, Moslems, Genoese and Venetians were living and trading together for a century or more in Persia. Immediately thereafter cards spread through Europe from the “land of the Saracens.” But card playing had not, like chess, made itself suf- ficiently at home in the Islamic world to enter into Arabic litera- ture. The game passed quickly and lightly across the Near East without leaving any trace in Arabic records. There was no repeti- tion of paper’s laborious course of a thousand years from China to Europe, for the things that Europe had real demand for—such things as gunpowder and playing cards—it got quickly! Further- more, the Mongol conquests and the Crusades had intervened. Of the connection between the introduction of playing cards from China through the Islamic world to Europe and the trans- mission of block printing there is no certain proof. The cards of China were of course printed. It is difficult to imagine the colonies of Chinese and Central Asiatic merchants who settled in Tabriz not bringing their games and their gaming habits with them, as Chinese have always done in those countries to which they have gone in more modern times. It is easy to speculate farther, to think of Chinese block cutters (perhaps the same men who made the ill-fated paper money of Tabriz) setting to work to make cards and thus avoid the long and expensive import across the deserts, and gradually adapting those cards more and more to the language and customs of the land in which they lived. It is certainly not 144 THE SPREAD WESTWARD (Pr. III difficult to imagine the joy with which Venetian merchants and perhaps some of the later Crusaders hailed this new-found game and brought it back with them to Europe. And it is not likely that the cheap and simple way in which the cards were made and dupli- cated would have escaped them. But all this is conjecture. What is known with certainty is that printed playing cards were in common use in China before the Mongol conquest; that immediately after the Mongol period cards began to appear in Europe and were recognized as of Eastern origin; that, either from the first or soon after, these cards were printed; that playing cards were among the first, if not altogether the first, block prints in Europe; and that the printing of cards constituted an important industry both in Venice and in southern Germany in the early part of the fifteenth century. While it is not safe to say with certainty that playing cards in coming from China to Europe brought block printing with them, the evidence is at least sufficient to suggest that among the possible ways by which block printing may have entered the European world, the use of playing cards holds an important place. CHAPTER XX THE PRINTING OF TEXTILES [oss beginning of block printing in Europe was undoubt- edly the result of many influences. In the preceding chapters there have been traced certain influences that seem to have come into Europe from the East, and especially from the Far East; but there were other influences at work whose connection with the Orient is less obvious. Foremost among these is that of the printing of textiles. Wherever textiles have been used, and wherever man—or woman —has been pleased to have clothing decorated with patterns, there has been a tendency to produce these patterns by mechanical labor-saving devices. Certain of these devices have involved the transfer of the pattern by the use of wooden blocks in a manner that suggests early block printing on paper, and textiles whose patterns have been thus produced are generally known as prints. While many materials have been used for the making of prints, cotton has in general been the most satisfactory, especially for the various dye processes used in India and the Near East. It seems reasonable to suppose that India, the home of cotton, was also the first country where many of those processes were born that led the way to textile printing. The very advanced technique of the earliest Indian textile prints that have come down to us tends to confirm this hypothesis.' The Indian methods of textile printing, and the methods which spread through Asia and into Egypt, differ somewhat from the method that grew up in Europe during the time of the later Cru- sades. The Oriental methods were far more complex and varied. While the early European textile printer actually impressed pig- ment on his fabric directly from the block, with the help of such vehicles as oil, resin or albumin, and by so doing failed to allow 146 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III the color to penetrate the fibre, the textile printer of the Orient had learned the secret of allowing the dye fully to penetrate. This latter process was ingenious, and required some empirical knowledge of chemistry. What he impressed on the material by means of a block was generally not pigment—it was either a resist or a mordant. If he used a resist—some substance like wax that resisted the action of dye—the printed portions were kept white when the fabric was later dipped in the dye vat. If he impressed on his fabric a mordant—a substance that was capable of uniting chemically with the dye and holding it fast—and if the fabric printed with mordant was then dipped in the dye vat, only the mordanted portions took the dye and held it, while from the rest of the fabric the dye could be rinsed out. Still a third process, known as negative printing, has been found in Japan, and there are indications that some at least of the printed fabrics found in Central Asia were also produced by this method. The block is laid on the fabric dry, with another block, a perfectly smooth one, beneath. The two blocks with the fabric between are then locked together tightly in a vise. The upper block has been so prepared that liquid color may be inserted through holes in the back and may penetrate to the incised sur- faces. When the two blocks are held together firmly with the fabric between, the color is applied through these holes and re- mains long enough to penetrate the fabric thoroughly. It is then poured off, and after a time, when the blocks are removed, the pattern of the fabric is found to correspond with the incised por- tion of the block.? The process of negative printing could be used at will, either for impressing dye-stuff directly on the fabric or for using resist or mordant. Though there is a statement in the writings of Pliny which indi- cates the probability of some sort of resist printing in Egypt in Roman times,’ the earliest prints that have come down to us seem to date from about the sixth century. These are resist prints on cotton, and have been found in Egypt. With them there was found a print-maker’s wooden block from the same period.‘ The Cu. XX] PRINTED TEXTILES 147 oldest printed fabric found in Europe comes from Arles in south- ern France, from the tomb of St. Caesarius, who was Bishop of Arles from 502 to 543. Another textile print, found at Quedlin- burg in Germany, which is believed to be from the seventh cen- tury, shows a fairly advanced technique, as it contains three colors, among them gold. Both of these European prints were apparently produced by the Oriental process, and judging from the designs, and also from the material, it seems likely that they were im- ported from the Near East.‘ The earliest clearly dated prints have come from Japan, and here too we find at an early period a highly developed technique. Among many bits of printed silk that have been preserved in the ancient palace of Nara, and which all date presumably from the Nara period, 712 to 770, are two in which the actual date forms a part of the pattern. The dates of the two pieces are 734 and 740. These dates are the earliest examples in the world of block printed script, and it is not surprising to find that they antedate by only a few years the first block prints on paper from Japan. The de- signs of these Japanese prints include flowers, willows, butter- flies, pheasants and small birds.* The oldest textile prints from China that have been preserved are slightly later than those found in Egypt, Western Europe and Japan; but in the Tun-huang Caves enough printed textiles of the tenth century or earlier were found to indicate that by that time the making of these fabrics was an established industry.’ It is altogether probable that it had been going on for a considerable time, and that the art as practiced in Japan two centuries earlier had been brought over from the mainland. Among the Turkestan finds also from the region of Turfan, textile prints are not un- common, but their dating is beset with considerable difficulty. There are indications that these prints of Tun-huang and Turfan were produced by the negative process, and that very likely both mordants and resists were used. It is a striking fact that textile prints should have made their appearance in such widely separated regions as Western Europe, 148 THE SPREAD WESTWARD PPL) Egypt, China and Japan at so nearly the same time. It is too early yet to put forward with confidence any theory of common origin. All that can be said is that in the overland trade across Asia textiles bore a preponderating share, and that in the wake of commerce a textile printing industry with many common fea- tures both of ornament and design seems to have spread over much of the country from Europe to the Pacific. The printing of textiles made little advance in Europe until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. When it sprang up anew at this time, it was a different and more primitive form of printing than that which had formerly been brought from the East. Both the prints themselves and a description written by Cennino Cen- nini at the beginning of the fourteenth century,* show that the pigment was impressed directly upon the fabric from a wooden block. According to Cennini, the printer used two blocks (as in Japan), the one above the cloth having the pattern incised, and the one below being plain and smooth. But in the European process the fabric was held firm in a frame, while the two blocks, one in each hand, were pressed together upon it, with the result that the pattern was transferred directly to the fabric from the raised surface of the upper block. It was during the latter part of the period of the Crusades that prints of the kind described by Cennini began to spread in any number through western Europe. Some prints were produced by this process in the Rhine Valley as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but in the fourteenth century, at just about the time when the first block prints on paper began to appear, there came a rapid expansion. In the first place, printed textiles began to be produced on a larger scale, and the territory in which they were made widened. In the second place, there was greater variety in design.° Along with these changes and improvements, and along with the growth of block printing on paper, there began to appear a few textile prints where the picture rather than the fabric was the center of interest, prints which were evidently sold not by the Cu. XX] PRINTED TEXTILES 149 yard or ell, but by the picture. These were the so-called picture prints. They seem to have been made for use as embroidery patterns, though two or three have been found, presumably dat- ing from the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, that show a more finished workmanship, more nearly approaching the style of the block prints on paper.!° That the printing of textiles, and especially these picture prints, had a part in preparing the way for block printing on paper, there can be no doubt. Whether in Asia or in Europe, textile printing formed a background which made the learning of the new art of paper printing a comparatively simple transition. In Europe in particular the close connection of the textile printer and the early block printer has always been recognized, and rightly so. On the other hand, it is important to note the distinct dif- ferences that have always existed between printing on paper and printing on cloth. Not only are the materials different, paper and ink as opposed to textiles, mordants, resists, and dye; still more important was the complete difference of purpose that showed itself in the choice of objects to print. The printer on textiles printed designs for ornamentation. The early printer on paper printed objects of piety for edification. This is the fundamental distinction to be kept in mind. It is equally true in Japan, in China, in Central Asia, in Egypt and in Europe. Whether pic- ture or text, practically all the earliest block prints on paper that have been preserved are religious." On the other hand, with the exception of a very few of the picture prints mentioned above, none of the textile prints, whether in Asia or Europe, has a re- ligious motive. While textile printing was one of the influences back of the beginning of block printing in Europe, it was not the only influ- ence. Other strong tendencies were at work, tendencies of a different character, to produce that deeply religious art, so preg- nant with possibilities, that sprang up in Europe toward the close of the fourteenth century. What those other influences were will be the subject of the next chapter.” CHAPTER XXI BLOCK PRINTING IN EUROPE h fourteenth century was the early dawn time of the modern world. It is a century that sings with the birdsong of new life. Chaucer sang that new life in England in all its freshness; Dante had given it a richer deeper note in Italy. All over Europe the cathedral builders were reaching their tri- umph. In Florence and in Flanders art was waking from its thou- sand years’ sleep. In religion the century began with the sim- plicity and beauty of the early followers of St. Francis. It closed with the deep moral earnestness of Wiclif, Savonorola and Huss. Ecclesiastical religion was in captivity at Avignon; the religion of the spirit was breaking free. Europe had been to the East in the Crusades and had come back ready for new things. Travel inspired her; the germs of a thousand ideas were suggested to her. But Europe with her newly awakened creative genius did not merely copy. She used rather the impulses that had been suggested to her to rear a structure all her own. The new movement was a democratic movement. Its poets— Chaucer and Dante—wrote for the first time in the language of the people. The roots of the new life were in the cities; Venice and Florence, Nuremberg and the cities of Flanders were beginning to dispute with the feudal lords their mastery of society. It was here in certain of these cities, deep down among the people, some time during this century of awakening, that block printing had its birth. Just when or where or how it began no one knows. Its beginnings were as obscure in Europe as they had been in China and in Egypt. From the first, two very distinct lines of development can be traced, the playing card and the image print. As the story of playing cards has already been told in a previous Der Form (ehneider. LA A VIVA aoe IN WS > SQN =n Sch bin cin Formen (chneider gut/ Als was man mir fir reiffen thut/ SMit der federn auff eitt form bret Das fchneidich denn mie meim geret/ Wenn mans deri druckt fo find fichfcharff Die BildnuG/wie fie der entwarff/ Die fiehe/denn drucktauff dem papyr/ RKinfilich denn aug Es (chicr.- 9D AN EARLY EUROPEAN BLOCK CUTTER PREPARING BLOCK FOR A WOODCUT From woodcut by Jost Amman, 1568 Schreih und Buchwesen. Cu. XXI] BLOCK PRINTING IN EUROPE ISI chapter, the discussion here will be largely confined to image prints and their later developments. The point of departure is a picture of St. Christopher, which bears on its face the clear date of 1423. There is no reason for supposing that this is the oldest of the several hundred image prints that have come down to us, but it is one of the very few that bear dates, and of those few it is the earliest. When the making of such prints actually began is much disputed. Some carry the beginnings of the art back nearly to 1300. Others place the date nearer 1400 or even after the opening of the new century. The weight of evidence seems to favor the latter decades of the fourteenth century as the period when block printing in Europe began. These image prints have been found in the main in monasteries of southern Germany, though some are of Flemish origin, and from documentary evidence it is clear that Venice was another early center of production.1 By the time of Gutenberg the making of image prints seems to have spread over most of central Europe. There are certain marked characteristics that these early prints have in common. They are all religious—rude drawings of scenes from the Bible or from the lives of the saints. They are in general printed in outline, to be filled in with color either by hand or by stencil. They are usually crude in workmanship, prepared for those who could not afford better pictures. The purpose which many at least of the image prints served—and which reminds one strangely of the charms with which printing in the Far East began—is indicated in the two lines of script that appear beneath the picture of St. Christopher, of which the following is a rough translation: “In whatsoever day thou seest the likeness of St. Christopher, In that same day thou wilt from death no evil blow incur.” The line of development from the image print to the block book is not difficult to trace. The earlier image prints are without text. Then come pictures with text beneath. Soon the practice began of 152 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. III pasting these pictures on the pages of a book and writing under each one a few words of explanation. Finally printed pictures with printed text were made up together into books, the printing being done on one side of the page and the blank pages folded together, as in the books of China. There is some controversy as to when the first of these block books were produced. Of those that bear dates there is none that antedates the earliest work of Gutenberg. The making of block books went on parallel with typography up to the early years of the sixteenth century. The weight of evidence however seems to indicate that the earliest undated block books preceded by at least a few years the earliest books printed from type and that they were one of the influences suggesting the idea that whole books could be printed. According to one theory—the one accepted in the article on typography in the Encyclopedia Britannica—the inventor of typography was himself first a maker of block books. The importance of block printing as the precursor of typography has long been recognized.? It remains to carry the question back and inquire what were the impulses that lay back of block print- ing—why at the end of the fourteenth century men began to make inked impressions on paper that in a short time developed into printed books. It may safely be said that there were four main impulses which combined to produce block printing and which finally culminated in typography, (a) the demand created by an awakening intellectual life, (b) the strong and inexpensive material, paper, which was just coming into general use, (c) ana/o- gous practices already in vogue in Europe, such as seal cutting and textile printing, that made the new art easy to learn, and (d) some impulse from without that determined the direction the new art should take, both as to design and as to technique. In all these factors the Crusades and renewed contact with the East played an important part. Europe, whose intellectual life had been largely dormant through the Dark Ages, flung herself with abandon against the older civilization of the East. The strug- gle affected Europe more than it did the East. Influences from Cu. XXI] BLOCK PRINTING IN EUROPE 153 Byzantium and from the Islamic world, echoes from ancient Greece preserved in the lands of the East, all surged back into Europe in a great flood. The very fact of travel, the constant meeting of new experiences, awakened all the latent powers of Christendom. It was this new life surging through the Western world that was after all the most important of the various factors in the preparation for printing. In this new life current that swept through Europe in the four- teenth century there were also influences from the Far East that had their part, influences as strong—and as obscure—as gun- powder and the Black Death, both of which apparently spread from the Pacific to the Atlantic during this century and arrived in Europe about the same time. Throughout the century marin- ers in the Mediterranean as well as in waters further east were in fear and trembling experimenting with the mysterious magnetic needle, preparing for the great age of discovery that was about to set in. But more important than gunpowder or plague or com- pass was the advance of paper. At the opening of the century paper was a fairly rare material, imported from Damascus and Spain, and being turned out in small quantities from two or three mills newly established in Italy. By the end of the century it was being manufactured in Italy, France, Spain and southern Ger- many, and had largely displaced parchment as the writing mate- rial of all but the wealthy.* It was paper that made printing worth while. There would have been little use in a cheap method of du- plication, if the only material available had been as expensive as sheepskin. Gutenberg’s Bible was one of the few early books printed on parchment, and each copy of Gutenberg’s Bible is said to have required the skins of three hundred sheep.* Without a cheaper material to print on, the invention of printing would have been abortive. In addition to influences from the East, Europe had within her own borders certain processes that made the transition to block printing natural and easy, Egypt and Babylon had already in ancient times used wooden blocks to stamp their bricks; Rome had 164 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pr. II had dies for making coins, engraved seals for impressing wax, and metal letters for branding cattle and slaves; the Middle Ages had added the art of textile printing. When Europe was ready for the next great advance, there were men with hands trained who readily transferred their skill to the new art. The beginnings of the intellectual awakening created the de- mand for printing; China—by way of Damascus and Spain— furnished the material; textile printing and other similar prac- tices gave the requisite skill. The fuel was ready—all that was needed was to apply the match. A study of the facts concerned leads with a very fair degree of certainty to the conclusion that that final impulse came from China. In the first place the way was open. It was in the first half of the fourteenth century that the Central Asian trade routes, and the sea routes to Cathay as well, were wide open as never before. It was in this same half century that John of Monte-Corvino and his followers were engaged in missionary work and translating Christian books in Cathay. It was during this half century that Tabriz attained its greatest fame as a cosmopolitan center, with its colonies of Genoese and Venetians, of Uigurs, Mongols and Chinese, and that Rashid at Tabriz wrote his description of Chinese printing. It was at this same time that Mongol Russia rivalled Persia as a pathway to the Far East. For this was the time when the Mongol power was supreme from the Euphrates and the Volga to the Pacific. And it was just at the close of this period of wide open intercourse that block printing in Europe had its be- ginnings. An examination of the prints themselves, the materials used, the technique, and their general character, leads naturally to the conclusion that this intercourse bore fruit. Textile printers had used various dyes, preferring, as a rule, the brightest colors. The printers on paper (itself a Chinese material) from the first used ink, and their ink was made almost exactly like that of China, from lamp black and gum, dissolved in water. The use of oil as a dissolving agent, which was one of the factors that made the work Cu. XXI] BLOCK PRINTING IN EUROPE 155 of Gutenberg a success, and which probably began in Korea a few years before Gutenberg, had not yet been discovered either in Asia or in Europe. As to the method by which the European block prints were produced, the consensus of opinion is that it too was very similar to that of China. A block of wood with the desired picture or text cut in relief was inked and held in one hand; the paper was laid on it with the other and rubbed with a brush or frotton. There was no press. Neither were there two blocks, as in the printing of textiles. As a result of their similarity of tech- nique, both European and Chinese block prints are printed on one side of the paper only.’ Furthermore, both in the European prints and in very many of the Buddhist prints of Central Asia, color was later applied either by hand or by means of a stencil. But the most striking fact about the early European prints is the choice of subject. Those that have come down to us, aside from playing cards, are all of one kind—religious image prints.° The printers of textiles had made designs—geometric designs, animal designs, heraldic designs: those who used paper as a material produced religious pictures. These image prints were the patron saints, the bringers of good luck, prepared for humble folk, just as were the Buddha prints of Central Asia and the printed talismans of Egypt. They satisfied the religious instinct of the common man, as playing cards, the one other sort of early printing of which we have record, satisfied his play instinct. Hence they were needed in quantity. If block printing had been a natural development from textile printing without outside influ- ence, we might expect a certain continuity of design. Instead we have continuity with Central Asia and China rather than with European textiles.’ This continuity with China did not end with the appearance of the first primitive prints. Printing in Europe as in China soon developed into the making of books—into an art that affected the whole life of the people. It is true that in Europe block printing, as not suited to the Roman alphabet, soon proved abortive and that the great development came only with typography. But the 156 THE SPREAD WESTWARD [Pratl significant thing is that Europe, following the path of China, quickly advanced from the primitive stage to a method for the wide dissemination of books and of education. The way between Europe and the Far East was open, an exam- ination of the earliest printing, both image prints and playing cards, naturally suggests a close connection, and later develop- ments in Europe and in China were in the same direction. The circumstantial evidence is strong. The one bit of early direct evi- dence, that of Jovius, has been referred to in an earlier chapter.® Until further and more convincing direct evidence can be found, the case cannot be considered as absolutely proved. Yet the con- trary view is far more difficult to believe—the view that, with such intercourse as there was between Europe and the Far East, a practice so similar in its various manifestations should have arisen in the two parts of the world altogether independently. While keeping an open mind for further light, it will be safe to accept as a working hypothesis the view that Chinese influence was not only seen in the use of paper, but was the final determining factor in the ushering in of European block printing. resV ah AY PRINTING WITH MOVABLE TYPE a) ' aS OF Ares, ee aay: eg ie ' ; . yt y , f » J fy a , 4 . yh ¥ fj i j ] « A ; i] ‘ A } ‘ ier . ‘ y j ‘gpl ) 6 ; wr |, ' ids: . } . bly if A eo be TA uae ‘ f ‘= é 1 i J i fi wi ¢ i" \ a . . heaps ' i vy f : : h 7 3 vn ; ‘ : i .G ( ca hie 5 * ¥ ) : My) > j ye ce Bie aT o! ' i m 4 ea | OT. in oe q 7X § qn iq RU ce, ¥ 0 J en; s , Ss : a" 4 { i w x pu ; y One ! ; ' ih ee) | . ; Lay 1 { j Py th 7? " P| Fi , ) dy { ? ne | \s 4 —_ ¥ : prow eon A an | 7 ys * ae Oo j a \ hy oat j . tin ve) ars , 7 { 5 Pay ) ‘ x A ; ye vi1 i % in Le ; wh ees " . i ‘ , Or Gee oP as af , L hy ae ee AAT) Wages S : yi Sok 6k 1 MM ES a ty t ¥ P " iol } J A Ne bd ‘ oP be ( PAR wl uh i A ray A Wire wf ae fia RG esti Fi cin cial ip yt tes ech ‘ is bitin fof 4 1” oye nou . ot . . ; a ty NOTES ey wile 2 NOTES INTRODUCTION 1. For full quotation from Jovius, see chapter 16, note 9. 2. Meerman’s authority is “The Historia Sinensis of Abdalla, written in Persic in 1317, which speaks of it [printing] as an art in very com- mon use.” The reference is probably to Banakati, whose work is quoted from that of Rashid-eddin. See chapter 17, note 19. For this and other early European statements about Chinese printing, see Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1810, page 72. 3. See Bibliography. 4. A very brief but accurate notice of the invention of printing in China is contained in ‘a book entitled China by J. F. Davis (J. F. Davis, China, London, 1857, vol. 2, pp. 173-174). I believe the same passage occurs in an earlier edition of the work published in 1836. s. Asakura Kameso, Yeh Té-hui and Liu An. See Bibliography. 6. The magnitude of the work has made it impossible to carry every quotation from Chinese encyclopedia or other source book back to its ultimate source, as in the interest of scientific accuracy the writer would have preferred to do. In key passages, however, on which the framework of the history depends, every effort has been made thus to get back to the original statement and to compare variant editions. In other cases, where use has been made of secondary sources, and in the very few cases where the translations of other European scholars have been accepted, the secondary source as well as the original has been noted. It should be observed that the Chinese encyclopedias and other source books used consist almost wholly of verbatim quota- tions from earlier works rather than paraphrases or summaries, and that, while the possibility of copyists’ errors is not thus altogether excluded, this method greatly diminishes the likelihood of such error. TiAl belOp (BY (In). Liu-shu-ku (ON = 3 HX), concluding par- agraph. Translation from L. C. Hopkins, The Six Scripts, Amoy, 1881, pp. 60-61. The quotation from Confucius is from the Analects, book 14, chapter 9. 190 NOTES CHAPTER I THE INVENTION OF PAPER 1. For descriptions of paper napkins and toilet paper in China, written by Arab travellers in the ninth century, see for paper napkins, M. Reinaud, Relation des voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans DP Inde et dans la Chine, Paris, 1845, pp. 24 and 38; and for toilet paper, Eusebius Renaudot, Anciennes relations des Indes et de la Chine de deux voyageurs Mohametans, Paris, 1718, page 17. 2. Wall paper also is a comparatively recent contribution of China to European culture, having been introduced directly from China about the middle of the sixteenth century by Spanish and Dutch traders. See Grande Encyclopédie, art. Papier. For india paper and papier maché see Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Paper. 3. There is a tradition that grew up in the T’ang Dynasty and is still held by certain writers, both Chinese and Western, that during the Chou Dynasty writing was done as a rule by cutting in the bamboo or wood with a knife. Chavannes (see Bibliography) discusses in full this theory and the reasons why it cannot be held. 4. Silk was used as a writing material in Mesopotamia in the early Mohammedan period before the Arabs there started to use papyrus rolls. For this purpose white silk was dipped in gum and polished with a shell. See Grohmann, Corpus Papyrorum Raineri III., Series Arabica I. 1, Allgemeine Einfihrung in die Arabischen Papyrt, Vienna, 1924, page $9 and footnote 2. Grohmann suggests the likelihood that this use of silk was derived from India, which seems quite possible; but as the silk both of India and of Mesopotamia was imported from China, it would seem likely that the art of preparing silk for a writing material both in India and in Mesopotamia went back originally to a Chinese origin. While in China the use of silk as material for writing quickly gave way to paper, silk remained the usual material for painting for several centuries and has never been entirely displaced. [b (4k) This character is now the ordinary word for paper. The defini- tion of the word in the Shuo-wén, finished about the time of Ts’ai Lun’s invention, would indicate that to that writer it meant a form of paper or near-paper made of silk. The passage under consideration oe) ~ CHAPTER I 191 would seem to indicate that the word had also been applied to the pieces of silk fabric used for writing. This word has the silk radical as indication of material. Later the same word with the cloth radical substituted for that of silk is frequently used CR), but it is the form with the silk radical that has survived and is in common use to-day. . Hou-Han-shu ( mea #), book 180, section 68, subsection en- titled BE fy AB. . For continuation of the biography of Ts’ai Lun, see translation in Blanchet, Essai sur [histoire du papier, pp. 13-14. . For fuller description of this paper see chapter 11. g. The place where writing on wood continued longest was Miran, a Tibetan fort, which appears to have been particularly backward. Writing on wood continued at Miran—parallel with the use of paper— down to the eighth or ninth century. Serindia, pp. 348, 462. In most places in Turkestan it ended several centuries earlier. CHAPTER II THE USE OF SEALS . FJ, defined in the Tz’i-yiian Encyclopedia as “everything that has fine marks to be impressed on something else.” . The laundryman’s check goes back also in its origin to the ch’ou ( #8), or met (FL), an ancient form of counter. But the fitting together of torn edges goes back to the practice here described. . The system of passports in use in Han times seems to be a continua- tion of this custom, and to give a possible hint also of another form of proto-printing. They are thus described in the Tz’i-yiian Ency- clopedia (section Zk, p. 5): “‘Fu-chieh were of bamboo, one foot two inches in length. Iron was used to imprint characters on them. On them was noted the age, surname, given name and facial description of the owner. . . . If on examination the two halves fitted, the owner was allowed to proceed. The Chou-li states, ‘to go through “BoD J the gates (i. e. over the border) it is necessary to have a fu-chich’. . The date at which the use of seals began has been warmly debated by Chinese antiquarians. The weight of evidence would seem to 192 NOTES indicate that the use of private seals began somewhat before the end of the Chou Dynasty and that the first state seal was that of Ts’in Shih Huang. Kan Hsi (quoted in Yin-tien, 6:1) carried the use of seals back to pre-Chou times. But this is an extreme view, not sup- ported by others. The oldest authority on the subject is Wei Hung, (485) who lived in the first century, a.p. (Giles, Biog. Dic.,No. 2277). His statements are, “Before the Ts’in Dynasty, seals one inch square were made of gold and silver. When Ts’in Shih Huang received the jade from Ho of Chin, he made a seal of jade. . . . It was called the seal of inheritance of the Empire.” (Quoted in T2’#-y dan, section fe, p. 8.) “Before the Ts’in Dynasty everyone who wished used metal and jade for seals.” (Quoted in Ko-chih-ching-y tian, 41:1.) Wu-ch’iu Yen and Ma Tuan-lin, both of the Yiian Dynasty, deny that seals were used in the Chou Dynasty. Their statements can be reconciled with those of Wei Hung, if the former are regarded as referring to official seals, and if Wei Hung’s statements are interpreted as meaning that the use of private seals began just slightly before the beginning of the Ts’in Dynasty. The statements of Wu-ch’iu Yen and Ma Tuan-lin are as follows: “Tn the time of the Three Dynasties (2205-255 8.c.) there were no seals. Scholars should carefully note this. Although the Chou-li speaks of an object called hsi-chieh ( Bet fi); and mentions an official as having charge of examining and authenticating this object, and al- though in the commentary it is stated that the Asi-chieh was a seal, actually it was rather a scepter held in the hand. On the right side were cut characters, as in the seal of Ts’in Shih Huang, but it was not possible to make an impression, with it. If anyone had tried to make an impression, it would have been found that the impression was re- versed. The ancients used this object for authentication. They were not interested in having the characters reversed. They were so simple in their ways. What the ‘six seals’ of Su Ts’in in the Chan-kuo period were is uncertain. Huai-nan-tzti says that Confucius called Tzt-kung and gave him the seal of a great general. But this is not to be taken literally.” Hsiieh-ku-pien, ( Be ny a ) by Wu-ch’iu Yen = iia RT), quoted in T’u-shu-chi-ch éng, 144:2. “Before the (end of the) Three Dynasties, there were no seals. When the emperor gave orders, he took a piece of jade or of bamboo CHAPTER II 193 and broke it, giving half to the minister or general to whom the order was given. This served as a special proof of the genuineness of the order. Also when a man was granted a title of nobility, such a half piece of jade was given him as proof, it being required that his half fit exactly with the half in the emperor’s possession. When times became more complex, it became necessary to guard against falsification and seals were the result.” From Wén-hsien-t’'ung-k’ao ( av kek iff S ) by Ma Tuan-lin a: Na Re), quoted in T’u-shu-chi-ch’éng, 144:1. The Shuo-wén (a dictionary compiled about a.p. 100) defines a seal (FI) ) as “an article for authentication ( fi) held by an official (3, att va Tuan Yii-ts’ai, in his commentary on the Shuo-wén, gives the following hint as to the origin of seals and as to how their use became more extended during the Han Dynasty, “The ancients wrote on bamboo slips and wooden boards. Whenever they wished to send any information to a distance, the slips or boards were wrapped in a piece of silk and impressed with seal clay ( ft We): When silk be- came the ordinary writing material, the use of seals (FI) ) became widespread.” te 3 fie ee at (Commentary on the Shuo-wén) by FY * 3X (Tuan Yii-ts’ai), folio 9, El at. From an examination of the conflicting evidence, it would seem that the use of private seals probably began slightly before the beginning of the Ts’in Dynasty (255 3.c.), and that the first imperial seal was the famous jade seal of Ts’in Shih Huang. 5. These documents were found at Niya. The writing is in the Kharoshti script. The site where they were found was abandoned toward the close of the third century, a.p. See Serindia, pp. 224-231. 6. A possible hint of the use of something analogous to seal impressions in India not long after Alexander’s conquest is contained in Hsiian Tsang’s narrative of an impression of a tooth in “purple clay” (red wax?) by Kumala, the faithful son of Asoka. See Si-yii-chi ( pq tal aU) folio 3, page 10 (Nanking edition). 7. Many seal impressions of the Han Dynasty have been found in north China, and a collection of them has been published under the title Féng-ni-t’u-k’ ao ($f We F ) or Record of Clay Seal Impressions. 8. Yin-tien, chiian 6, pp. 1-4. g. The use of seal impressions in wax or some similar substance, rather 194 NOTES than inked impressions, has been almost universal in the Roman Empire and in Europe. There have, however, been exceptions, and seal impressions made by what we may call the Chinese method were made even in classical times. There is in Berlin a red ink stamp on papyrus that dates from a.p. 85, and is quite similar to the seal impressions that began at a later date in China. It was found in Egypt. (Berlin, Altes Museum, Papyrus Ausstellung, No. P 6867). The use of red ink stamps in Egypt never altogether died out, as is witnessed by a stamp on linen in the Erzherzog Rainer collection in Vienna, dating from between 1250 and 1257. However the use of such seals in Europe and the Near East was very rare, and played no such part as in China in the ushering in of block printing. 10. The fact that Han seals were impressed in clay and not with ink is attested not only by finds in Turkestan and north China, but by docu- . mentary evidence. The authorities quoted below (note 11) as to the beginning of inked impressions all imply that earlier impressions were of a different sort. A quotation in Yin-tien records the fact that the “clay of Lan-ch’ing (Lan-ch’ing-chih-ni) was brought from the country of Fu-i, and was used during Wu-ti’s reign (B.c. 140-86) for the sealing of state documents.” The poetic expression for imperial edict used by Li Po and others, “purple clay document,” retains in the language a memory of a former practice, the use of “purple clay” by the emperor being perhaps a step in the transition to the cinnobar or red ink of later times. It is only fair to state that certain Chinese scholars seem to ignore the fact that seals were ever different from those of their own day. A book entitled, “History of Seals” (Afi $f), written prob- ably in the Yiian Dynasty, which purports to give facsimiles of the seals of all great men from Ts’in Shih Huang down, gives them all in red and all in approximately the same form. The Ch’i-hsiu-lei-k’ ao of the Ming Dynasty (a book not altogether noted for its accuracy) even describes circumstantially the red seal impressions of the Han Dynasty. (Quoted in Ko-chih-ching-yiian, 41:1). Those who take the opposite view are historians of greater reputation for accuracy and their statements are confirmed by the finds in Turkestan and north China. 11. “The seals of the Six Dynasties (A.D. 220-589) were changed accord- ing to the style of the times. Gradually they began to use seals with red characters (on white ground) and white characters (on red ground). CHAPTER II 195 The change in the style of character began at this time. . . . The seals of the T’ang Dynasty followed those of the Six Dynasties and the characters were made in red.” Yin-tien, chiian 6, pp. 1-2. This is the final conclusion of the author of Yin-tien (see Bibliography) based upon a multitude of earlier authorities that are quoted. Yin-tien is a very carefully written critical history of seals. Among the authorities quoted is Kan Hsii, who writes, “No red impressions from Han times have been found. When we come to the Six Dynasties and the times of T’ang and Sung, those red impressions were valued”; and again, “ Among ancient seal impressions there were some that were partly red and partly white. These are all from after the Han Dynasty.” It is evident that the author of Yin-tien believes, on the basis of his various authorities, that the change came during the latter part of the period of the Six Dynasties rather than the earlier part, and I have therefore set as a tentative date the fifth and sixth centuries. So far as Turkestan finds are concerned, the transition might have taken place at any time between the beginning of the fourth century and the end of the seventh. In general Han seals are in clay, T’ang seals in ink. No accurately dated seals of the transition time have been found. In this case, while the evidence of archeology and of tradition coincide, the latter narrows the date down more exactly than does the former. 12, These documents are in the Tibetan language and were found at Miran, which seems to have been a back eddy, far behind other parts of Turkestan in beginning to use paper. Both the documents on wood and those on paper seem to date from the eighth or ninth century, long after wooden stationery and clay seal impressions had disappeared from other communities. See Serindia, pp. 348 and 462. 13. Ko Hung, Pao-p’o-tzii, chap. 4. Translation from De Groot, Religious System of China, vol. 6, p. 1049. 14. There are a number of passages indicating that the Taoist charm seals were made of wood. Among them are the following, one referring to the Han Dynasty, the other to early T’ang: “In the month of midsummer, they placed at the gates and doors seals of peach wood, six inches in length and three in breadth, inscribed in colors with the words, ‘Let the law be obeyed’.”” History of the Han Dynasty (Hou-Han-shu), 15:1. Translation from De Groot, vol. 6, p. 1049. 196 NOTES “The Taoist priests cut seals out of the heart of date wood. They are four inches square.” Hsi Chien, in the T’ang Dynasty encyclo- pedia entitled Ch’u-hsiieh-chi, quoted in Ko-chih-ching-ytan, 41:1. 15. Ko Hung, writing in the fourth century, insisted on wooden charms being worn as amulets by people travelling in mountainous country, stating that “they should preferably be written with red cinnobar on planks of peach wood.” De Groot in quoting this adds, “At least from Ko Hung’s time, man has painted or written charms with the carnation color of cinnobar or tan, this substance having always been used by emperors or their proxies to mark their decisions as authentic.” De Groot, vol. 6, pp. 1047-1048. (The section quoted from Ko Hung is from Pao-p’o-tzii, section 17). The fact that the Taoist charm always used whatever form would best indicate authority makes it virtually certain that, when red ink seal impressions came into use, the Taoist charm seals followed suit. The very idea of connecting the seal with the charm was to indicate authority. “A charm without a seal is like an army without a commander,” is a favorite Taoist saying (De Groot 6:1048). There is clear evidence that in the early days when characters written on a broken bamboo slip constituted the evidence of authenti- cation, the Taoist charm was such a broken slip of bamboo. (See De Groot’s account of the various meanings of the character $f, vol. 6, p. 1034). When seals came in with their clay impressions, the Taoist charm was a clay seal impression. When red ink of cinnobar became the vogue for authenticating imperial documents, Taoist charms—at least the written ones—had red ink. And finally when this red ink of cinnobar came to be used for the impressing of seals, there is every reason to suppose that the big wooden seals of the Taoists— those seals of date wood four inches square described by Hsti Chien— were impressed on paper with red ink of cinnobar. When actual proof of this can be found, either from Chinese records or from under Turkestan sands, it will be possible to state with confidence that the world’s first block printers were the Taoist charm makers of China. Liu Pin’s statement (see chapter 8) of the books that he saw for sale in Szechuen in 883 adds weight to this view. 16. See chapter 7. 17. See chapter Ig. 18. Another early form of authentication by means of inked impression was the finger print. This method of identification, which has recently CHAPTER II 197 come into use in the West, was in use in China probably from the T’ang Dynasty and was clearly described by an Arabic writer, Rashid-eddin, during the Mongol period. For Rashid’s description and for biblio- graphy on the subject, see Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, Cordier edition, vol. 3, pp. 123-124. CHAPTER III RUBBINGS FROM STONE INSCRIPTIONS — 1. The word used is mu-hsie (zs i ). The regular word for rubbing Pa ($A), did not come into use until the T’ang Dynasty. The view is sometimes held that the word us as used in the Han Dynasty was the equivalent of i> but it is by no means certain. . Hou-Han-shu ( % Fe #5), section go (F ) , page 8, biography of Ts’ar Yung. 3. There are a number of objections to this traditional view according to which the making of rubbings began in the second century. Per- haps the most important of these objections is the question what kind of ink could have been used. It seems more probable that the prac- tice began not so very long before the date of the earliest rubbings found—perhaps in the sixth century. 4. This rubbing bears the date 653/4 as the time when a certain person saw it, and the text is a poetical work composed and written by the emperor T’ai Tsung (627-649). The copy for the inscription is written by the celebrated writer and calligrapher, Liu Kung-ch’uan. See Pelliot, Une bibliothéque mediéval retrouvée au Kan Sou, Bulletin de l’Ecole Francaise d’Extréme Orient, vol. 8, p. 527. 5. According to the official history of the T’ang Dynasty ( af #7 ‘4 i ) these officials were known as ?’a-shu-shou (A at #F-). 6. Portions of another book of rubbings, cut and mounted in leaves, were found at Tun-huang. It consists of rubbings from the Hua-tu- ssii-pet (AY, BE = Te), of which the original was written by Ou- yang Hsiin ( fax ne =i) ) in the beginning of the T’ang Dynasty. See Serindia, page 918, also plate CLXIX, ch. 1080. Some of the leaves of this book are in the Stein collection in London and some in the Pelliot collection in Paris. 7. Literary evidence of lithograph books from stone blocks prepared wv 198 NOTES co specially for the purpose goes back only to the tenth century. The clearest record is that of 993, quoted in note 9. There is however probable earlier reference by Cho Po-hsiu, quoted by the thirteenth century writer Chou Mi Fal oF ) in the book entitled Ydn-yen- kuo-yen-lu (2 KN shy ng $k): “The last emperor of the Later T’ang Dynasty (934-936) ordered Hsti Hstian to have cut in stone such original manuscripts and old and new rubbings as existed from the earlier dynasties. So we must put the beginning of the making of rubbings earlier than the Shun-hua period.” Ko-chih-ching-y tian (FS Eat $y Ia), book 39, folio 6. Julien (Journal Asiatique, 1847, page 510) and Pauthier (Mémoires de la Société des Etudes Japo- naises, 1887, vol. 6, page 186) apparently find literary evidence of lithograph books (which they say were cut on the stone in reverse) in the year go4, but they do not quote their authority for the state- ment. The only evidence of lithograph books in the ninth century is the actual discovery of these books at Tun-huang. . Ts éfu-yiian-kuet (Ht RE 3c af), written about 1005 (quoted in Journal of Sinological Research, Jan., 1923, page 139). See chapter g, notes 7 and 8. _ These volumes (there are ten of them) are known as fa ?’teh. Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072) thus describes the production of the fa Pieh of 992, “Tn the troubled times at the end of the T’ang Dynasty, the imperial graves were broken into by robbers, and the books and pictures that had been kept in them were torn from their rolls. Gold and jewels were taken and the books thrown away. Thus the autographs of great men of Tsin and Wei times came into the market. In the time of T’ai Tsung (976-998) these were bought up and put into ten books in order that they should be reproduced and passed on to posterity. These volumes were presented to the high ministers of state, and are the fa ?’ieh now in possession of various nobles and ministers.” Accord- ing to Ts’ao Chao, in the work entitled Ko-ku-yao-lun, these fa-t’ieh were published both in block print and in lithograph: “T’ai Tsung of the Sung dynasty searched out the autographs of men of former times and in the period Shun-hua (990-995) ordered the secretary Wang Chu to print them in nine books. These were cut in blocks of date wood, and placed in the private cabinet of the emperor.— In the third year of Shun-hua (992) an edict was issued to cut them CHAPTER III 199 in stone, and by use of Chéng-hsin-ang paper and Li-ting-kuei ink to make rubbings. They were made in such a way that the hands were not soiled by the ink. Those that have no marks of repair by silver nails are the earliest and the best.” (These quotations are taken from the Ko-chih-ching-yiian Encyclopedia, section 39, folio 6, (74 th). 10. That the use of the lithograph for preserving calligraphy had begun I i _ at an earlier date than this is indicated by the Tun-huang booklet described in note 6. 1. The Ko-chih-ching-yiian Encyclopedia devotes ten pages to a de- scription of the lithographic texts produced in the Sung Dynasty and three to counterfeits of these Sung lithographs (see Bibliography). According to Julien, the Chih-pu-tsu-chai-ts'ung-shu ( Ey AN UE ying We } ) describes “all the ancient inscriptions and all the autographs of famous men that were printed by this method between the years 1143 and 1243.” CHAPTER IV THE DYNAMIC FORCE THAT CREATED THE DEMAND FOR PRINTING—THE ADVANCE OF BUDDHISM . It seems quite possible, as already pointed out, that this Buddhist activity was preceded by a practice among Taoist charm makers that was very closely akin to block printing. After the period of more or less primitive Buddhist printing, the next great step forward was the printing of the Confucian Classics by Féng Tao in 952, which marked a new stage in the art. Each of China’s three re- ligions seems, therefore, to have had its part, but the greatest part, at least during the early centuries, was that of Buddhism. CHAPTER V THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOCK PRINTING IN CHINA, THE INK, AND THE METHOD USED . At least fifteen books in English, French and German have appeared in recent years—many of them handsome de /uxe editions—on the 200 NOTES vie 3: Chinese and Japanese wood cut (especially the color print) regarded as a fine art—a rather startling fact when it is remembered that the whole bibliography in European languages on the Chinese invention of printing consists of three magazine articles and one short pamphlet. T. L. De Vinne, The Invention of Printing, New York, 1876, pages 39-41. What this ch’i was is uncertain. The character (¥3) pictures drops of water falling from a tree, and means to-day the varnish made from the sap of the lacquer tree. With this varnish a pigment made from iron sulphate is often used, and it seems reasonable to suppose that some such material constituted China’s ancient ink. Such an ink would never have been satisfactory for block printing. . There was another form of ink—red ink—that had been known in China since the Han Dynasty and probably earlier, that might have been satisfactory for printing. This is made of red oxide of mercury or cinnobar, which is mined in the province of Kweichow. It is still used for taking impressions from seals, a practice that may have begun earlier than the invention of encre de Chine (see chapter 2). The difficulty of using cinnobar for printing is its rarity and consequent expense. . “In the most ancient times a bamboo twig was dipped in lacquer for writing. In mid-ancient times there was an ink stone (3 from which ink could be produced by rubbing. In the time of the Tsin and Wei Dynasties, ink in blocks was first made. It was made from the smoke of lacquer and from lamp black produced by burning pine wood. So the people of the Tsin Dynasty commonly used a concave stone for rubbing the ink stick and collecting the dissolved ink.” Tung-t’ien-ch ing-lu ( YA] KiB $3 ) by Chao Si-ku (Sung Dynasty). “In ancient times there were two forms of ink, one from lamp black of pine and one from ‘ink stone.’ After the Tsin and Wei Dynasties we hear no more of ‘ink stone,’ as the making of ink from lamp black became general.”” Ch’ao-shih Ink Classic. Both the above translations are made from excerpts in the Ko-chih-ching-yuan Encyclopedia, book 37, folio 20. What ‘ink stone’ (3 Ay) was is uncertain. Its present meaning is bitumen. The name Wei Tang as the inventor of ink is given on the authority co PP WNP He CHAPTER V 201 of.Liu Yu of the Yiian Dynasty quoted in the Tz’i-yiian Encyclo- pedia under the word a. This date for the invention of lamp black ink is not uncontested. Hsiin Hsiu, in his preface (written in the third century, A.D.) to the Bamboo Books, uses the word mo (33) of the ink with which those books were written. It seems probable however that, unless the word is an interpolation, it refers to the ink that other writers call ch’7. . Cf. John F. Davis, China, vol. 2, page 180; S. Julien and P. Cham- pion, Industries anciennes et modernes de Empire chinois, Paris, 1869, pp. 129-140. . Black ink of lamp black and red ink of cinnobar were both used in Egypt from the dynastic period down through Greek, Roman and Byzantine times, as well as later. The usual ink for writing on papyrus was made much like the Chinese ink, and like Chinese ink was kept in a dry condition. There is a curious parallel between the use of cinnobar for imperial decrees in the early Byzantine empire and in China. The restriction of the use of cinnobar to the emperor began in Constantinople about A.D. 470. . This description is taken in the main from John F. Davis, China, London, 1857, vol. 2, pp. 176-177. I have preferred to make use of this early description, as the method here described is less likely to be influenced by changes brought from the West. CHAPTER VI THE BEGINNINGS OF BLOCK PRINTING IN THE BUDDHIST MONASTERIES OF CHINA . See chapters 8 and 14. . See chapter 3. . See Serindia, index, Stencil, also plates XCIV and CXIII. . See chapter 20. Also Serindia, index, Silk, printed, and plates CX XII, Ccce . This forms the base or frame on which one of the block prints in the British Museum is pasted. The pattern is of ellipses forming a net, printed in dark blue on a light blue ground. There are two fragments, each about six inches by two. 202 NOTES 6. The impressions on the rolls in the British Museum range from 1.5 to 2.8 inches in height and from 1.2 to 1.8 inches in width. Those in Paris and Berlin are approximately the same. 7. A wooden stamp found by Pelliot at Kutcha in E. Turkestan dates—according to the deposit in which it was found—from not later than 800. That the use of these stamps had spread as far west as Kutcha by 800, indicates a very early date for China itself. Metal stamps of uncertain date have been found at Turfan. 8. See chapter 5 for description of the method of Chinese block printing. 9. 4X 3.4 inches. Only the bare outline is printed. Details are filled in by hand in colors. The workmanship of this sheet of heads bears a striking resemblance to the most primitive European block prints. 10. Size 13 x 20 inches. 11. This rubbing dates from the reign of T’ai Tsung, 627-649. See chapter 3. 12. Before 800. See note 7, above. 13. Stanislas Julien in 1847 (Journal Asiatique, series 4, vol. 9, pages 505-507) was the first to introduce to European readers the view that printing was carried on in China in the year 593, and from Julien the statement has found its way into the Encyclopedia Britannica and most histories of China in Western languages. The origin of this theory is interesting. Julien quotes it from the Ko-chih-ching-y ian Encyclopedia (RS yd $4 J), published in 1735. The statement in this encyclopedia is quoted from Lu Shén ( Be EE ) and from the book Pi-ts’ ung ( 3 ). Lu Shén lived from 1477 to 1544 (Giles, Biog. Dict., No. 1427). His statement, contained in his book Yen- Asien-lu (3H Fal Ex), is: “Under the emperor Wén Ti of the Sui Dynasty, in the year 593, the eighth day of the twelfth month, on orders from the emperor, all neglected Aszang (8, the word means either images or pictures) and scattered ching (£8, Classic texts or sutras) were carved and collected (FE HE ). This is the beginning of the printing of books. It was thus earlier than Féng Ying-wang (i.e. Féng Tao, 881-954). This reference of printing to Wén Ti’s reign is clear and explicit and indicates that the theory went back as far as the sixteenth century. The statement in the book Pi-ts’ung (full title of book Shao-shih-shan-fang-pi-ts ung, “YP Ze ih) Ss CHAPTER VI 203 He, by Hu Yin-lin, tH HB ie, written near the end of the Ming Dynasty) is apparently based on that of Lu Shén. It reads simply: “Block printing had its birth at the beginning of the Sui Dynasty, it expanded greatly under the T’angs, took a leap forward under the Five Dynasties and finally came to its fullest development under the dynasty of Sung.” Against these two statements is the weight of the older Chinese tradition (the very form of Lu Shén’s statement shows that he is propounding something contrary to the generally received opinion), and also the explicit authority of at least three prominent writers of the Sung Dynasty, whose statements follow: “Under the T’ang Dynasty block printing, though carried on, was not fully developed. Under Féng Ying-wang (Féng Tao) first the Classics and then all the ancient canonical works were printed.” Shén Kua (Jt F§), 1030-1093, Méng-ch’i-pi-t’'an (HS YA Se ZB), book 18, section g (edition of 1631). “Before the T’ang Dynasty all books were manuscripts, the art of printing not being in existence.” “According to popular report the cutting of blocks and printing of books from them was commenced by Féng Tao. This is not the fact. . . . Printing certainly existed in the T’ang Dynasty, but I apprehend it was not equal in workman- ship to the present.” Yeh Méng-té (#E #8 #4), c. 1130, as quoted by Ma Tuan-lin CE Vita Re ), W én-hsien-t ung-k’ ao (3 pk ii SF), c. 1319. Tr. by Meadows in Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, vol. 6, pp. 15, 16. “There was no printing before the T’ang Dynasty. Inked blocks were first used at I-chou at the end of the T’ang Dynasty.” Chu Yu (Ae ), I-cho-liao-tza-chi (Fay = $e Ht. ac.) vol. 2, folio 61 (edition of 1774). In the face of such conflicting evidence it is necessary to discover where Lu Shén got his information, which has so remarkably domi- nated European writings on the subject. There is apparently nothing about printing in the annals of the Sui Dynasty. In the Buddhist Tripitaka, however, in the volume entitled Li-tai-san-pao-cht, ( Fé {G = Pe 3c ) by Fei Ch’ang-fang (FR fe #) (Kyoto edition, a0 30, vol. 7, chap. 15, folio 666), stands the passage from which Lu Shén’s statement is a word for word (though abbreviated) quota- tion. This section of the book was written in the year 597, only four 204 NOTES years after the event related. The last two sentences of Lu Shén’s statement (from “this was the beginning of the printing of books” to the end) is not quotation but is Lu Shén’s comment. A critical examin- ation of the whole passage, without this gloss and in connection with the context, leaves little doubt that printing is not referred to at all, the true interpretation being that damaged images were re-carved and that scattered sutras were collected. This interpretation of the pas- sage was first proposed by a Chinese writer in the book S hu-yin-ts ung- shuo (2 FB 3 FP) (“FE refers to images, HE to sutras, this is not the beginning of printing”), and accepted by the Japanese inves- tigator, Kameso (AR AX Hh ¥i) 2 B, p. 3). Arthur Waley of the British Museum recently came independently to the same con- clusion and published the arguments for it in the New China Review (see Bibliography). In his Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting (page 87, footnote), Mr.Waley has correctly quoted me as saying that while Julien forced the meaning of the passage which he translated, his general inference with regard to date was perhaps correct. Since my conversation with Mr. Waley in 1922 on which this statement is based, further study has convinced me not only that Julien’s interpretation is forced, but that his date is in all probability too early and that a cen- tury or more later would be more correct. In Shu-lin-ch’ ing-hua ( 1K Ya Zn) by Yeh Té-hui ( HE {iid jee), vol. 1, folios 19-20, there is a full discussion of Lu Shén’s interpretation of Fei Ch’ang-fang’s statement, with quotations from Chinese and Japanese authorities. The author’s conclusion is that Lu Shén’s interpretation is incorrect and that there is no reference to printing. Terrien de Lacouperie (Beginnings of Writing in Central and Eastern Asia, pp. 66 and 190; Western Origin of Early Chinese Civilization, p- 345) has pointed out a number of still earlier passages which he has interpreted as references to printing. An examination of the passages concerned, however, shows that they refer not to printing but to the making of stone inscriptions. 14. Certain of the later emperors of the T’ang Dynasty were completely under the influence of Taoist superstition, and to this was due the persecution of Buddhism that lasted from 845 to 859. In 859 Bud- dhism was restored to its former position. te oO wv at ae co ~] CHAPTER VII 205 CHAPTER VII THE EMPRESS SHOTOKU OF JAPAN AND HER MILLION PRINTED CHARMS. . a.p. 770 Chinese literature began to enter Japan as early as 540, but Chinese civilization did not begin to make a strong impression till the be- ginning of the seventh century. Four Japanese students were sent to China in 608 to study, and on their return were instrumental in bringing about the great reforms of 645. P. Y. Saeki, The Nestorian Monument, Tokyo, 1913, p. 145. . Nithongi, book 23, page 8. For this and other information about Japanese seals, see Hans Spoérry, Das Stempelwesen in Fapan, Zurich, 1901, pages 7-9. This passage from the Nihongi dates from about 720. . Commentary of Shoku-Nihongi-Kosho. . For full description of these printed textiles, together with bibliogra- phy of Japanese books on the subject, see Kameso, page 4. See also Toyei Shuko, J//ustrated Catalog of the Shoso-in Treasury at Nara, 1908, English introduction and plates. Surigonomo (48 x). #4 A AK RB, published about 797. . See fad 5p K Be HfL, Tokyo, 1908, edition of 1916, page 1395, and last plate in supplement. . There is an earlier passage, dating from 751, which is claimed as a reference to block printing in Japan, but the interpretation is uncer- tain. The passage is as follows: “‘In the second year after the death of Otomo Akamaro (governor of the district of Tama in the province of Musashi, died 750) there was born a calf with black marks on its back. These marks had the appearance of an inscription on stone. They were interpreted to mean that Akamaro had appropriated to himself temple property and had died before punishment had over- taken him, and that as retribution he had been reborn in the form of this calf. At this all his family mourned deeply and feared, saying, “It is a fearful thing to commit sin. Can such a crime remain without punishment?” This event was announced in a kafagi and in the sixth month of the same year was published abroad #R (4 HE HE Ae, 206 NOTES Ki > ah KX) in order that those who should read it should repent of their sins and do good.” (BAS BY JH eR ae FE mee SE Zt, middle section). A katagi ( He yi) in later writings means a block print. The fact that this event was only a few years before the first known block printing and that the statement here referred to was ‘published abroad’ by this means, has led certain Japanese writers to regard this katagi as a block print. The question is dis- cussed by Kameso, who gives the text in full. 10. There is some confusion about the exact date of this event. The Empress Shotoku ruled for the second time from 765 to 769. The account in the Shoku Nihongi gives the fourth year of the period jee i 4 E (770) as the date when the printing of the charms was ordered. On the other hand the temple record (Ee IN ne $k ) gives the eighth year of the period K > vE re (764) as the year in which the pagodas, containing the charms, were made and distributed. To add to the confusion, the name of the ruler is here given as ze: BA, who reigned from 749 to 758. This same temple record gives 767 (first year of the period nu ie eS =, cyclical year J x) as the date when halls for the pagodas were built in the temple. For text of the Shoku Nihongi statement and the temple record, see Kameso, page 8. Satow gives the date 764 as the year when the work was begun and 770 as the year when it was completed, and his reckoning may be taken as at least approximately correct. . HA AR ac 12. WK SF BR Be 13. 4 As: 14. The romanization is Satow’s. 15. Slight variations among the impressions of the same charm have led some to question the fact that the charms were actually printed from blocks at all. In answer to this, it has been correctly pointed out that such a large number of impressions would have required several blocks for each charm, as only about ten thousand impressions can be taken from a wooden block before it is worn down. 16. The spreading of the ink in some of the impressions has been thought by some to indicate that the plates were of metal. On the other hand CHAPTER VII 207 the variations between impressions of the same charm (see above) would indicate wood. The latter would be more in keeping with the general history of block printing, as far as it is known. 17. $e UG RIG HK BE HB OVE &S. Japanese, Mu-ku Fo-ko Kyo. CHAPTER VIII THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK THE DIAMOND SUTRA OF 868 1. The earliest date on any document corresponds to the year A.D. 406. The latest dated document found by Stein belongs to the period ggo- 994. The latest of those found by Pelliot is of the period 995-997. 2. The Diamond Sutra. Printed by Wang Chieh. Found at Tun- huang by Stein. Now on exhibition in the British Museum. This is the oldest printed book known that is dated, or of which the date can be ascertained Some undated book from Turfan or elsewhere may conceivably be older, but it seems unlikely. 3. This quotation is the sentence with which the printed text of the roll ends. The same sentence in abbreviated form appears, with the name of the sara, on a little paper tab written by hand and pasted on the outside of the roll—evidently for convenience in filing. 4. Known in Sanskrit as Prajné Péramité, and in Chinese as a fia ®. This sutra was a favorite one with Chinese Buddhists. The two most important translations into Chinese are by two of the most famous men in the history of Chinese Buddhism. The one is by the monk, Kumarajiva, who came to China as a missionary at the end of the fourth century from Kutcha in Chinese Turkestan, and the other by the Chinese pilgrim, Hstian Tsang, who went to India and returned in the seventh century. This printed edition of 868 is the translation of Kumarajiva. The oldest printed book from Japan is a portion of Hsiian Tsang’s translation. The most beautiful example of printing found at Turfan is a Sanskrit edition of this same sutra, printed dur- ing Mongol times (see chapter 17). The Diamond Sutra has twice been translated into English, the best translation being that of Gemmell. (The Diamond Sutra, by William Gemmell, London, IgI2.) 208 NOTES 5s. William Gemmell, The Diamond Sutra, London, 1912, pp. 45-46, 61-62. 6. These are: 1 a dictionary (fragments only) now at Paris (see end of this chapter); 2 a roll, similar in form to the Diamond Sutra, written by a Buddhist abbot, and containing twenty-four examples of filial piety in verse (on exhibition in British Museum); 3 a Buddhist work (a dharani charm now in Paris), which can be definitely ascribed to the period before the end of the T’ang Dynasty by the fact that the character does not appear, a blank being left in place of that character. 5. “In the Three Dynasties (i. e. before B.c. 255) the writings made with lacquer on bamboo were heavy and difficult to read. From the time of the Ts’in and Han Dynasties, the use of paper and ink came to be generally known. The simplification of writing as compared with the earlier method was very great. However from the Han Dynasty through that of T’ang, rolls were in use. . . . Whenever one read a roll, or wished to look up anything, it was necessary to open-up the whole roll, which was very inconvenient. It was also necessary con- stantly to roll up the books and keep them in order, which entailed still more difficulty. At the time of the end of the T’ang Dynasty and the beginning of that of Sung, the making of manuscripts came to a sudden end and printing came in. At the same time rolls came to an end and books came in. They were easy to produce, difficult to destroy, cheap and convenient.” From Shao-shih-shan-fang-pi-ts ung (> SS ly Be SE BB) by Ho Yintin (48 BR HE), end of Ming Dynasty. Quoted in Ko-chih-ching-y uan Encyclopedia, book 39, folio 1. See also quotation to the same effect from Kuei Tien-lu in Ko-chih- ching-yiian, book 39, folio 4. Kuei Tien-lu ascribes the beginning of the paged book to Féng Tao, who was contemporary with this little booklet from Tun-huang. A passage in the History of the Sung Dynasty (5R Bp), however, dates the beginning of paged books from the Sung Dynasty. This may refer to stitched rather than folded books. The statement reads: “ Ancient books were in general in rolls. From Sung times come the first books that are bound and printed.” Sung-shu (Re =), quoted in BY ae section fg, page 108. 8. Two other printed books, purporting to come from the T'ang Dy- CHAPTER VIII 209 nasty, and found not at Tun-huang but elsewhere in China, are de- scribed by Liu An (pages 2-3). Of these the first is certainly a forgery and the second needs further substantiation. g. The dated documents are as follows: At Paris: 947. 947. 950. 971. At London: 868. 947: 947. 949. 983. Single sheet with Buddhist pictures and text. Hand colored. Another similar sheet given as votive offering by the same man. (Many copies, one of which has been presented by M. Pelliot to the Morgan Library in New York.) A dharani charm, seven pages long, all printed at once from one block. A dharani charm, the text of which had been cor- rected by Chi Hsiang, a monk from India. The Diamond Sutra of Wang Chieh. A single sheet similar to those of the same date at Paris, but not colored. (Three duplicate copies.) A larger single sheet (1534x1014 in.) of the same sort. A small Buddhist sutra in folded book form. A large charm, mainly in a mystic form of Sanskrit that cannot be deciphered, but with also a few words of Chinese. The eight page folded book in London and the seven page dharant charm in Paris are naturally classed with the single sheets, as they have the same primitive character. 10. The suggestion that the Diamond Sutra was imported from some- where further back in China proper, while the single sheets were of local manufacture, was made by Stein. 11. There is another probable reference to printing in T’ang times, which, though obscure, may antedate that of Liu Pin. It is by Fan Shu Gu +a ) in the book Yiin-ch’i-yu-t’an (es YA F< BR also known as = ES K ait |, referred to by aE ia, vol. 2, section MK, p. 151, and quoted by Liu An, page 2. The passage is difficult of interpretation and no definite date can be assigned. Another obscure passage that may refer to printing and which may antedate Liu Pin, is noted in Shu-ling-ch’ ing-hua, vol. 1, folio 20. These obscure passages both refer to omens and charms. 210 NOTES 12. BM FL. Sztima Kuang’s History, in the records of the T’ang Dynasty, has the following account of Liu Pin’s life: “In 902 Liu Pin was made governor of Lu-chou. The Liu family from the time of Liu Kung-cho had been held in honor by scholars and officials for its adherence in every generation to filial, fraternal and social duties. _. . The eunuchs hated him, and hence he was long punished by being kept in provincial posts. He wrote a book of admonitions for the junior members of his family.” Translated by Meadows in Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, vol. 6, page 16. 13. Lit., Yin-yang (Ee 5). a. ef, the Nine Mansions, or arrangements of color connected with the eight trigrams. 15. What “character books”’ ieee 4 ) were is uncertain. They may have been copy books for learning penmanship. Again they may have been dictionaries. The fact that leaves of a dictionary dating from about this time were found at Tun-huang by Pelliot lends weight to the latter interpretation. 16. This statement is found in a book entitled Chia-hsiin-hsu (KE =)|| Fe) by Liu Pin Gl Ft). It is quoted in full in the Older History of the Five Dynasties (EE aie Bp ) in an editorial note in the edition of 173g, section (AE) 43, folio 1—a note in which many of the earliest sources on the history of printing are gathered together. It is also quoted in full in SAu-ling-ch’ ing-hua, vol. 1, section (4) I, folios 18-19. In abbreviated form it is quoted by Yeh Méng-té (BE es fi), otherwise known as Yeh Shih-lin (HE AA Kk); in a book entitled Yen-yii (ae 2B ), written about 1130, which in turn is quoted by Ma Tuan-lin ( ia Fi ) in the book Wén-hsien-t’ ung- k’ao ( ia jek if SF), c. 1319. Other abbreviated versions are found in the Ko-chih-ching-y tian (fa ay $i J ) Encyclopedia of 1735 (book 39, folio 3) and in Liu An, page 2. European writers who have called attention to Liu Pin’s statement are T. T. Meadows (Miscel- lanies of the Philobiblon Society, vol. 6, page 16) and Arthur Waley (New China Review, I919). 17. HS. 18. From J-cho-liao-tza-chi (Fay it $8 Ret aL) by Chu Yu (Ae ), CHAPTER VIII QI edition of 1774, vol. 2, folio 61. The full statement reads, “There was no printing before the T’ang Dynasty. Inked blocks were first used at I-chou (Ch’éng-tu) at the end of the T’ang Dynasty. During the time of the dynasty known as Later T’ang the Nine Classics were for the first time printed. All copies of the classics and the histories that were in the hands of the people were gathered to- gether to determine the text for the cutting of the blocks.” 19. 4% +p|, the modern Ch’éng-tu. 20. BY Cars stu" ax. fly Be vy Sb FB. 22. The Ch’ieh-yiin, the scattered leaves apparently belong to more than one edition of the dictionary. CHAPTER IX THE PRINTING OF THE CONFUCIAN CLASSICS UNDER FENG TAO 932-953 1. The emperors of Shu during its first period of independence were Cy COr Wang Chien ( £ #£), 907-919, and Wang Yen (FE RF), 919-929. During the second period they were Méng Chih-hsiang (7 41 JRE), 934, and Méng Ch’ang a xa), 934-965. During all this time Szechuen was prosperous, prosperity reaching its height during the reign of Méng Ch’ang. . See chapter 8, notes 13-17. . See chapter II. Hy WA Tar . Wang Ming-ch’ing (= HA Ya )> otherwise known as Wang Chung-yen (= fi Bs), i in the book Hui-chu-lu ( HE jE are Quoted in the Older History of the Five Dynasties (2 3), edition of 1739, section (ae) 43, folio 1, editorial note. Ai-jih-chai-ts ung-ch’ao ( 4 ye 3S gh ). Quoted in Older History of the Five Dynasties, Mot of 1739, section 43, folio 1, editorial note. There is some confusion about the exact dates of Wu Chao-i’s work. It is clear from all sources that Féng Tao was largely influenced by the printing that he saw in Shu. According to Wang 202 NOTES 7. [oe) 9. Ming-ch’ing’s account, it would seem that Wu Chao-i’s work was already in full swing when Féng Tao’s forces conquered Shu. On the other hand it is apparent that Wu did not actually become prime minister till Shu regained its independence in 934. It seems probable that his educational activities and his patronage of printing began before he was actually elevated to the premiership. However that may be, it is certain that there was considerable printing going on in Shu before 929 when Féng Tao’s conquest of the province took place. The four dynasties were the Later T’ang, the Later Tsin, the Later Han and the Later Chou. The seven emperors were Ming Tsung and Min Ti of the Later T’ang Dynasty; Kao Tsu and Ch’u Ti of the Later Tsin Dynasty; Kao Tsu and Ying Ti of the Later Han Dynasty; and T’ai Tsu of the Later Chou Dynasty. . The Classics were cut in stone during the T’ang Dynasty at Ch’ang-an (Si-an-fu) between 836 and 841, and are still in part preserved. Photo- graphs of them have been published by Chavannes. It is these Stone Classics that in general served as a model for the wooden plates made under Féng Tao’s direction, though there is evidence that certain distinctive features of the Stone Classics of Shu also found their way into Féng Tao’s text. The original contribution of the National Academy was to incorporate commentary with the text. The manu- scripts on which the Stone Classics of 836 to 841 were based contained both text and commentary. Of this only the text was copied on stone. Féng Tao again included the commentary. Of the printing of this period in the lower Yangtze Valley (Wu) nothing further is known. Io. Ts’ éfu-yiian-kuet (Ht Kt Jc 4), written about 1005 by Wang rae Hsin-jo ( ER #5 ) and Yang I (KB {iS ). . This account is abridged from the Ts’éfu-yiian-kuei (see above). This is the oldest and fullest account. For those who wish to compare different accounts of this event given by historians of the next three centuries, the following translations are appended: Official history of the Later T’ang Dynasty (2 {UG #. jie 3); “In the third year of the period Ch’ang-hsing (932), in the second month, the official known as chung-shu made a memorial to the emperor, proposing to take as a model the characters of the stone inscriptions and to cut plates for the printing of the Nine Classics.” CHAPTER IX 213 Official history of the Later Han Dynasty (48 fh {UG 32, 2 #, (= Wt 7): “In the first year of the period C#’ien-yu (948), in the fifth month, the National Academy sent a memorial to the emperor, stating that there were still four Classics—the Chou-/i, the I-li, the Kung-yang-chiian and the Ku-liang-chiian—of which no plates had been prepared; and requesting that scholars be called together to edit the text for the purpose of producing the plates. The petition was granted.” Official history of the Later Chou Dynasty ( #{t 2, 8 3): “Tn the time of Ming Ts’ung of the T’ang (i. e. Later T’ang) Dynasty, because the Classics had in them many mistakes, Liny 0; the officer in charge of education, with T’ien Min and others, taking as models the Classics as cut in stone by Cheng Tan at the Western Capital, cut blocks for printing and thus spread the Classics abroad in the world. All who followed them had the work of these men as their foundation.” Official history of the Sung Dynasty, section entitled Fu-ling-chian, (FE SS, te 1K AR): “In the beginning of the T’ien-ch’eng period (926-930), T’ien Min, a doctor of the National Academy, directed Ma Kao to work with him in the revision of the Nine Classics. In the fourth year of the T’ien-fu period (939), Tien Min was given the title of chi chiu. Though T’ien Min’s scholarship in the Classics was based on solid ground, he loved forced interpretations of passages. In the Nine Classics which he edited, he frequently put forward his own subjective interpretation.” Ts é-fu-y tian-kuet (HH Kf 3c hi, for authors and date see note 7): “Féng Tao, the prime minister of the Later T’ang Dynasty, and Li Yii, wished to do honor to the ancient classical learning. They said, ‘During the Han Dynasty Confucian scholars were honored and the Classics were cut in stone in three different scripts. In T’ang times also stone inscriptions containing the text of the Classics were made in the Imperial School. Our dynasty has too many other things to do and cannot undertake such a task as to have stone inscriptions erected. We have seen, however, men from Wu and Shu who sold books that were printed from blocks of wood. There were many different texts, but there were among them no orthodox Classics. If the Classics could be revised and thus cut and published, it would be 214 NOTES a very great boon to the study of literature. We therefore make a memorial to the throne to this effect.’ The answer of the emperor was that T’ien Min and other scholars were to examine and revise the text of the Classics and of the Commentaries. The work was carried on with zeal, and included the Book of Poetry and the three commen- taries of the Ch’un-ch’iu. The text was corrected, and the blocks were cut with great exactness. Proofs were adduced with regard to the exact reading of the text, and the work was brought together in books. The Classics were first in this way made exact, and then they were cut in blocks. Money was appropriated from the Cheng-shth office, and also unappropriated money from various branches of the government was given out, as well as taxes from second degree graduates, in order to pay for the labor. There were bestowed upon T’ien Min a state robe, fine silks and silver plate. Also to the official, Chao Chu, there were given a state robe and fine silk. “Tn the fourth month of the year 932, the following order was given by the emperor, ‘For the purpose of revising the stone inscriptions of the Classics, uniting them with the Commentaries, and having them cut in plates for printing, it is ordered that from the National Academy specially qualified men be appointed, five or six for each one of the Classics, to examine the text and to add to it the Commentaries; also that there be appointed from the court officials five men to supervise the work. [Names of five officials including T’ien Min.] Since the establishment of the text of the Classics is of great importance, an importance not to be compared with that of all other books, although I have already ordered the National Academy to appoint officers to edit the work, yet, because the work is so vast, and I still fear that errors may creep in, I order Ma Kao and the men with him (who are all great scholars and each one a specialist in the Classics), to make a final exact examination, in order that everything may be brought to absolute perfection.” Shén Kua (7 $§), 1030-1093, in Méng-ch’i-pi-st’an, (Be BX), edition of 1631, book 18, section g: “Under the T’ang Dynasty block printing, though carried on, was not fully developed. From the time of Féng Ying-wang (Féng Tao), first the Five Classics, and then in general all the ancient canonical works were printed.” Ssti-ma Kuang’s History (finished about 1084): “In 932 orders were first issued to edit the Nine Sacred Books and print them for CHAPTER IX 215 sale.” . . . “Formerly in the time of Ming Tsung of the T’ang (Later T’ang) Dynasty, the ministers Féng Tao and Li Yu prayed the emperor to command T’ien Min of the National College to correct the Nine Sacred Books, then to cut blocks for them and print them for sale, and the court assented. The present edition was printed and presented to His Majesty on the Ting-szi day of the month. From this time forth, even in periods of anarchy, the Nine Sacred Books were transcribed and diffused very widely.” (Meadow’s transla- tion.) Yeh Méng-té ( Be fi ), about 1130, quoted by Ma Tuan-lin about 1319: “‘Before the T’ang Dynasty all books were manuscripts, the art of printing not being in existence. . . . Inthe time of the Five Dynasties, Féng Tao first memorialized his sovereign, praying that an official printing establishment might be put in operation.”” (Mea- dow’s translation.) Chu Hsi’s History (finished about 1172): “In 932 the T’ang (Later T’ang) Dynasty for the first time cut blocks for the Nine Sacred Books and had them printed for sale.” (This quotation and the two preceding are from the translation of Thomas T. Meadows, in Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society of London, vol. 6, pp. 1-33. There is some question about the rendering of the word here translated ‘for sale.’) Wang P’u ( £ Yi), 922-982, in Wu-tai-hui-yao (f(t & ): “In 932 the chung-shu official wrote a memorial recommending that, with the Stone Classics as a basis, the Nine Classics be printed from plates. It was ordered by the emperor that the National Academy bring together leading Confucian scholars with their assistants, and that they should take copies (rubbings?) of the Stone Classics from the Western Capital; and that, each according to the particular Classic that was his speciality, they should copy and annotate the text, and then read them through with the minutest care; that then work- men of ability in the printing of characters be employed; that each department, following the model prepared, should cut the plates, and that the books thus printed should be spread abroad in the world. If anyone should have a desire in the future to write a copy of the Classics, it should be forbidden to do so except in accordance with these printed copies; that it should not be allowed again to bring out miscellaneous editions. In the same year in the fourth month, the 216 NOTES order was given by the emperor that the guest friend of the crown prince, Ma Kao, [and other officers, including T’ien Min] be appointed to have oversight of the work.” Yii-hat (G5 143: ) by Wang Ying-lin (+E ies jee), 1223-1296: “In 932 in the second month, the emperor ordered the National Academy to revise the text of the Nine Classics, and, using the books (rubbings?) of the stone inscriptions from the Western Capital, to have them copied and cut on wooden plates, in order to have them spread abroad through all the empire. In the fourth month, Ma Kao, Ch’en Kuan, and T’ien Min were ordered to examine the work with the greatest care. In the sixth month of 953, the plates of the eleven Classics, together with the Er-ya, the Wu-ching-wén-tzu and the Chiu-ching-tzi-yang, were finished, and T’ien Min presented them to the emperor.” Except where otherwise specified, the above translations are from the text contained in the Journal of Sinological Studies for Jan., 1923. (See Bibliography.) 12. By piecing together the various accounts it would seem that the Nine Classics were: Yi-ching, Shu-ching, Shih-ching, I-li, Chou-li, Li-chi, and the three commentaries of the Ch’un-ch’iu. At the same time there were printed the following: Hsiao-ching, Lun-yii, Er-ya, Wu-ching-wén-tat (Fy, & BC =F) and Chiu-ching-tzii-yang (AL rhe a) —f- tx): The names of these two last, which were commentaries written during the T’ang Dynasty on the “Five Classics” and the “Nine Classics” respectively, may account for the fact that while most authorities speak of Féng Tao as having printed the “Nine Classics,” Shén Kua speaks of his work as the printing of the “Five Classics.” Both “Five Classics” and “Nine Classics” were conventional terms used at different times to refer to the Confucian canon. (Compare our use of the words “Pentateuch”’ and “‘Hexateuch.”) 13. This is the account in the Wu-tai-hui-yao ( h. {ft # Liye The Ts é-fu-ytian-kuei (see above) gives additional details, including an account of the charge of embezzlement that was brought against T’ien Min in connection with his management of this printing project, and how it was hushed up. Two years after the publication of the Classics (955), another book CHAPTER IX 217 was entrusted to T’ien Min for printing. It was the Ching-tien-shé-wén. Chang Chao, minister of war, was associated in the work. 14. The question of the exact date of Wu Chao-i’s printing of the Classics and how this printing relates to that of Féng Tao at the national capital is as difficult as is that of the beginning of Wu’s career. K’ung P’ing-chung is authority for the statement that Wu Chao-i of Shu had the Five Classics printed from plates during the period 951-954. The T’ung-chien is more exact and says that Wu Chao-i opened schools and had the Nine Classics printed in 953. As this is the very year in which Féng Tao and his colleagues presented their completed work to the emperor, it is not impossible that authorities have confused the two events. On the other hand it is more likely that the same work was going on in the imperial capital and in the capital of Shu, the two courts rivalling each other to see which could complete the task first. It is certain that the text of the Stone Classics of Shu affected not only the Shu printing, but the printing of the imperial capital as well. For a fuller discussion of this whole question, see article by Wang Kuo-wei (= [sd XE ) in [ed eS a F\ (Journal of Sinological Studies) for January, 1923, pp. 139-145. It is to be noted (though not mentioned in the article referred to) that both Sst-ma Kuang and Chu Hsi, writing in the Sung dynasty, mention the early wide diffusion of printing in Shu and state that the Classics were printed there at the same time that they were being printed in the imperial capital. The conclusion of Wang Ming-ch’ing’s statement, quoted above, makes this dependence of Féng Tao’s work on the printing of Shu even more emphatic. After describing Wu Chao-i’s printing in Shu, he concludes, ‘When the emperor Ming Tsung conquered Shu, he ordered Li O, a scholar of the National Academy, to write the text of the Five Classics. Blocks were cut in the National Academy. This was the beginning of the printing of the National Academy.” 15. This book was reprinted in Tokyo in 1884 in the collection th ie te ES under the title By Usa Be 45 9% fa AS Fey AE. It has been discussed by Pelliot (Bulletin de l’Ecole Frangaise d’Extréme- Orient, 1902, vol. 2. pp. 316-317) and by Wang Kuo-wei (Journal of Sinological Studies, Jan., 1923, vol. 1, pp. 143-145). Both Pelliot and Wang Kuo-wei come to the conclusion that this is a Sung reprint 218 NOTES of the Li O original, and that it is probably a very exact reproduction of the original, but with the taboos changed. (The characters x: and are avoided, indicating that the reprint was made during the reigns of Hsiao-tsung and Kao-tsung of the Sung Dynasty). 16. Exclusive of duplicates. 17. The book referred to was the Hi, BRAC HE See 5 4 Ge i #8 ic, as quoted by P. Pelliot in his article, Documents chinois trouvés par la Mission Koslov, Journal Asiatique, 1914, p. 511. CHAPTER X THE HIGH TIDE OF CHINESE BLOCK PRINTING THE SUNG AND MONGOL DYNASTIES (960-1368) 1. See chapter 12, note 19. 2. See Pelliot, Bulletin Critique, etc., T’oung Pao, 1922, vol. 21, pp. 432-434. See also chapter 12, note 17. 3. Chapter 22. 4. The T’ai-p’ing-kuang-chi Encyclopedia was, according to Giles, printed in 981 (see Giles’ account in Encyclopedia Britannica, article China). The Shuo-wén (Ht 3), a dictionary written about A.D. 100, appeared in print between 984 and 988. (See Liu An, page 6.) 5. Chii Chung-cheng (Ai rp IE) of I-chou (Ch’éng-tu). See Liu An, page 6. 6 Hh ME IE R. 7. The full story is told by Wang Ming-ch’ing (= HA Yq), in the book Hui-chu-lu (FH pE Br). For Wu Chao-i’s earlier career in Szechuen, see previous chapter; also Liu An, page 24. 8. The dates of the first printed edition of the dynastic histories are as follows (according to =f Yq ): Shih-chi (Ssti-ma Ts’ien) and Former Han: 994 Three Kingdoms, Tsin and T’ang: 1000-1002 Later Han: 1022 North and South Dynasties and Sui: 1024-1027 Liang, Ch’ én, etc.: 1061-1063 CHAPTER X 219 There is some question about the T’ang history, here assigned to 1000-1002. It may not have been printed till 1061-1063. There are conflicting statements also about the date of the Later Han his- tory. Records of other books printed by the government printing office from 955 to 1026 will be found in Liu An, pp. 9-11. The exactness with which the dynastic histories were printed is described, no doubt with some exaggeration, by the Persian historian, Rashid-eddin. See chapter 17. 9. This is indicated by the list of missing blocks, one of which is from the Han-shu. 10. [fi ££. For full account of books published by Ch’en Chi and his son, see Yeh Té-hui, chiian 2, folios 28-31. nn. 12, E. For full account of the work of the Yu family at Chien-an, see Yeh Té-hui, chiian 2, folios 13-18. 13. AE ZF. 14. The importance of the province of Fukien as a publishing center and the sort of work done in that and other provinces is thus described by Yeh Méng-Té, writing about 1130: “At present, of all books printed throughout the empire, those of Hangchow are considered the best, those of Szechuen come next, and those of Fukien are worst. Of late years the printing blocks of the capital begin to stand but little after those of Hangchow, but the paper used is not so fine. In Szechuen and Fukien, soft wood is much used for cutting into printing blocks, the object of which is their easy completion, with a rapid sale for the books. Hence the workmanship is not good. Fukien editions are spread all over the empire, and that is on account of the ease with which they are got ready.” Translation of Meadows in Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, vol. 6, pp. 15, 16. 1s. A curious story, preserved by Kao Wén-hu ee W RB), in the book entitled Liao-hua-chou-hsien-lu (33 AE ro Fal Ex), tells of two literary graduates from Shu, who, in the first years of the Sung Dynasty, purchased the printed essays of the prize-winners in the examinations. 16. A list of local histories of the Sung period, preserved in the T’ang Chung-yu collection, is found in Liu An, p. 20. “Histories” is per- haps a misnomer for these books. They are rather summaries of the 220 * NOTES official archives, such as are still published from time to time by every Chinese city. 17. A copy of this great work is in the Library of Congress at Washing- ton, and is described in some detail in the Report of the Librarian of Congress for 1923 (pp. 174-178). Among the Sung and Yuan editions are the following: Ssii-ma Kuang’s great history of China. Ssti-ma Kuang’s collected works (printed in 1133). Adventures of the Buddhist monk Hsiian Tsang in India. Illustrated description of crop plants (printed in 1204). Collected poems of Tu Fu, the T’ang poet. Collected poems of Su Tung-p’o, the Sung poet. About sixty other collections, each containing the complete works of some one author. 18. From T’ien-lu-ling-lang (K Ge TK Hi), quoted by Liu An, pp. 51-52. 1g. Shén Kua (1030-1093) states that it was a capital offence in the Liao empire for anyone to attempt to carry a book over into the empire of the Sungs. Another writer, however, Ch’ien Ts’eng ($e ci ), mentions a book printed in the Liao realm in 997 by the monk Chih-kuang (En IE ) and carried into China. In 1or2 there is a record that the kingdom of Na-shao (FS A> ) asked for Confucian books and a copy of each of the Classics was sent there. Liu An, page 12. 20. =P BB. 21. A special office was opened in 1194 in the Kin empire for the trans- lation and copying of the Classics. See Liu An, p. 13. 22. Medical work of Sun Ssii-miao (A.D. 581-682), printed about 1300. Among the Koslov finds from Kara-khoto. 23. See H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, vol. 1, page 274. Also Yule’s Marco Polo (First edition), vol. 1, page 401. 24. 25l) A 123 AG. Printed about 1300. In Koslov collection from Kara-khoto. 25. In Koslov collection from Kara-khoto. 26. In 1391 copies of the Classics and the dynastic histories were dis- tributed among all the schools of North China. For additional particulars about early Ming printing, see Liu An, pp. 14, 26, 27. CHAPTER X 221 27. Kiangsi remained an important printing center during Mongol times. A list of Kiangsi books of the period 1312-1321 is given in Liu An, page 22. 28. Known as ¥qj {UE Flt. Another office known as §& $& A was opened at P’ing-yang. 29. The central government office for the printing of books was known by different names at different periods in the Mongol Dynasty, cor- responding probably with slightly different functions. In 1236, under Ogatai, it was a (iE of; in 1273 under Kublai mes at BE; in 1290 fi 3¢ BB; in 1330 BR A RE. 30. The office for printing the “sacred teachings of the imperial ances- tors,” opened in 1330, was the js iin ii. 31. See chapters 14 and 16. 32. See Bunjiu Nanjio, Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Bud- dhist Tripitaka, page xxiv. 33. It was in Tokyo at the time that Nanjio wrote. I have not been able to learn whether it survived the earthquake. 34. Bunjiu Nanjio. See note 32 above. 35. There are a number of books extant which with more or less reason claim an earlier date than 1157, but their dating is uncertain. The oldest claims to date from 1114. See Satow, Further Notes, etc., Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1882, vol. 10, p. 257. According to Satow, the earliest mention in Japanese literature of the printing of books in Japan is in 1172, and there is a record of the Diamond Sutra being printed in 1184. Satow’s two articles give a list with dates of such Japanese printed books of the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries as were available at the time he wrote (1882). Pauthier (Mémoires de la Société des Etudes Japonaises, vol. 6, pp. 185-186) contains the same list with certain revisions. Kamesd’s list (pp. 22-23), published in 1909, is more up to date and exact. 36. Satow, History of Printing in Japan, p. 53. 37. Chapter 14. 38. P. Pelliot, Une Bibliotheque mediévale retrouvée au Kan Sou, Bulletin de l’Ecole Francaise d’Extréme-Orient, 1908, vol. 8, pp. 525-527. 39. The information contained in this chapter concerning the Koslov discoveries is derived in the main from an article by P. Pelliot in Journal Asiatique, May-June, 1914, series 2, vol. 3, pages 503 fr.stoed 222 NOTES Bibliography.) For further details the reader is referred to that article. 40. At Tun-huang there were found dated fragments and single sheets earlier than 1016 and at least two undated books that are generally considered to have been earlier, but the Diamond Sutra of 868 is the only dated book that is older. Liu An’s reference to a Diamond Sutra of 961 from Tun-huang (page 6) seems to be due to confusion with the Diamond Sutra of 868. 41. A translation not hitherto known. 42. The patron was an official at Tan-chou (F} pI ) in Shensi (now I-ch’iian). The two engravers were from two subprefectures which are now included in the prefecture of T’ung-chou ( fr] p] ) in the same province. Pelliot, Journal Asiatique, 1914, pp. 507-508. 43. Yuian-shih (3c ), chapter 18, fol. 4v°. See Pelliot, Journal Asiatique, 1914, p. 518. 44. See chapter 19. 45. $E HL RE SC. 46. One is a commentary on Chuang-tzt, an edition apparently of the thirteenth century—a book lost and unknown in China from the fourteenth century on. The other is no. 372 in P. Wieger’s list. 47. Cordier, Histoire de Chine, vol. 2, p. 336. 48. Howorth, History of the Mongols, London, 1876, vol. 1, page 274; Yule’s Marco Polo (First edition), vol. 1, p. 401. 49. Quoted from Yeh Méng-té by Ma Tuan-lin in Wén-hsien-t'ung-k ao. Translation of Meadows in Miscellanies of Philobiblon Society, 1860, pp. 14-15. The Chinese text is quoted by Yeh Té-hui, vol. 1, folio 24. CHAPTER XI THE PRINTING OF PAPER MONEY 1. “As to the skin currency (RZ fips ) of the ancient kings, the feudal princes used to offer these skins as presents when they were invited to court. ‘At present’ (quoting from the annals of the reign of Wu Ti, (B.c. 140-86) ‘pieces of the skins of white stags are used, a foot square and embroidered at the hems, and of them a skin currency is made, of a value of forty thousand cash. Whenever kings, princes and noblemen CHAPTER XI 223 of imperial clans come up to court, to have an audience with His Majesty and to offer presents, they receive these pieces of skin as badges of honor. Thereupon they will be brought in circulation, as they will always be desired by persons who wish to have an audience’.” Ma Tuan-lin (& Naa Re ), Wén-hsien-t’ ung-k’ ao (3¢ ek iff S), 8:8a. Quotations in this chapter simply marked Ma Tuan-lin are from this book (published about 1319), which is the main source for the history of paper money. In general in these quotations the trans- lation of Vissering (see Bibliography) has been followed, though the Chinese text has been compared and where necessary the translation has been revised. . “Under the reign of the emperor Hsien Tsung (806-821), because money was scarce again, the use of copper tools and implements was prohibited. At that time merchants who came to the capital brought with them the money they had received in outlying provinces, and deposited it in the public treasury. . . . Instead of their money, they received certificates of indebtedness (4> FP). These bore the name of ‘flying money’ (Fe $B) . . . The imperial governor of the capital proposed to suspend the issue of paper money to the merchants.” Ma Tuan-lin, 8: 39, 40. Vissering, p. 120. The phrase Ay ZF means literally “fitting together documents.” It would seem to imply that the receipts were torn from the stubs, and that for authentication, when brought for redemption, they must again be fitted to the stubs, after the manner of a Chinese laundry ticket. . For text and translation see Vissering, p. 121. . As Buddhist charms had been printed in Japan some thirty years earlier than this, and presumably still earlier in China, it is not in- herently impossible that this paper money was printed. However the whole tenor of the references to printing in Féng Tao’s time, both in Shu and in the imperial capital, renders it improbable that any public official printing had been done a century and a half earlier. It is to be noted also that, while this “flying money” is appealed to as a precedent at the time of the first issue of true paper money in the Sung Dynasty, the words used to describe the new issue are all of them different. . See Terrien de Lacouperie, Paper Money of the Ninth Century, Numismatic Chronicle, vol. II., third series, pp. 334-341, London, 224 NOTES 1882; and Andrew M. Davis, Certain Old Chinese Notes, Boston, 1915. See also note 18. Ara 7. See Vissering, p. 167. 8. A number of facts point directly to this conclusion, which is generally accepted by both Chinese and Western writers. The paper money now extant, belonging to the fourteenth century, is clearly and beauti- fully printed, the seals being stamped on later in red in lieu of signa- ture. Such references as we have in Ma Tuan-lin, early as well as late, would seem to describe just such notes as those from the fourteenth century that have come down to us. Although the indentity of the Chinese words for “seal” and “print” causes some ambiguity, there is one passage under the year 1168 (Vissering, p. 195), where the words ED) iti are used, and these words, taken in connection with the con- text, admit of no doubt that true printing is referred to. This makes the printing of notes as early as 1168 a certainty. There is no reason to suppose that the process there described was any different from that previously in use. The very great quantity of notes in circulation— nearly two million in the period 995-998 and steadily increasing— would necessitate printing. During the tenth century—to which the above arguments do not apply with such full force as for the later period—the notes were produced in exactly the places where other printing is known to have been carried on at the same time. It is natural to suppose therefore that from the time of the first issue in Shu all notes were printed. g. The bills of exchange (48 +), as the notes of the eleventh century were called, were not convertible on demand, but were issued for a term of sixty-five years, with a provision, however, that under certain circumstances they could be redeemed at specified times every three years during the period. When in 1076 the issue of 1011 (these dates are approximate, as there are discrepancies in detail in the sources) came due, a new issue of 1,250,000 ¢iao was made in order to replace it, apparently not increasing the total circulation. The first actual in- crease in the total circulation was in 1094, when an additional 150,000 was issued. Up to this time there had always been a reserve fund in metallic currency back of the notes, amounting to three-sevenths of the total circulation, but during the years between 1094 and CHAP LER XI 225 1107, while circulation was largely increased, this rule was not followed. 10. Vissering, pp. 207-208. 11. H. Cordier, Histoire de Chine, vol. 2, p. 240. 12. For table, showing year by year the issues of paper money during the early part of the Mongol Dynasty, see H. B. Morse, Currency in China, Journal China Branch Royal Asiatic Society, 1907, vol. 38, p.23. TR 1 Oldie Perea. 14. See chapter 17. 15. The Japanese notes were quite different in form from the Chinese, being only about six inches by two. They seem to have been well secured by a metallic reserve. See Yule’s Marco Polo (Cordier edi- tion), vol. 1, pp. 427-428; and Yule’s Cathay and the Way Thither (Cordier edition), vol. 3, p. 150. 16. These writers are: William de Rubruquis (c. 1215-1270); Roger Bacon (1214-1294); Marco Polo (1298); Hayton (1307); Odoric (c. 1330); the archbishop of Soltania (c. 1330); Pegollotti (c. 1340); and Josafat Barbara (c. 1436). The more important of their statements are as follows: bh De Rubruquis: “The ordinary money of Cathay is made of cotton paper, as large as a hand, upon which they imprint certain lines and marks made like the seal of Mangu (imprimunt lineas sicut est sigellum Mangu) . . . As for the Russians, the money which is current among them is made of little pieces of leather, marked with colors.” Odoric: “They have an edict from their lord that every fire (i. e. household) shall pay to the Great Khan annually a tax of one dal/is, i.e., of five pieces of paper like silk, a sum equal to one florin and a half.” Pegolotti: “There (at Cassai, i. e., Hangchow) you can dispose of the sommi of silver (silver ingots) that you have with you, for that is a most active place of business. After getting to Cassai you carry on with the money which you get for the sommi of silver which you sell there; and this money is made of paper and is called da/ishi. And four pieces of this money are worth one sommi of silver in the province of Cathay.” Paper money was mentioned also by a number of Arabic writers, including Ibn Batuta (1348) and Ahmed Shibab Eddin (died 1338). 226 NOTES Hayton is here included among European writers, because his writing was done in France and in the French language. His book 1s an account of the visit of his relative, the king of Armenia, to the court of the Great Khan. 17. Translation of Yule (Cordier’s edition, vol. 1, pp. 423-426). 18. Plates purporting to represent banknotes of various dynasties from T’ang to Yuan are contained in a pamphlet by Ramsden (H. A. Ramsden, Chinese Paper Money, Yokohama, 1911) and a book by Davis (Andrew M. Davis, Certain Old Chinese Notes, Boston, 1915). These plates and the information concerning them are based on a Chinese work entitled CW’ tian-pu-t’ ung-chih (Ft th if nse which I am able to state on Pelliot’s authority is a forgery. See also note A reproduction of a banknote found in a Chinese work, and a block for printing banknotes, both claiming to date from the Kin Dynasty, are described by Bushell (S. W. Bushell, Specimens of Ancient Chinese Paper Money, Journal of Peking Oriental Society, 1889, vol. 2, pp. 308-316) and have somewhat more claim to be regarded as genuine. 19. I am indebted for this description of the Mongol notes found by the Koslov expedition to Professor Basil M. Alekseiev of the Soviet Uni- versity of Leningrad (Petrograd) who very kindly examined and described them for me. CHAPTER XII EARLY COMMERCE IN THOUGHT AND IN WARES ALONG THE GREAT SILK WAYS 1. For reports of recent discoveries of neolithic culture in China and a discussion of its relation to neolithic culture in other countries, see J. G. Anderson, 4n Early Chinese Culture, Bulletin of the Geological Survey of China, No. 5, 1923. Also J. G. Anderson, Arkeologiske Studier 1 Kina, Ymer, vol. 2. Stockholm, 1923. 2. For full discussion of what Chang Ch’ien’s mission meant in the opening up of trade, see B. Laufer, Sino-Iranica, pp. 535 ff. Chang Ch’ien found bamboo staves and cloth from Szechuen already in use in Bactria, which he concludes came by way of India. CHAPTER XII 227 3. For additional details, and translations of the Chinese sources on which these statements are based, see F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient. 4. The two authorities for the introduction of silkworm eggs during Justinian’s reign are Theophanes and Procopius. Theophanes refers to the country from which the silk worm eggs were introduced as the “land of Seres,”’ Procopius as “India.” Both terms were at that time used very loosely by Greek writers. It is known from Chinese sources that silk culture was introduced into Khotan (at the western end of what is now Chinese Turkestan) in 419, and it is probable that it was from here that the eggs were introduced into Constan- tinople. s. For fuller details and references to sources, see Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, vol. 1, pp. 186-191. 6. See Laufer, Sino-Iranica, pp. 539-540. 7. The chicken (or its prototype) is indigenous in northern India and Burmah. The date of its introduction to China cannot be determined; it was already known in the pre-Confucian period. It is first men- tioned in Babylonian inscriptions in the seventh or sixth century, B.c. It is not mentioned in Homer or the Old Testament, but is constantly mentioned in the New Testament. Aristophanes calls it “Persian bird.” The above is the generally accepted view (see Encyclopedia Bri- tannica, art. Fow/). It should be added however that, in view of dis- coveries in the tomb of Tutankhamen, and other discoveries in Egypt, a certain amount of modification of this theory may be necessary. 8. The first mention of tea in Chinese literature, so far as known, is in the biography of Wei Chao in the San-kuo-chih (=. Ba ea Wei Chao died in a.p. 273 and the author of the San-kuo-chih in 297. Tea had, however, not spread through north China till about the tenth century. It was very little known among the Mongols till the thir- teenth or fourteenth century. (See P. Pelliot, Bulletin Critique, etc., T’oung Pao, 1922, vol. 21, pp. 432-434.) On the other hand, tea 1s described by an Arab traveller in China in the ninth century and its use apparently spread to Russia and Western Asia during Mongol times. In consequence of this the name for tea in Russian, Turkish, Persian and Modern Greek is based on the north Chinese ch’a. It is not mentioned in European literature till 1588 when it was imported poke NOTES from south China by the Portuguese, whose tea trade was soon superseded by that of the Dutch. Hence the word ‘tea’ and its varia- tions, derived probably from the dialect of Fukien, is used in the languages of western Europe. g. See chapter Ig. . 1o. The carrot is apparently a native of northern Europe. It was culti- vated by the Anglo-Saxons before they invaded Britain. It was carried by the Arabs into Persia in the tenth century. From there it entered China during the Mongol Empire. Laufer, Sino-Iranica, PP: 451-454. 11. The first mention of glass in China is during the time of the Three Kingdoms between 221 and 264 a.p. The glass here mentioned was probably imported from Alexandria. The manufacture of glass was apparently introduced into north China and south China indepen- dently and both during the 5th century. According to the annals of the Wei Dynasty, glass-making was introduced into north China between the years 424 and 452 from the kingdom of the Indo-Scythi- ans (probably Khotan). According to the annals of the Sung (Liu Sung) Dynasty, the Emperor of Ta Ts’in (Rome or Constantinople) sent to the Emperor Wén Ti (424-454) a large variety of presents made of glass of all colors, and some years later a workman in glass who “‘was able to change fire stones into crystals, and who taught his secret to his pupils, whereby great glory was gained by all those coming from the West.” S. W. Bushell, Chinese Art, vol. 2, pp. 58-69. 12. All true alphabets in the world appear to have sprung from one early source in Phenicia and Palestine. This alphabet reached India from its source by the Mediterranean almost as soon as it reached Greece. Through the early centuries of the Christian era the Indian forms of the alphabet vied with those coming directly from Syria for supremacy in Central Asia. The Tibetan alphabet, one of the Mongol alphabets, and the Korean alphabet were based on Sanskrit; while the alphabet of the Manchus, which is still seen on Chinese coins, . goes back ultimately to a Syriac source, through Sogdian, Uigur and Mongol as intermediaries. 13. The history of spinach and of sugar are also interesting as showing how ideas found their way in these early days through Asia and - Europe. The earliest known reference to spinach in any literature is contained in the annals of the T’ang Dynasty, where it is stated that CHAPUBRS XII 229 in the year 647 the king of Nepaul sent some spinach to the Chinese Emperor T’ai Tsung. There is some evidence that Nepaul got its spinach from Persia. At any rate it was in Persia that the Arabs found the vegetable not long after their conquest of the country. By the eleventh century it had spread through the Arabic dominions as far as Spain, but it was not until the fourteenth or fifteenth cen- tury—after the Crusades—that its entrance into Christendom 1s recorded. (Laufer, Sino-Iranica, pp. 392-398.) Sugar cane was imported into China as early as A.D. 285 from Indo- China and was again imported into China from Persia during the seventh century. During the seventh century also a special mission was sent by the Chinese Emperor to Magadha in India to learn the process of boiling sugar, and this Indian method was adopted by the sugar-growers of Yang-chou. Through the Middle Ages the Saracen Empire was the center of sugar production. Sugar-cane was intro- duced by the Arabs from Persia into Egypt, Sicily and the south of Spain. As late as the thirteenth century sugar refiners from Cairo came to China to teach the superior methods of sugar refining that were practised in Egypt. From Cyprus and Sicily sugar production was carried to Madeira about 1420 and to the Canaries in 1503. Sugar production in Brazil and Haiti began also very soon after the discovery of America. Other examples of the spread of ideas through the Euro-Asiatic continent are found in the study of such games as dice, chess and backgammon. The spread of playing cards, as more closely related to printing, is studied in chapter Ig. 14. Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica, Chicago, 1919. The writer is in- debted to this book for most of the material in this chapter concerning agricultural plants. 15. Yahb-allaha III, patriarch of the whole Nestorian church, with seat at Bagdad, 1281-1317. 16. This place, rendered in Arabic Hanfu, has sometimes been identified with Hangchow. For its identification with Canton see statement by Pelliot in T’oung Pao, 1922, vol. 21, p. 410. 17. G. Schlegel, On the Invention and Use of Firearms and Gunpowder in China prior to the Arrival of Europeans, ‘T’oung Pao, 1902, series 2, vol. 3, pp. 1-11; P. Pelliot, Bulletin Critique, etc., T’oung Pao, 1922, vol. 21, pp. 432-434. 230 NOTES 18. There are certain indications that the compass may have been used for navigation in south China about the fifth century, but it cannot be stated with certainty. 19. F. Hirth, History of Ancient China, pp. 126-136; Jules Klaproth, Lettre a2 M. le Baron A. de Humboldt sur Pinvention de le boussole, Paris, 1834. CHAPTER XIII PAPER’S THOUSAND YEAR JOURNEY FROM CHINA TO EUROPE 1, A. Blanchet, Essai sur histoire du papier, pp. 16-17. Note espe- cially quotations from Chou-tien-p’u, Tien-chen-p’u, and Pen-ts’ao- kang-mu. . This paper from Loulan, containing a fragment from the Classics, is undated, the date being estimated from the style of writing, etc. The oldest certain dated document from Loulan (which is the oldest dated paper yet found) is of the year 264. Another fragment probably bears the date of 252, but the year cannot be deciphered with cer- tainty. 3. There are one or two isolated points where the use of wood for writing parallel with that of paper persisted. At Miran it continued till about the eighth century. Otherwise the triumph of paper by the end of the fifth century was complete. | 4. A. F. R. Hoernle, Who was the Inventor of Rag Paper? Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, 1903, pp. 663 fF. 5. F. Hirth, Chinese Studies, page 270. 6. The raw fibers are largely those of paper mulberry, laurel and China grass (Boehmeria Nivea). 7. The following, written in Parma in 1782 by Andrez, and quoted by Thomas (Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, Worces- ter, Mass., 1810, pp. 37-38), indicates one of the views that used to be held with regard to cotton paper, “Paper made from silk was anciently fabricated in China, the art of making this paper was carried from China to Persia about the year 652 and to Mecca in 706. The Arabs substituted cotton and carried the art of paper-making into Africa and Spain.” vb CHAPTER XIII 231 8. The earliest paper in the collection is believed to date somewhere between the year 796 and 816. See Grohmann, page 58. Karabacek would date it a few years earlier than 796. g. The famous manuscript of the Convent of San Gilos, dating from 1129, has alternate pages of parchment and paper. This may have been paper imported from Africa, though it is more likely that it was Spanish, and would therefore antedate the statement here quoted from E]-Edrisi. 10. Cologne and Mainz both claim to have had paper factories as early as 1320, but the claim is disputed. Nuremberg’s manufacture of paper is the first that is known with certainty. 11. It seems fitting that Nuremberg should have been the home a century later of Albrecht Diirer, who was not only Germany’s greatest painter, but also a maker of woodcuts on paper. 12. For further details and dates as to the progress of paper, see the accompanying map and chart. CHAPTER XIV THE PRINTING OF THE UIGUR TURKS IN THE REGION OF TURFAN 1. This mingling is illustrated in the Buddhist monastery of Toyok near Turfan, which now through a curious confusion of faiths has become a point of pilgrimage for Moslems from India and Arabia. Among the papers found in this old monastery were an enormous number of Chinese Buddhist manuscripts, fragments of Indian manu- scripts written on birch bark and on palm leaf, fragments in a still unknown Semitic script, several manuscripts in old Turkish runes, some Sogdian writings, Manichean writings in Turkish and Persian, Uigur writings in four different kinds of script, some Syriac fragments, some Manichean and Buddhist embroideries, and some beautiful Manichean miniatures. In the ruin of an old church near by are a large number of Christian texts in Syriac. No wonder the Mohamme- dans regard as sacred the place where so many peoples and faiths have met! 2. See chapter 8. 3. Only a part of this book—some ten leaves—has been found. gts) NOTES 4. The Tangut script was officially adopted in 1036. For brief descrip- tion and historical sketch of the Tanguts, see Cordier, Histoire de Chine, vol. 2, pp. 199-203. 5. Itis interesting to note that these six languages are exactly the same e as those which Pelliot found in manuscript and printed remains in one of the later caves at Tun-huang. Furthermore a stone found at Tun-huang, dated 1348, contains parallel inscriptions in these same six languages. And four of these languages (all except Mongol and Sanskrit) are mentioned by De Rubruquis as the languages used for writing at the Mongol court when he visited the Grand Khan in the middle of the thirteenth century. . See chapter 22. . “The Uigurs, an ancient Tartar people, have at all times been cele- brated in Tartary. They have cultivated sciences and arts... . They write like the Chinese from the top down; and were the first to use wooden blocks for printing.”” De Guignes, Histoire des Huns, 1, VII. Strange to say, this was written in the eighteenth century, before the discovery of any of the Uigur printing at Turfan. . F.H. Skrine and E. D. Ross, Heart of Asia. London, 1899. Pp. 155- 157. “During the reign of the grandsons of Jinghis Khan, the accountants and chief officers of government in Mavara-un-Nar, in Khorasan and in Irak were all Uigurs. Similarly it was the Uigurs who filled these posts in China during the reigns of the sons of Jinghis. Ogatai en- trusted Khorasan, Mazandaran and Gilan to a Uigur named Kurguz, who was well versed in keeping accounts, and knew thoroughly how to levy in these provinces the taxes, which he remitted regularly each year to Ogatai.” Abul Ghazi, quoted by N. Elias and E. D. Ross, The Tarikh-i-Rashidi, page 94. There are many other notices to the same effect, both in Chinese and in Arabic. CHAPTER XV ISLAM AS A BARRIER TO PRINTING . Itis probable that an edition of Réshid had already appeared at Con- stantinople in 1714 under similar auspices. These were the only two books published. 2. Go _ GEAR TER OO. 939 I am indebted to Dr. Grohmann for the statement that, according to Theseus Ambrosius (d. 1540) in the book Introductio in Chaldaicam Linguam (Pavia, 1539), folio 11, Father Alessandro de Paginini of Brescia, who printed in Venice between 1485 and 1499, brought out an edition of the Koran in Arabic type. This was without doubt the oldest Arabic printing in Europe. At Fano Arabic printing was done in 1514, and in 1518 it seems probable that another edition of the Koran was printed in Italy. . For English translation of Chou Ju-kua’s works, with valuable intro- duction and notes, see F. Hirth and W. W. Rockhill, Chau Fu-kua, St. Petersburg, IgII. . Travels of Ibn Batuta, translated by Samuel Lee. London, 1829. Pp. 215-216. There has recently been some doubt expressed as to whether Ibn Batuta was ever in China. (Gabriel Ferrand, Relation de voyages, etc., Paris, 1913.) Whether Ibn Batuta was ever in China himself, the book expresses the view of Arabs of his day, and further- more it contains a true picture of China that could only have been derived from the narrative of a traveller in that country. Py nce. chapter 17; CHAPTER XVI THE MEETING OF CHINA AND EUROPE IN THE MONGOL EMPIRE . “It seems that at that time Eastern Mongolia was connected with Persia and Russia by great highways through Central Asia. The Chinese and Mongol writers of that period record that Genghis Khan on his expedition to Western Asia in 121g first established these roads and had great difficulty in leading them through the inaccessible mountains which in some places stopped the passage. It is further related that the great conqueror’s successor, Ogatai, established on these roads military stations on a large scale. At that time considerable Mongol armies were sent repeatedly to the far West, overrunning Western Asia and the eastern part of Europe. Couriers passed hither and thither, as well as envoys from different Western kingdoms. There have been preserved five Chinese narratives of journeys to the far West, published in the thirteenth century.” E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, vol. 1, p. 4. 234 NOTES 2. See chapter 14, esp. note 4. 3. For Mongol paper money, see chapter 11. For other printing in the Mongol language found at Turfan and Tun-huang, and for records of Mongol printing in China, see chapters Io and 14. 4. For further details with regard to the Chinese prints of Kara-khoto, see chapter 10. Also P. Pelliot, Les documents chinois trouvés par la Mission Koslov 2 Khara-khoto, Journal Asiatique, 1914, series 2, vol. 3, pp- 503-518. For information about the Tangut and Mongol prints, I am indebted to Professor Basil M. Alexeiev of the University of Leningrad (Petrograd), who has very kindly examined them for me. 5. Chapter Io. 6. For this statement of John of Plano Carpini, and for discussion of its implications, see P. Pelliot, Les Mongols et la Papauté, Revue de Orient Chrétien, series 3, vol. 3 (23), nos. I and 2 (1922-1923), pp. 27-28. An impression from this same seal, recently found in the archives of the Vatican, is reproduced (with translation) in the same article, page 22. 7. The currency of Russia in earlier times had been the furs of animals, especially the Siberian squirrel, which were worth an exact weight of silver. It is generally believed by Russian writers that during Mongol times, under the influence of the paper-money of the rest of the Mongol empire, the Russians began to use, instead of whole furs, small pieces of fur stamped by the government and redeemable in the stores of the government for whole skins. The matter is the subject of some debate. It is discussed and a full bibliography given by A. L. von Ebengreuth in Al/gemeine Miinzkunde und Geldgeschichte, Munich and Berlin, 1904, page 36. . The Latin is typographos artifices. The word typographos is probably used loosely for ordinary Chinese printing rather than for typography. I have therefore translated it merely “printers.” g. “Quod maxime mirandum videtur, ibi (Canton) esse typographos artifices, qui libros historias et sacrorum ceremonias continentes, more nostro imprimant: quorum longissima folia introrsus quadrata serie complicentur. Cuius generis volumen a rege Lusitaniae cum ele- phante dono missum Leo pontifex humaniter nobis ostendit: ut hinc facile credamus eius artis exempla antequam Lusitani in Indiam penetrarint per Scythas et Moscos ad incomparabile litterarum praesidium ad nos pervenisse.”” Paulus Jovius (Paulo Giovio), lee) CHAPTER XVI O06 Historia sui Temporis (originally published in 1550), edition of 1558, book 1, chapter 14, page 161. This earliest Furopean mention of Chinese printing has apparently not before been noticed except in an unpublished manuscript in St. Bride’s Library, London, by Richard Smith, written in 1670, in which Jovius’ view that printing was intro- duced from the “Indians of Cataia” by means of “the Scythians and Muscovites” is rather unfavorably discussed. Jovius had been an ambassador to Moscow not long after the new Russian state had freed itself from Mongol domination, and has left a history of Russia as well as several books descriptive of that country. His statements concerning Russia therefore carry considerable weight. On the other hand, he quotes no authority, and his statement may be only a con- jecture, based on his general knowledge of Russian history and of Chinese printing. 10. This letter from the Grand Khan to the Pope was discovered in the Archivio di Castello by P. Cyrille Karalevskyj. It was identified and deciphered by Pelliot, and has been published by him, to- gether with a facsimile of its seals. (Paul Pelliot, Les Mongols et la Papauté, Revue de l’Orient Chrétien, 1922-1923, series 3, vol. 3 (23), nos. I and 2, pp. 3-30). The seal impressions, like the Chinese seal impressions on the letters from the Persian Ilkhans (see chapter 17, note 2) are 5% inches square, but these are in Mongol, not Chinese. Pelliot (pp. 27-28) has given his reasons for concluding that these seal impressions were made from the seal described by Carpini and cut by the Russian seal cutter Cosmas. Some half dozen other letters from Mongol sovereigns (most of them from Ilkhans of Persia) have also recently been found in the Vatican archives, and will be published in forthcoming numbers of the same review. A list of these documents will be found in the article already published (see above), pp. 2 and 3. ; 11. A number of Chinese seals were dug up in Ireland about 1800 and are described in a paper read before the Belfast Literary Society by Edmund Getty in 1850, entitled, Notices of Chinese Seals found in Ireland. Getty believes that they were brought to Ireland by early monks and date from the eighth or ninth century, but it is more than probable that they were brought by Irish sailors at a much later date. 12. De Rubruquis, Latin edition of d’Avezac, page 329. Additional 236 NOTES interest attaches to the reports of De Rubruquis, on account of the fact that Roger Bacon read his book and was personally acquainted with him after his return from Central Asia. (Opus Majus, Oxford edition of 1897, vol. 1, pp. 353-366.) 13. It is Pauthier’s edition of Marco Polo (G. Pauthier, Le Jivre de Marco Polo, introduction, page 78) that has given currency to this story. Pauthier’s statement is quoted from Delpierre (Octave Del- pierre, Analyse des travaux de la Société Philobiblon & Londres, page 23), which is in turn quoted from a paper read by R. Curzon before the Philobiblon Society in 1860. (Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society of London, vol. 6, page 25). On what Curzon based his statement is uncertain. It seems probable that it was an old Italian tradition. 14. See chapter 11. 15. The signification of “Tarsic” is uncertain. Cordier (Histoire de Chine, vol. 2, p. 413) suggests Estrangelo script. Ross (E. D. Ross, Tarikh-t-Rashidt, p. 96), commenting on this passage, says it means Uigur. Whatever the script may have been, the language was prob- ably either Uigur or Mongol. 16. Seven were actually sent, but only three arrived. 17. The later history of this first phase of Catholic missions in China is shrouded in mystery. On the death of Monte Corvino in 1328, Friar Nicholas of Paris was sent out from Avignon to succeed him, accom- panied by twenty monks and six lay brothers. They left Avignon in 1333, and in 1338 are heard of at Almaligh in Eastern Turkestan. By this time Islam was rapidly gaining ground in Eastern Turkestan and the land route was becoming increasingly difficult. There is no record that they ever reached China. However, in 1338 Europeans arrived in China with letters written in 1336, and again in 1342 the Pope sent an embassy, headed by Marignolli, who after four years returned to Europe and wrote an account of his journey. After Marignolli’s return in 1346 nothing further is known with certainty of the mission in China, though there are indications that the last missionaries in Fukien were martyred in 1362. From the Avignon end it is known that more missionaries were sent out. William of Prato was made archbishop of Cambaluc in 1370 and sixty clergy followed him. Francis of Podio was sent the next year as apostolic legate with twelve followers. The Vatican records show a full line of archbishops of Cambaluc through the next century. But, so far as > CHAPTER XVI 237 known, they went out into the darkness, never to be heard of again. The break-up of the power of the Ikhans of Persia and the renewed activity of the Turks closed both the land route and the water route between Europe and the Far East, while the fall of Mongol power in China in 1368 rendered China inhospitable to foreigners. For a century and a half the barrier between China and the West was seldom crossed. Columbus tried to reopen a route for intercourse in 1492, Vasco Da Gama succeeded in 1499. But even after the discovery of this lengthy route around Africa, it was centuries before China and Europe came again so close together as they had been during the time of the Mongols. 18. Further exploration of libraries and archives in Italy may add evidence with regard to this hypothesis. In 1922, in the Laurentian Library in Florence there was rediscovered a Latin manuscript Bible that had been in use in China by missionaries of the Mongol period. Unfortunately none of the Chinese or Mongol Christian literature that they prepared has yet been discovered. It would also be interest- ing to discover how many of this company of missionaries returned to Europe when the Mongol Empire broke up, and what they did after their return. 19. In 1305 John of Monte Corvino had seen no European for twelve years, though a “Master Peter,” a “great merchant,” had accom- panied him to Cambaluc. It was probably between 1310 and 1320 that commercial intercourse on a larger scale began. 20. See note 9. CHAPTER XVII PERSIA, THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST 1. Ghazan Khan in 1295 had proclaimed himself independent of the Peking court, but these seals indicate that even in 1305 the indepen- dence was not quite complete. At least the Great Seal was still derived from China. 2. The earlier of the two letters in the Paris archives from the Persian Ilkhans is dated 1289. The seal impressions are in red ink and consist of Chinese characters. They are 5% inches square. The second letter with similar seals is dated 1305. A duplicate of this was sent to 238 NOTES Edward II. of England (Yule, Marco Polo, Cordier edition, vol. 2, Pp. 444.) Recently, in the archives of the Vatican, a whole series of other letters from the Ilkhans of Persia has been found. A list of these is contained in an article by Pelliot in a recent number of the Revue de ’Orient Chrétien (see Bibliography), and the documents will be pub- lished in later numbers of the same review. 3. Yule, Marco Polo, Cordier edition, vol. 2, p. 477, note. . Lbid., vol. 1, pp. 119-121. Two letters from the Nestorian patriarch Mar Yahb-alaha III. (Rabban Marcos) to the Pope, dated 1302 and 1304, have recently been found in the archives of the Vatican. The text is Arabic and the seals Uigur. Pelliot has announced his in- tention of publishing these two letters in a forthcoming number of the Revue de |’Orient Chrétien. 5. The name of this Chinese general was Kuo K’an (Mongol, Kuka Ilka). He commanded the right flank of the Mongol army in its ad- vance on Bagdad and remained in charge of the city after its sur- render. His life in Chinese has been preserved. E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, vol. 1, p. 4. aN 6. Yule, Marco Polo, Cordier edition, vol. 1, page 76, note. 7. H.H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, Part III, p. 629. 8. For a fuller narrative of the relations between Venice and Persia during this period, see H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, Part III, pp. 631-633. It is evident that during a part of this time Venice maintained consuls not only at Tabriz but in other cities of Persia as well. g. There is no literary record of the Egyptian block printing activity described in the next chapter. We have only the prints themselves as evidence. 10. The word appears both in Chinese character (gb ch’ao,) and in Arabic transliteration. This character was first applied to paper money in the Sung Dynasty, and is still the usual word used. 11. It has been calculated that 1294 was the very year that Marco Polo was in Tabriz. Malcolm has even suggested that Marco had something to do with proposing this issue of paper money. Yule, Marco Polo, Cordier edition, vol. 1, pp. 428-429, note. 12. Yule, Marco Polo, Cordier edition, vol. 1, pp. 428-429, note; Browne, Persian Literature under the Tartar Dominion, pp. 37-39. CHAPTER XVII 239 13. For the early history of paper money in Europe, see chapter 21, note 6. 14. Ghazan had been governor of Khorassan in 1294 at the time of the issue of paper money. He refused to have any ch’ao khanahs (paper money offices) opened in his province. Yule, Marco Polo, Cordier edition, vol. 1, pp. 428-429, note. 1s. Rashid-eddin was made vizier about 1298. He presented his Great Universal History (Fami’u’t-Tawérikh) to Uljaitu, Ghazan’s successor, in 1310 or 1311. He was put to death by Uljaitu’s successor, Abusaid, on Sept. 13, 1318. For further details of his life and work, see H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, Part I, Preface; E. G. Browne, Notes on the Contents of Tarikh-i-Fahan-Gusha, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1904, p. 28; E. G. Browne, Persian Literature under the Mongol Dominion, pp. 68-75; Henry Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, Cordier edition, vol. 3, pp. 108-133. 16. Translation of E. G. Browne (Edward G. Browne, 4 History of Persian Literature under Tartar Dominion, Cambridge, 1920, pp. 102-103.) Browne’s translation is from the Ta’rikh-t-Bandkati (see note 19, below) which appeared in 1317, and which took over this description from Rashid’s history. For translation of the same passage in French, made directly from Rashid, see Jules Klaproth, Lettre a M. le Baron A. de Humboldt sur Pinvention de la boussole, Paris, 1834, pp. 131-132. Klaproth’s translation does not differ essentially from that of Browne. 17. See chapter 15. 18. For full list of these twenty-six MSS., see E. G. Browne, Suggestions for a completed Translation of the fami'w’t, etc., Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1908, pp. 33-37: 19. Rawdatu Uli’ LAlbéb fi tawarikhi’l-Akdbir wa’l-Ansdéb by Abu Sulayman Da’ud of Bandkat in Transoxiana, completed in 1317, and usually known as the Ta’rikh-i-Banékati. The author was contem- porary with Rashid and was poet-laureate under Ghazan Khan from 1301 to 1302. Five of the nine sections of his history are devoted to non-Moslem peoples and bear the titles, The Fews, The European Nations, including the Roman Emperors and the Popes, The Indians, The Chinese and The Mongols. The section on Europe has references to Portugal, Poland, Bohemia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Lombardy, Paris and Cologne. See E. G. Browne, 4 History of Persian Literature 240 NOTES under Tartar Dominion, pp. 100-102. Apparently it was through Banakati that Rashid’s description came to the attention of Gerard Meerman, who quoted from it in his Origines Typographicae in 1765. See Introduction, note 2. CHAPTER XVIII BLOCK PRINTING IN EGYPT DURING THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES 1. In addition to the prints at Vienna, there are six of similar character in the University Library at Heidelberg (first detected as block prints by Grohmann in 1922), one in the Neues Museum at Berlin, and several in Cairo. I have been informed that there are also two similar prints in the British Museum, but have been unable to find them there. One of the block prints at Heidelberg is on parchment. All others are on paper. 2. The approximate date 1350 as terminus ad quem is certain, for the quantities of dated documents (written) end at this time and it is clear that nothing was added later. It is also clear that some of the block prints date from near the end of this period, as they are in forms of script that did not exist earlier. The dating of the earliest prints is more difficult. No. 946 (the one here reproduced) is clearly, from the point of view of script, the oldest. This is dated by Karabacek as tenth century. Moritz comments on this “earlier than goo rather than later.” Dr. Grohmann (in reviewing a tentative draft of my chapter) writes, “Number 946 should from the paleographic standpoint be dated in the eighth century a.p. If Karabacek and I have assigned this print to the tenth century, it is a concession to the feeling that at so early a period the Koran could not have been printed on paper. . . . Number 948 however, like all the other prints, including charms, is certainly later than No. 946, which thus represents the oldest print.” This is the paleographic evidence. After studying other sides of the question, I cannot help wondering whether the conclusions based on paleography are final. There is always the possibility that the blocks were cut at a later date in imitation of early manuscripts. All that can be said with certainty about date is that wn > CHAPTER XVIII 241 the whole collection is earlier than the middle of the fourteenth century. No. 946 in the Erzherzog Rainer Collection. No. 948 in the Erzherzog Rainer Collection. With some of the bits of printing in Egypt, there were found frag- ments which seem to bear clear traces of Turfan art, among them a tiny but beautifully colored Buddha. . The earliest recorded importation of Turkish slave-mercenaries to Bagdad was in 673. In 808 they are first heard of in Egypt. From about 828 to the end of the Caliphate, the Caliphs of Bagdad were little more than playthings in the hands of their Turkish bodyguard. In 830 Egypt was given as fief to a Turkish general. From this time down to 1517, except during the years 969-1171, Egypt was under the rule of individuals of Turkish origin. Till 868 these rulers were Turkish generals in the employ of the Bagdad Caliph—one of whom in 856 started the practice of filling all the chief offices in the state with Turks. From 868 Egypt became a separate power under Turkish dynasties, usually including as one of its provinces such part of Palestine as was not occupied by the Crusaders. To maintain this power a Turkish army was necessary, for which a constant stream of recruits from Central Asia kept pouring in. CHAPTER XIX PLAYING CARDS AS A FACTOR IN THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF PRINTING . “Hung Tsun-hsii, writing in the Sung Dynasty, states, ‘Backgammon had its origin in western India, spread into Wei (the name of North China during the period of the Three Kingdoms, A.D. 220-265), became general under the Liang, Ch’en, Wei, Ch’i, Sui and T’ang Dynasties, and up to the time of the emperor T’ai Tsung of our own Dynasty’.’’ Karl Himly, Die Abteilung der Spiele in ‘Spiegel der Mandschu Sprache, T’oung Pao, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 299-321. According to Himly, there is a reference to backgammon in Japan in the Nihongi under date 690-697, and there are other Chinese and Japanese authorities who agree that backgammon came from India. 242 NOTES 2. From very early times (at least from the middle of the Chou Dynasty) there had been a game of ch’i in China which is commonly translated chess. The history of this game is discussed by E. H. Parker in the China Review for 1889 (vol. 18, page 54). This game has survived under the name of wei ch’i. It is much more complicated than our chess. The history of the Indian game of Asiang chi or “elephant chess,” which is more analogous to our own game, has been traced by Himly in Chinese and Manchu sources. (T’oung Pao, March 1897, vol. 8, pp. 155-180; and Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgen- landischen Gesellschaft, vol. 41, pp. 461 ff.) According to Himly, the first reference to the Indian game in Chinese sources is in the year 569, and is quoted in the T’ai-p’ing-yii-lan Encyclopedia of 984. It seems to have migrated from India both to China and to Persia in the sixth and seventh centuries, and to have reached Japan also before the end of the seventh century. The above conclusions must be taken tentatively. Confusion of terms between the Chinese and Indian games makes it difficult to trace the early history of chess in China with certainty. Parker finds a certain amount of indication that hsiang chi was not an importation from India but had an independent Chinese origin, going back possibly even farther than wei ch’i. In any case it was in all probability the Indian game rather than the Chinese that was back of the Arabic game that was in turn back of European chess. Some points in the Chinese game as played to-day are of historic interest. The castle, called chi, chariot, is the most powerful piece, as with certain limitations, it can jump over intervening pieces like the knight. The knight’s move is the same as ours, and the piece is called ma, horse. There is an additional piece called p’ao, a word which in modern Chinese is written with a fire radical and means “cannon,” but which before the invention of gunpowder was written with a stone radical and meant a mechanical device for hurling stones. The transitional form of warfare finds an echo in chess, for the blue p’ao is written with a stone radical, (Ftd, while the red corresponding piece has the fire radical ( Kf). Likewise the bishop, which has the same move as ours, retains on the blue side of the board its Indian name of “elephant” ( R), while on the red side it changes to a word pronounced exactly the same but meaning “prime minister” CHAPTER XIX 243 (FH). As in the Indian, Arabic and early European games, there is no queen. 3. See Encyclopedia Britannica, article Polo. 4. “In the annals of the Ch’i Dynasty under the date so! a.p. ( cp Eiit ) it is stated: ‘According to T’ao Shih-hsin ( WJ ae AJ ) dice (8 Ff) are a foreign game, which Lao-tzii found when he was in the land of the Western Barbarians (HA). In recent years officials are playing it very much. How does it come about that they waste their time with foreign things and do not help their own country?’” T’u-shu-chi-ch’ éng Encyclopedia, section entitled Bh iy Hf, sub- section TH BX 4 (book 807, folio 6). §. Various origins of the names, yeh-fzii-hsi (BE + Bt) and yeh-tzit-ko, (HE f- ké ) “leaf-game,” “leaf dice” or “sheet-dice,” have been suggested. According to the Tz’#-yiian Encyclopedia, quoting from Kuei T’ien-lu, “The books of the T’ang Dynasty were all in the form of rolls. Later came pages like those in use to-day. When it was necessary to have any written matter ready for quick examination, it was made on pages. In the same way, in order to have dice in a convenient form, they were made on cards, and this was the origin of the word, yeh-tzii-ko (from yeh-tzii, a leaf or page). Before the end of the T’ang Dynasty there were already such ‘leaf-dice’.”” From other sources it is known that the transition from rolls to paged books was due to the influence of printing. It is a natural supposition that the first putting of dice on cards was due to the same influence. There are other theories of the origin of the word yeh-tzii-hsi, some connecting it with a man or woman by the name of Yeh, but the theory here given is the one most generally received. The conclusions here stated with regard to the origin of playing cards, dominoes and Mah Jongg are based on somewhat obscure sources, and, while the writer believes them to be correct, he states them with considerable reserve. They are the conclusions that he has come to after reading the long article on early games in the T’u-shu- chi-ch’éng Encyclopedia and shorter articles in the T’zi-yiian Encyclo- pedia, and comparing the citations from certain of the early writers quoted in these articles. It may be that the influence of paper money on the origin of playing cards should be more stressed. For an able 244 NOTES exposition of this view see Stewart Culin, The Game of Ma-fFong, Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, October, 1924. 6. For Rémusat’s statement and for translation of the passage in the Chéng-tzii-t' ung Encyclopedia from which it is taken, see W. H. Wilkin- son, Chinese Origin of Playing Cards, American Anthropologist, 1895, vol. 8, pp. 61-78. >. “According to the History of the Liao Dynasty, the emperor Mu Tsung, in the 19th year of the period Ying-li (969) . . . made reference to the game of cards when he said to his ministers, “Games of cards were played in the house of Duke Ch’ien, and in that very year in the second month he was killed by Siao-ko, ruler and subjects became victims of barbarity, and misfortune followed misfortune. Yet such unlucky objects are now held in the hand daily by scholars and officials. Is not that the following of an evil example?’ ” T’u-shu- chi-ch’éng Encyclopedia. See note 4 (above) for full reference. 8. This is the conclusion reached after conversation on the subject with such eminent Arabists as Dr. Grohmann of Prague, Dr. Margoliouth of Oxford, and Dr. Moritz of Berlin. g. It is probable that the first mention of chess in Europe is in the year 1061, and thus antedates by a few years the first Crusade. The Cru- sades and the Christian conquest of Spain had the effect of spreading the game through Europe. 10. The very early introduction of chess into England is indicated by the great variety of uses of the word “check” (including “bank check” and the verb “to check”) all of which go back to chess and so ulti- mately back to the Persian word “shah.” 11. Here are included the supposed references to cards in England in 1240 and 1278, in Germany in 1291 and 1300, in France in 1328 and 1376. 12. Brit. Mus. MS. Egerton 2,419. 13. Prohibition of cards by John I. of Castile. 14. Account book of Jeanne, Duchess of Brabant, May 14, 1379. 15. “In the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them called naib.” Covelluzo of Viterbo, writing in the fifteenth century, on the authority of a chronicle of one of his ancestors. 16. “Given to Jacquemin Grigonneur, painter, for three packs of cards (jeux de cartes) in gold and other colors, ornamented with various CHAPTER XIX 245 ” devices, for the diversion of the king, 75 sous of Paris.” Accounts of the treasurer of the household of Charles VI. of France, 1392 or 1393. 17. The earliest references to playing cards give as a rule no clear indica- tion of the method of manufacture. Even the order given in 1392 for three packs of cards for the King of France, which uses specifically the word painter, gives no suggestion what kind of cards were being used by the common people, for painted cards were used by royalty long after printing began. The earliest cards extant—some printed, some painted, some printed in outline and filled in with a stencil, also shed little light on the question, for they cannot be dated. They indicate merely that cards were being made in several different ways, presumably at the same time, according to quality and price. Printing in its beginnings—whether of pictures, texts or cards—was always the poor man’s friend. 18. In 1441 the Council of Venice issued the following decree: “Whereas, the art and mystery of making cards and printed figures, which is in use at Venice, has fallen to decay, and this in consequence of the great quantity of printed playing cards and colored figures which are made out of Venice, to which evil it is necessary to apply some remedy, in order that the said artists, who are a great many in family, may find encouragement rather than foreigners: Let it be ordained and established, according to the petition that the said masters have supplicated, that from this time in future, no work of the said art that is printed or painted on cloth or paper—that is to say, altar-pieces, or images, or playing cards, or any other thing that may be made by the said art, either by painting or by printing—shall be allowed to be brought or imported into this city.” 19. From the decree of 1441 several things are evident, first, that at some considerable time before 1441 the printing of playing cards had been a thriving industry in Venice; second, that both printed and painted cards coming from some other place had interfered with that industry; and, third, that the printing of playing cards and the print- ing of saint images were closely connected. The source of these imported cards is indicated by an entry in the Red Book of Ulm in southern Germany, according to which, at just about this time playing cards were being shipped in barrels to Sicily and Italy. The city records of Augsburg and Nuremberg mention card makers in 1418, 1420, 1433, 1435, and 1438. These cities are known to have been the 246 NOTES places where the early saint pictures were being made by block printing at just the same time. This, together with a careful study of the words used for card makers in the German records, has led practically all authorities on the subject to the conclusion that, from the time these records begin, some at least of the cards were printed. Certain investi- gators of the subject go much further. From the great number of cards burned at Rome in 1423, from the prohibition of workmen playing cards in 1397 (indicating cheap production), and from other evidence, they come to the conclusion that, from the time of the earliest records of cards in Europe, printed as well as stencilled and painted cards were used, and that the printing of cards preceded and paved the way for the printing of religious pictures. The evidence is incon- clusive. The best that can be said is that the printing of cards and the printing of religious pictures were closely connected, that they were often, if not always, carried on by the same persons, and that it is impossible to say which started earlier, the probability being that the two sorts of printing developed side by side at about the same time. 20. A theory to the effect that cards were introduced directly from China and not through the Arabs, is recorded by Valére Zani, an Italian writer who died in 1696, in the following statement, “The Abbé Tressan (a French missionary to Palestine, 1618-1684) showed me when I was at Paris a pack of Chinese cards and told me that a Venetian was the first who brought cards from China to Venice, and that that city was the first place in Europe where they were known.” On what authority Tressan based his statement has not been discovered. 21. See Covelluzo above (note 15). Some authorities point to Spain as the avenue by which cards entered Europe, noting the Arabic origin of the Spanish word naipes, as well as the Italian naib. It seems likely that cards entered by several avenues. CHAPTER XX THE PRINTING OF TEXTILES 1. On account of the climate, no Indian textiles of early date have sur- vived, but it seems not unlikely that even the Egyptian prints dating from Roman times show Indian influence. These earliest prints from Egypt are on cotton. 2. ies) co CHAPTER XIX 247 For fuller description of the Japanese method, see G. A. Audsley, Ornamental Arts of Fapan, vol. 1, part II, pp. 7-9. If the negative printing process was used in connection with a mordant, the union be- tween dye and mordant was probably produced by steaming after the printing. In this Japanese process it was possible to apply several colors in one printing. In this case it was necessary that each unit of color be separated from the other colors by a cloison, an unprinted zone where wood was clamped against wood. Such unprinted zones seem to appear also in most if not all of the prints found in Central Asia. . R. Forrer, Die Kunst des Zeugdruckes, p. 8. . R. Forrer, Die Zeugdrucke der byzantischen, romanischen, gothischen und spatern Kunstepochen, pp. 11-13. These Egyptian prints are resist prints on cotton. . R. Forrer, Die Zeugdrucke der byzantischen, etc., pp. 13-14. The print from Arles is said by Forrer to be linen (?). It has a pale blue resist and is probably imported from Egypt. The Quedlinburg fabric is a pigment print and is said by Lessing (Fahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 1, 120) to be Sassanian. . Kamesé (see Bibliography), pp. 4-5. Kameso gives reasons in detail why the dates on these textiles must have been a part of the original blocks, and also indicates extensive Japanese bibliography on the subject. . Stein, Serindia, see index, “Silk, printed.” Note especially the plates in vol. 4. It is impossible to determine exactly the dates of the Tun-huang fabrics. It is certain that they are all earlier than 1000 and later than 500. They probably date in the main from the latter part of this period. The printed fabrics from Tun-huang in striking contrast to all the printing on paper from the same place, are entirely non-religious in character. Animal designs predominate, especially dogs, deer, and horses. There is no right and wrong side as in our prints, the dye having thoroughly penetrated the fabric. See chapter 6. . Cennino Cennini was born about 1372. He was a pupil of the painter Gaddi in Florence, from 1384 to 1396. The book containing this description is entitled Trattato della Pittura (see edition of Mi- lanesi, Florence, 1859). The description of textile printing is quoted in full in Forrer, Die Kunst des Zeugdruckes, pp. 11-15, and an abstract of it is given in Forrer, Die Zeugdrucke, etc., pp. 22-23. 248 NOTES g. The earliest textile printer mentioned by name in Europe is Jan de Printere of Antwerp (1417), approximately contemporary with the earliest block printers on paper named in German records. Forrer, Die Zeugdrucke, etc., p. 22. 10. The most remarkable of these is a picture found in a church at Enskirchen (but probably made at Cologne), usually called from the inscription that forms part of the design, Gloria Laus Deo. The picture is 30 by 27 cm. in size. It represents a number of angels engaged in praise. This picture is the nearest approach made by textile printing to the image prints on paper. It dates probably from early in the fifteenth century. Another early picture print is the famous printed hanging of Sitten. 11. Aside from a few playing cards of uncertain date, the exceptions to this rule are very rare. There are no exceptions among the early block prints of Japan, of Turfan or of Egypt. There are, so far as I am aware, just three fragments of a non-religious character from Tun-huang, and almost none from Europe. 12. For very much of the material contained in this chapter, the writer is indebted to conferences with Prof. Rudolf M. Riefstahl, of the University of New York, whose long and careful study of Oriental textiles is well known. The following additional note from Dr. Rief- stahl came too late to be incorporated in the body of the chapter: “The printing technique in Europe practised during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is different from the Oriental techniques, being one of carrying pigments with a vehicle on the fibre, while the Oriental techniques command also the better process of forming a pattern in a fabric by the use of dyes, penetrating the textile fibre by the resist or the mordant process. “Textile printing in Europe may originally go back to an Eastern influence that manifested itself during the Imperial Roman period or perhaps earlier. But the medieval European technique emerges from the late Roman technique and is certainly not influenced by the Chinese art of textile printing. “The Eastern techniques of resist dyeing and mordant dyeing for pattern producing became known in Europe only after the discovery of the sea route to the Indies. A Dutch painter by the name of Pieter Clock, living in the second half of the sixteenth century is said to have first used the resist dyeing process in Europe for the production of pb #4 CHAPTER XX 249 patterned fabrics. The Oriental techniques therefore cannot have been instrumental in bringing forward the invention of printing in Europe. “However, the practising of printing in China may have opened perspectives to European travellers for the use of block printing, that otherwise might have come about only later. “Tt is perfectly logical that textile pattern printing in the medieval process suggested not only the reproduction of textile repeat designs but also pictorial representation like the compositions in the famous printed hanging of Sitten (second half of fourteenth century). “Very often, however, the forthcoming of a germinating idea is held back by the slowness of human logic, and is, on the other hand, stimulated by an instructive example. Kaolin was since the times of the diluvium in the European soil. Nothing prevented potters from trying this clay for the purpose of pottery making. But kaolin was discovered and experimented with only after Chinese porcelain had created the desire for an improved resonant white and translucent form of ceramic ware. “In the same way Europeans might have found quite by themselves the use of the textile printing technique for the production of pictorial scenes for wallhangings and religious images on linen, later for the same on paper, and finally for providing those images with legends cut in the wooden block. But such a process was undoubtedly speeded up by a considerable number of priests, teachers and missionaries, having seen in China the use of religious images printed with the block process on paper. They might very likely have encouraged this use of an old established technique for a new purpose fitting admirably into the purposes of the church.” CHAPTER XXI BLOCK PRINTING IN EUROPE . For Venetian decree of 1441, see chapter 1g, note 18. There has been a tendency in recent years among certain writers to minimize the importance of block printing as the forerunner of typog- raphy. These writers make much of the binder’s stamp and other 250 NOTES devices that directly suggested type. But they prove merely that typography had two parents instead of one. Block printing suggested the idea that books could be printed. The binder’s stamp, etc., suggested a better way of doing it. 3. The fact that most manuscript books—especially those that have been preserved—were made for the wealthy means that a large pro- portion of the books that are extant, even from the end of the four- teenth century, are still on parchment. Paper was used for more temporary and perishable things. 4. T.L. De Vinne, The Invention of Printing, page 41. 5. Acareful examination of the defects in certain of the early block books which indicate cracks in the blocks, shows that two pages were printed from each block, and that these pages were bound back to back. This conforms exactly to the Chinese practice. See De Vinne, The Invention of Printing, page 202. 6. See chapter 20, note 13. 7. At first sight it may seem strange that paper money did not feature in early European printing. It is the one form of Chinese printing that almost all European writers noticed. It is the one form which we know was carried on in Persia. Yet there is no record of any paper money in Europe till the issue of 1658 in Sweden. This is the more remarkable in view of the fact that Europe seems to have come just to the edge of the use of paper money and then stopped. In addition to the leather or fur money of Mongol Russia (see chapter 16, note 3), there are at least four issues of leather money recorded in Europe dur- ing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Such leather money as guarantee for future payment was given out by (1) the Venetian Doge, Domenico Michieli, in the wars of 1122 to 1126; (2) King John of England during the Barons’ War; (3) Louis IX. of France during his imprisonment; (4) Emperor Frederick II. during the siege of Faénza in 1240. It may well be that the complete failure of the issue of paper money in Persia and of those issues in China which took place during the time of most frequent European intercourse, proved a deterrent rather than an incentive to European imitation. (For a clear sum- mary of the issues of leather money in Europe, see A. L. von Eben- greuth, dl/gemeine Miinzkunde und Geldgeschichte, Munich and Berlin, 1904, page 36.) 8. See chapter 16, note 9. CHAPTER XXII 251 CHAPTER XXII THE INVENTION OF MOVABLE TYPE IN CHINA 1. “In the Tsin (Later Tsin) Dynasty, epoch T’ien-fu (936-943), there were copper plate books (hij AQ @¥).” Yo Ko (4% if), Sung Dynasty, in Chronology of the Nine Classics and the Three Commen- taries, as quoted in Tz’ #-yiian (BY Ji), section a page 27. “T saw in a relic shop pieces of bronze about two or three inches in length, and on them were cut poems of Tu Fu and prose quotations from the essays of Han Yu. The characters were reversed, so that I did not understand what these pieces of bronze were for. I was told that they were standards for printing and that they were distributed about the empire during the first year of the emperor T’ai Tsung of the Sung Dynasty (976).” Ts’ai Ch’éng ( #& Ye) in Chi-ch’ uang- ts’ ung-hua ($8 ai He an )> as quoted by Liu An, page 7. Liu An finds evidence that this bronze plate came from Szechuen. “During the period Ming-tao, the third year (1035), money was given out from the imperial treasury for the conversion of the hui-tzii notes, the copper plates were withdrawn and it was forbidden to print more.” Tx’ ii-yiian, section HG, page 27. Rohs ada de 3. The statement is made by Julien that Pi Shéng was a smith. Julien’s reference to the section in Méng-ch’i-pi-t’'an is apparently incorrect and I have been unable to find the passage. 4 JB Ve. . This seems to refer not to the thickness (1. e., height to paper) of the type as a whole, but rather to the thickness to which the type was cut away to make the character stand out. Hiille has suggested that this sentence refers not to the type itself but to a type mould or matrix. There is nothing else in the passage to suggest that a mould was used. 6. FE), yén, literally seal. 7. The text reproduced by Julien reads shih-hui (G IR)> lime, and is so translated by him. The texts of 1631 and 1696, which are appar- ently the oldest now extant, read chih-hui (4& Jy), paper ashes. 8. Probably a frame for dividing columns and margins. m- 252 NOTES g. Lit., ‘While the one form was being stamped and rubbed (Ep inl) pe This is the ordinary expression for printing, an expression recalling the fact that the impression is made by lightly rubbing with a brush, i as our word print in its origin suggests a press. . Lit., “for common characters like 7% and [J.” Tie This was the earlier method for arranging Chinese characters in a dictionary. In lieu of alphabetic order, which was manifestly impossi- ble in a non-alphabetic script, all words that rhymed were placed to- gether, and rules were devised for arranging the words within each rhyme group. It is upon this rhyme system that the new phonetic alphabet, whose introduction into all schools began in 1921, is based. 12. Text of 1696 edition is here followed, as the 1631 reading, W JR, seems to have no meaning. 13. Text of 1696 edition reads “his followers.” 14. Shén Kua (7%, 5), Méng-ch i-pi-t’an (3s ES =e # i Chi-ku- ko (We tH Ae), edition of 1631, book 18, section g. The edition of 1696 in the Pai-hai collection (vol. 4) has been compared, and, though there are six slight textual variations, none of them affect in any way the meaning, except the one in the last sentence, to which attention is called above (note 13). Julien has apparently used still a third text, which is practically identical with that of 1696, except for the use of /ime instead of paper ashes. The translation that I have given is from the text of the 1631 edition, though the 1696 edition, the French version of Julien and the German version of Hille have been carefully compared. The passage has apparently not previously been translated into English. 15. A Korean writer of the latter part of the fifteenth century in a resumé of the history of movable type, contained in the preface of the Ch’én-chien-chai (Bi fi] FF) collection of poems (quoted by Kam- eso, page 128), says, “The movable type method was begun by Shén Kua and brought to perfection by Yang Wei-chung ( #B HE rh a The reference to Shén Kua is evidently an error due to con- fusion of the inventor with the one who first described the invention. Of Yang Wei-chung nothing further is known. Satow quoting from a ae book by Kondou, entitled Fy & fH Hi, refers to him as Yang K’¢ (55a): be eel 253 16. Wang Chéng (= hi); Nung-shu ( =) Wu-ying-tien edition (zt oR RRS AN = is =), appendix. The Nung-shu was first published in 1314. By the reign of Ch’ien Lung (1736-1796), no copies of this original edition could be found. But fortunately it had been copied by hand in the great thesaurus of literature known as the Yung-lo-ta-tien during the reign of Yung Lo (1403-1425), and from this manuscript it was republished during Ch’ien Lung’s reign by the Wu-ying-tien printing office, and a Nung-shu of this edition is in the Library of Congress at Washington. (See W. T. Swingle in Report of the Library of Congress, 1921-1922, pp. 184-186.) The Nung-shu in the Bibliothéque Nationale at Paris is incomplete and lacks this appendix. A Ming Dynasty reprint of the Nung-shu has apparently been located in a library in Nanking, which is also incomplete. Liu An has reproduced the text of the Wu-ying-tien edition, though with a number of misprints, in Chung-kuo-tiao-pen-y tian-liu-k’ao, pp. 40-43. The translation here given is from the original Wu-ying-tien edition at Washington. 17. This was the generally accepted view of those Sung Dynasty writers who disregarded the earlier Buddhist printing. See chapter 8. 18. The reading SS, cash, is a misprint in Liu An. The Wu-ying-tien edition has correctly Sah, iron. 19. AS Toe Shén Kua’s account called this a mixture of pine resin, wax and paper ashes. 20. $e FF. 21. The correct reading is not oat ink (as in Liu An), but IK, wood. It will be noted that this paragraph contains a summary of the whole description. The next paragraph goes back to the beginning and gives the description in detail. 22. Lit., “for the auxiliaries 7%, 4, F§ and {{J.” These are among the words most commonly met in Chinese writings. 23. The word translated revolving table here and throughout the passage is ike, lun (lit. wheel). The words translated /eg of the table are igs ith, lun-chou (lit. axle of the wheel). This arrangement for setting type called the wheel was evidently a round table, revolving upon a central leg, the top being divided into compartments and sub-compartments for the large number of type needed in a non-alphabetic script. This 264 _ NOTES sort of “lazy-Susan”’ would seem to be somewhat of an improvement on the modern system of Chinese type-setting, where the compositor has to walk about an entire room to find the requisite type. 24. FA, chiu (lit. mortar). 25. $F tsuan (lit. augur or drill). 26. See chapter 5. Once the type is set, the process seems not to differ materially from that of block printing. 27. IRR 5K, Asien-chih. This was the hsien-chih of the magistracy of Ching-té (Fe {i ) in the district of Hstian-chou (B pI ). 28. Late survivals of movable type of clay in Korea and Japan would seem to indicate that the process may have had more vogue than literary references would lead one to suppose. See M. Courant, Bibliographie coréenne, introd., p. 49. 29. “In a Sung edition of the Mao-shih (the Book of Poetry with Com- mentary by Mao), in the section entitled JA¥ Jil, the character A appears lying on its side, which is proof of the fact that the book was printed with movable type.” Comment in the T’ien-lu-lin-lang (K jek BK Hi), as quoted by Liu An, page 39. The T’ien-/u-lin- lang was a collection that appeared in the year 1775 of works of the Sung, Yiian and Ming Dynasties. Additions were made to it in 1797. 30. The last paragraph of Wang Chéng’s account would indicate that his special method of using wooden type was not found altogether practical. This does not apply to the use of wooden type in general. 31. A few of these type present a further difference. They are reversible. One word is cut in the top and another in the bottom of the same type. CHAPTER XXIII THE GREAT EXPANSION OF MOVABLE TYPE PRINTING IN KOREA 1. fe 2. Kao-li-shih ey EE Hp), section entitled Pai-kuan-chih (4 fs ths as quoted by Kameso, page 127. 3. This statement is contained in a photograph copy in the Preussische Staatsbibliothek of an anonymous Japanese document, accompanied by a German translation by the Korean interpreter Yi Djung Sun, CHAPTER XXIII 266 which was sent from Korea with some Korean printed books that were on exhibition at the Bugra Exposition in Leipsic in 1914. This statement is probably based on Yi Kyoobo, a Korean writer who lived from 1169 to 1241, and who, according to Dr. J. S. Gale of Seoul, described movable type. I have been unable to obtain access to Yi Kyoobo’s work. It seems improbable that the type which he de- scribed were of metal. 4. The book in question is The Family Sayings of Confucius (FL - Bx zB), British Museum, No. 15201, C 13. It has been the occa- sion of considerable controversy. Satow, who presented the book to the British Museum, makes out a strong case for its having been actually printed with movable type, partly in 1317 and partly in 1324. Later writers have largely taken the opposite position. See: Ernest Satow, On the Early History of Printing in Fapan, Transac- tions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1882, page 62. Maurice Courant, Bibliographie coréenne, pp. xlvii—xlvili, 148- 149. W. E. Griffis: Corea, the Hermit Nation, page 67. Le royaume solitaire. Revue des Deux Mondes, Feb. 15, 1884, page 894. 5. The statement in the article on Typography in the Encyclopedia Britannica (Eleventh edition) to the effect that there is a book in the British Museum printed with type in Korea in 1337, is not correct. It is probably a misprint for 1317 and refers to the book mentioned above (note 4). 6. The more readily understood English word “preface” is used in this chapter, though the “preface” in these Korean works appears at the end of the book, and is hence called by some writers, “postface.” 7. Annals of the Yi Dynasty, chapter 3 (from German translation of Stiibe). 8. According to Stiibe (page 93, see Bibliography), a further contempo- rary reference to this first font is contained in a laudatory statement by the Korean scholar, Kwon Geun (died 1409), ascribing to the king all honor for the invention. g. Sun-tzit-shih-t-chia-chu (f% ~ + — KR at). 10. The first year (1403) of Yung Lo, emperor of China, was the same as the third year of T’ai Tsung, king of Korea. 256 NOTES it. According to Stiibe (page 92), this much of the preface—the king’s proclamation—also appears in the Korean Encyclopedia, chapter 242. 12. The translation is that of Satow, revised by comparison with the Chinese text as given by Kameso, page 127. 13. Evidently a mistake for Pi Shéng. The man who first described the invention has been confused with the inventor. Of Yang Wei-chung (AB ME rp ) nothing further is known. He is called Yang K’é (A he) by Satow in a translation of this same passage from a Japanese work by Koudou, entitled 4G Xx fy A (Satow, p. 64). 14. Preface to the Ch’én-chien-chat ( Bie fii Wie ) collection of poems, edition published in Korea with movable type. From text of Kameso, page 128. 15. M. Courant, Bibliographie coréenne, p. 45. 16. It is possible that there was a second font between 1403 and 1420. In the preface of the Korean edition of the History of the Earlier Han Dynasty, there is the statement: “In the eleventh month of 1413 the king ordered his officer Li Tsang (2s iG ) to cast a fresh set of type, which was finished within the space of seven months.” There is however some confusion about dates, and it seems likely that this font was identical with the one described below under 1420. The museum at Seoul has type which they claim belong to a font of 1416. 17. The first preface of this book is identical with the preface of the books published in 1409 and 1434 and has already been translated (see above). 18. Li-tai-chiang-chien-po-t ( Fe Xu, HS Re TH at ) 19. Satow’s translation. Owing to the confusion of Korean orthography, Chinese romanization (Giles) has been substituted for Satow’s Korean spelling in this and other quotations. 20. Third preface of the Li-tai-chiang-chien-po-i (see above, notes 18 and 19). The preface is dated December, 1436, and the book itself September, 1437. The two previous prefaces of the same book are translated above. Courant makes the statement (introduction, page 45, authority not given) that this font of 1434 was made of lead. 21. This statement that a book was produced in 1434 in Korean alpha- bet and movable type is contained in Courant’s Bibliographie coréenne. The book is numbered by him 253 and romanized, Sam kang haing sil to. CHAPTER XXIII 257 22. There is another kind of early Korean type-printing consisting of very roughly printed books, and there is a tradition among Korean scholars that they were printed from type of baked clay, a survival of Pi Shéng’s method. Such clay type also survived to a late period in Japan. See Courant, introduction, page 49. 23. T.L. De Vinne, The Invention of Printing, New York, 1876, pp.67-68. 24. There is a theory held by many recent investigators that the earliest type made by Gutenberg at Mainz were also made from wooden models and sand or clay moulds. For discussion of this theory see Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Typography, pp. 536-538. 25. From German translation of Stiibe, page 93. The romanization of the name of the author is Stiibe’s. 26. These type were obtained by the Museum of Natural History from Homer B. Hulbert (author of The History of Korea). They are de- scribed by Mr. Hulbert in an article in Harper’s Magazine (June, 1899, vol. 99, pp. 102-108). In answer to a question addressed to Mr. Hul- bert with regard to the provenance of these type, I have received the following reply: “Among the archives of the Educational Department in Seoul in 1897 I found the remnants of all three of these issues [the three issues of the first half of the fifteenth century]. Of the oldest set there were only fifty-three pieces left, and these are the ones which the Minister of Education gave me and which I placed in the Natural History Museum. There is no actual prima facie evidence that these are the actual first pieces made, but all the circumstantial evidence points to this fact.” The curators of the Seoul Museum, to whom I sent impressions of the New York type for comparison (1924), very kindly returned to me impressions of the type of 1403, 1416, 1420, and 1434, which are in their possession, and also of those of later date, and came to the conclusion on the basis of their examination that the type in New York probably belong to one of the fonts that were cast at the end of the eighteenth century. The whole question of the dating of Korean type now extant in museums needs further investigation. 27. There were books printed in Japan shortly before this date by Jesuit missionaries, and the question has been raised whether these thirty-three years of typographic activity in Japan were not due to European influence. But an examination of the books themselves leads to the belief that the European influence if any was small. 258 NOTES 28. ae KK, also known as Hua Wen-hui (Ss y JE ) or Hua Hui- vung (#8 @ iif). 29. ft $F, in the province of Kiangsu. 30. The earliest mention of this printing activity of Wusih is in the Shuo-fu (FR Fh ) collection of reprints, in a passage to which the date of 1496 has been assigned by Kameso: “Recently in Hsi-shan (gh ily) in the establishment of Hua Hui-t’ung, printing has been done from movable type of bronze, and a large number of works have there been published.” (From text as quoted by Kameso, pp. 125- 126). The Tz i-yiian gives the date of Hua Sui’s printing as the Hung-chih period (1488-1506). There was another famous printer at Wusih by the name of An Kuo ( te ed), dated by the Tz’#-yiian as during the Chia-ching period (1522-1567). Liu An (pp. 43-45) and Yeh Té-hut (8:5-12) quote most of the available sources, especially those from local histories, relating to Hua Sui and An Kuo, and discuss certain books which are still extant and for which the claim is made that they are the work of these printers. 31. “Recently in Pi-ling ( Fe we ney Nanking ) bronze and lead have been used for the making of movable type, the use of which is much more convenient than printing from blocks. But in setting the type a large number of errors are made.”” Lu Shén ( Gs PR), Chin-t ai- chi-wén (+ 2 A fy), as quoted in Kameso, p. 126. Lu Shén lived from 1477 to 1544 (Giles, Biog. Dict., No. 1427). Kameso dates this book as having been written in 1505. 32. A. Forke, Mé Ti, Berlin, 1923, introduction, page 8. 33. In Macao. During the following century the Jesuit missionaries did a great deal of printing both in Chinese and in Latin, sometimes by Chinese methods and sometimes by European and sometimes by combinations of the two. 34. The Szi-k’u-ch’ tian-shu ( py jt > #). 35. Kames6, p. 126. 36. Courant, introduction, page 47. 37. The number of Chinese characters in use has to be multiplied by the average number of pronunciations of the same character—which are — CHAPTER XXIII 259 represented by different combinations of phonetic symbols alongside the character. This renders the Japanese font even more cumbersome than the Chinese. CHAPTER XXIV THE PEDIGREE OF GUTENBERG’S INVENTION . There is no need here to go into the merits of the Gutenberg-Coster controversy. The name Gutenberg is here used to denote the inventor of printing, because that is the more generally accepted view. For a clear exposition of the opposite view the reader is referred to the article on typography in the Encyclopedia Britannica (Eleventh edition). . Aclear popular account of the European background of typography is found in The Invention of Printing by T. L. De Vinne (New York, 1876). A more up-to-date account, emphasizing especially book- binders’ metal stamps, copper-plate engraving, and other work in metal is found in Festschrift zum Fiinfhundertjahrigen Geburtstage von Fohann Gutenberg, edited by Otto Hartwig (Mainz, 1900), pp. 25-64. . The statement of Jovius written in 1550 (see chapter 16, note g) is the nearest approach to early direct evidence of the transmission of typography from China. It seems unwise to overstress the authority of this quotation, especially in relation to typography. The phrases “artifices typographos” and “more nostro” may easily be loosely used. Though it is true that metal type, as used in Korea, were introduced into China just before the first Portuguese visits (see chapter 23), it is more probable that Jovius’ reference is to block printing. A recent writer, Pierre Gusman (La gravure sur bois et d’épargne sur métal, Paris, 1916, pp. 37, 38) has proposed two other possible theories to account for the transference of typography from the Far East. One is that it was brought by way of Russia and learned by Gutenberg during his supposed stay in Prague. The second is that it was brought into Europe by a company of Armenians, who had (sup- posedly) earlier been in contact with the Uigurs, and who were later living in Holland in the time of Coster. Neither theory seems con- vincing. Should the version of the Coster story, according to which Coster 260 NOTES first printed with wooden type sawed from a block, prove true, it would add a certain presumption in favor of connection with the type described by Wang Chéng and found by Pelliot. But recent investt- gations have tended rather to discredit this part at least of the Coster theory. Until further and more convincing evidence can be found, the ques- tion will have to remain an open one, with the presumption against any connection of European typography with China other than through the indirect channels enumerated later in this chapter—through the invention of paper and through block printing. BIBLIOGRAPHY ‘ a? ‘ BIBLIOGRAPHY Where the same work is cited more than once, the full title is usually given in connection with the first citation only. CHAPTER I 4% WR GE (Hou-Han-shu, History of the Later Han Dynasty). c. A.D. 470. Book (AR) 180, section 68, sub-section entitled B& fay (sh BE AE KR (T'u-shu-chi-ch’ éng). Published 1726. Book 24, sec- tions 1§2-1$3. kK BH cas) JRA (Ko-chih-ching-yiian). Published 1735. Book 37, folios 7-18, The T’u-shu-chi-ch’éng and Ko-chih-ching-yiian are usually known as encyclopedias. They are more properly source books, consisting of quotations from earlier works, classified by subject. Those desiring to pursue any subject further will find in these books much of the Chinese bibliography needed, though lacking the ordinary citations of chapter and page. Corpier, Henri: Bibliotheca Sinica. Paris, 1904-1908. Page 1547, Papier. This is a full bibliography of books and articles in European languages on the subject up to the date of writing. See also supple- ment (Paris, 1920). Biancuet, Aucustin: Essai su histoire du papier. Paris, tg00. Pp. I-18. Cuavannes, Epouarp: Les livres chinois avant linvention du papier. Journal Asiatique, 1905. Series 10, vol. 5, pp. 1-75. Hirtu, Friepricu: Chinese Studies. Shanghai, 1882. Vol. 1, pp. 206 ff. STEIN, Sir M. Avrev: Serindia. London, 1921. Index, Paper. See also plates in vol. 4. Hoern te, A. F. R.: Who was the Inventor of Rag Paper? Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1903. Pp. 663 ff. Wiesner, J.: Ein neuer Beitrag zur Geschichte des Papiers. Sitzungs- berichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil. Hist. Klasse, Vienna, 1904. Vol. 148, part 6. Wiesner, J.: Ueber die dltesten bis jetzt gefundenen Hadernpapiere. Ibid, Vienna, 1911. Vol. 168, part 5. 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAPTER II Fe vl 2 (Cuu Hstanc-usien): FI] Hi. (Yin-tien). Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). A careful and critical study of the history of seals from the Ts’in dynasty to that of Ming. = FS Rp (Wo-cw’1v Yen): A TE hy (Hsiieh-ku-pien). Yiian Dynasty (1280-1368). T’u-shu-chi-ch éng (see above). Book 32 (¥ aE HfL), sections I4I- 142 (Ht Ell Bf). Ko-chih-ching-y tian (see above). Book 40, fol. 1-4 and 6-7. BY YR (Te i-yiian) Encyclopedia. Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1914. Articles Bt, 38 YE, FI), etc. De Groot, J. M. M.: The Religious System of China. Leyden, 1892- 1894. Vol. 6, pp. 1033-1052 (Taoist charm seals). STEIN: Serindia (see above). Index, Seals, Seal impressions. See also many plates of seals in vol. 4. The bibliography on seals in Chinese is very voluminous. Only the sources which the writer has used and found specially valuable are here listed. Additional bibliography may be found in the references cited in Chinese encyclopedias. CHAPTERS Ko-chih-ching-y tian (see above). Book 39, folios 6-14. STEIN: Serindia (see above). Index, Rubbing. Juien, Sranisias: Documents sur Part d’imprimer a Paide de planches au bots, de planches au pierre et de types mobiles. Journal Asiatique, 1847. Series 4, vol. 9, pp. 508-518. HE fii jen Yeu Té£-nu1): a IK cl ab (Shu-lin-ch ing-hua). Kuan-ku-t’ang Publishing Co., 1911. Edition of 1920. Book (chiian) I, folios 22-23. CHAPTER IV CLENNELL, W. J.: The Historical Development of Religion in China. London, 1914. Pp. g1-1I0. BusHELL, S. W.: Chinese Art. London, 1906. Vol. 2, pp. 124-130. Watey, ArtHuR: An Introduction to the Study of Chinese Painting. London, 1923. Pp. 77-136. BIBLIOGRAPHY 265 CHAPTER V INK T’u-shu-chi-ch éng (see above). Book 24, folios 149-151. Ko-chih-ching-y tian (see above). Book 37, folios 20-30. Tx ii-yuan (see above). Article Fs Juiten, Sranisias, and Cuampion, P.: Industries anciennes et mo- dernes de Empire chinois. Paris, 1869. Pp. 129-140. Davis, Joun F.: China. London, 1857. Vol. 2, pp. 176-177. A study of the history of ink in China and the Far East by Berthold Laufer will be published, probably in 1925, as part of a work on the history of printer's ink, to be edited by F'. B. Wiborg of New York. TECHNIQUE OF BLOCK PRINTING Davis, Joun F,: China. London, 1857. Vol. 2, page 180. CHAPTER VI PROTO-PRINTING IN BUDDHIST MONASTERIES Srein: Serindia (see above). Index, Stencil, Pounce, Stamp, Silk, printed, etc. QUESTION OF BLOCK PRINTING IN 593 ya Fe fe (Fer Cu’anc-ranc): iy cA os af a0, (Li-tai-san-pao- chi). Tripitaka, Kyoto edition, f’a40 30, vol. 7, chap. 15, fol. 666. Ke YE (Lu Suéy): He PY BR (Ven-hsien-lu). Ko-chih-ching-yiian (see above). Book 39, fol. 2. Juuten, Sranisias: Documents sur Part, etc. (see above). Journal Asiatique, 1847. Pp. 505-507. Warey, Artuur: Note on the Invention of Woodcuts. New China Review, 1919. BY ff 4 = (Asaxura Kameso): A AR Fl BB (Aistory of Early Printing in Japan). Tokyo, 1999, privately printed. Ppl 3 You Te a0 (see above). Book 1, folios 19-20. 266 BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAPTER VII By sy Aly =. (Asakura Kames6). See above. Pp. 6-14. SaTow, Sir Ernest: On the Early History of Printing in Ffapan. Trans- actions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1882. Vol. 10, pp. 48-83. Same volume, pp. 252-259. Hore, Hermann: Ueber den alten chinesischen Typendruck und seine Entwickelung in den Landern des Fernen Ostens. Berlin, 1923. Page 3. Sporry, Hans: Das Stempelwesen in Fapan. Zurich, 1901. (A pamphlet containing much about the early history of seals in Japan.) Encycropepia Brirannica. Eleventh edition. Article Typography. Mourvocn, James: 4 History of Fapan. Vol. 1, chapters 5-7 (for his- torical setting). CHAPTER VIII BLOCK PRINTS FOUND AT TUN-HUANG STEIN: Serindia (see above). Vol. 2, pp. 822, 845, 893, 918; vol. 4, plates 99-102. PeLuioT, Paut: Une bibliothéque médiévale retrouvée au Kan Sou. Bulletin de Ecole Francaise d’Extréme Orient, 1908. Vol. 8, pp. bee ee Se Binyon, Laurence: Catalogue of Fapanese and Chinese Woodcuts in the British Museum. London, 1916. Pp. 576-581. EARLIEST LITERARY REFERENCES Ko-chih-ching-y tian (see above). Book 39, fol. 1-3. Ba oe (Liv An): FP BY BE A Ue GE FE (History of Chinese Printing). Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1916. Pp. 1-3. Curzon, Rosert: Printing in China and Europe. Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society. London, 1860. Vol. 6, pp. 1-33. Watery, Artuur: Note on the Invention of Woodcuts. New China Review. Ig1g. Yeu T&-nu1 (see above). Book 1, folios 18-19. CHAPTER IX E BA HE (Wanc Kuo-wen): FL (GU BE ARF (4 Study of the Printing of the National Academy during the Five Dynasties). ad Ee BIBLIOGRAPHY 267 = Fj (Journal of Sinological Studies). Peking, January, 1923. Pp. 139-145. (This is a careful collection of source material on the printing of the period under consideration.) 8] As (Liu An). See above. Pp. 3-6. Yeu T£-nut1 (see above). Book 1, folios 20-22. KaprotH, Jutes: Lettre a M. le Baron A. de Humboldt sur Pinvention de la boussole. Paris, 1834. Pp. 128-130. Curzon, R.: Printing in China and Europe. Miscellanies of the Philo- biblon Society. London, 1860. Vol. 6, pp. 1-33. Torrance, T.: The History of Szechuen during the Epoch of the Five Dynasties. West China Missionary News, Ch’eng-tu, May, Igrg. Vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 28-37. (See also article by same writer entitled, Szechuen during the T’ang Dynasty, same magazine, August, 1918, Pp- 21-35-) CHAPTER X ay Ae (Liu An). See above. Pp. 6-39, 51-53. SwincLe, WALTER T.: Orientalia: Acquisitions. Report of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, 1923. Pp. 174-179. Satow, Sir Ernest: On the Early History of Printing in Fapan. Trans- actions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1882. Vol. 10, pp. 48-83. Also p. 257. HY y= eet = (Asakura Kameso). See above. Pp. 22 ff. Pe.uiot, Pau: Les documents chinois trouvés par la Mission Koslov a Khara-khoto. Journal Asiatique, 1914. Series 2, vol. 3, pp. 503-518. Yeu Tf-nut (see above). Books 2-10. (A full and scholarly study of the printing of the Sung, Yuan and early Ming Dynasties.) CHAPTER XI vig GR (Ma Tuay-uiy): 3 kek i (Wen-hsien-t ung-k ao), c. 1319. The more important parts bearing on the subject are quoted, with Chinese text and English translation, in Vissering (see below). VissERING, WILLEM: On Chinese Currency, Coin and Paper Money. Leiden, 1877. Pp. 160-218. Kviaprotu, Jutes: Sur lorigine du papier monnaie. In Mémoires 268 BIBLIOGRAPHY rélatifs a ! Asie, by Jules Klaproth, vol. 1, pp. 375-388. Also pub- lished separately. Morse, H. B.: Currency in China. Journal Royal Asiatic Society, China Branch, 1907. Vol. 38, pp. 17-31. SABURO, S.: The Origin of Paper Currency. Journal of Peking Oriental Society, 1889. Vol. 2, pp. 265-307. BusHe tL, S. W.: Specimens of Ancient Chinese Paper Money. Ibid., pp- 308-316. Anon.: Paper Money among the Chinese. Chinese Repository, 1851. Vol. 20, pp. 289-296. Yuve, Sir Henry: The Book of Ser Marco Polo. Third edition, revised by Henri Cordier, London, 1903. Vol. 1, pp. 423-430. Yuve, Sir Henry: Cathay and the Way Thither. New edition, revised by Henri Cordier, London, 1913-1916. Vol. 2, pp. 195-198; vol. 3, pp. 148-150; vol. 4, pp. 112-113. To this list should be added a recent Chinese work on early banknotes, with plates, by the well-known scholar, Lo Chen-yii (4E tre =k) C CHAPTER XII Hirty, Frrepricu: China and the Roman Orient: Researches into their ancient and mediaeval relations as represented in old Chinese records. Shanghai, 1885. Hermann, Arsert: Die alten Seidenstrassen zwischen China and Syria. Berlin, 1gio. BRETSCHNEIDER, Emit: Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources. London, 1888. 2 vols. Laurer, BertHoup: Sino-Iranica: Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of culti- vated plants and products. Chicago, 1919. Beaztey, C. Raymonp: Dawn of Modern Geography. London, 1897- 1906. Vol. 1, chap. 5. Yuve, Sir Henry: Cathay and the Way Thither. Cordier edition. Lon- don, 1913-1916. 4 vols. Hirtu, Frrepricu, and Rockuitx, W. W.: Chau Fu-kua, his Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. St. Petersburg, IgII. BIBLIOGRAPHY 269 CHAPTER XIII Biancuet, Aucustin: Essai sur [histoire du papier. Paris, 1goo. (An excellent summary of the whole history, but written before recent ex- cavations in Turkestan.) WE Ls, H. G.: The Outline of History. New York, 1921. Pp. 603, 717- 718. EncyciopepiA Brirannica. Article Paper. Conrapy, A.: Die Chinesischen Handschriften und Kleinfunde Sven Hedins in Loulan. Stockholm, 1920. StreIn: Serindia (see above). Index, Paper. Konow, STEN: Orken og Oase. Kristiania, 1912. ZATURPANSKIJ, CHoros: Reisewege und Ergebnisse der deutschen Turfan- expeditionen. Orientalisches Archiv, 1913. Vol. 3, pp. 116-127. KarABACEK, J.: Mitteilungen aus der Sammlung des Erzherzog Rainer. KarasackEk, J.: Das Arabische Papier. Vienna, 1887. KaraBaceKk, J.: Neue Quellen zur Papiergeschichte. Vienna, 1888. KaraBackk, J.: Papyrus Erzherzog Raineri: Fiihrer durch die Ausstel- lung. Vienna, 1894. GrouMANN, Apotr: Corpus Papyrorum Raineri III. Series Arabica, I, 1. Allgemeine Einfiihrung in die Arabischen Papyri. Vienna, 1925. (In preparation.) For works on history of paper in China, see Bibliography of chapter one. For works on the introduc- tion of paper to Europe, see Bibliography in Encyclopedia Britannica. GHAPTER XIV Almost nothing has been written concerning the block printing of Turfan, The material for this chap- ter has been gained from personal observation of the block prints in the Museum fiir V olkerkunde at Berlin, and from conversation with Dr. von Le Coq who discovered them. The following general articles contain an account of the Turfan discoveries as a whole. The first of them contains in its footnotes references to many monographs on various phases of the Turfan discoveries. The reader is also referred to other publications of Dr. von Le Coq and Dr. Griinwedel. ZATURPANSKIJ, CHoros: Reisewege und Ergebnisse der deutschen Turfan- expeditionen. Orientalisches Archiv, 1913. Vol. 3, pp. 116-127. von Le Cog, AtBert: Origin, Fourney and Results of the First Royal Prussian Expedition to Turfan. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1909. Pp. 299-323. von Le Coa, Atsert: Exploration archéologique a Tourfan. Journal Asiatique, 190g. Series 10, vol. 14, pp. 321-342. 270 BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAPTER XV GENERAL VIEW OF EARLY RELATIONS BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHINA Broomuatt, Marsuari: Islam in China. London, Igto. Pp. 1-108. FERRAND, GaBRIEL: Voyages du marchand Sulayman en 851, suivi de remarques par Abii Zayd Hasan (vers 916). Les Classiques de l’Orient, vol. 7. Paris, 1922. Hirtu, Frrepricn, and Rocxuity, W. W.: Chau Fu-kua (see above). YuLe: Cathay and the Way Thither (see above). Vol. 1, sections 56-59, 77-87; vol. 4, pp. 1-166. Beaztey, C. Raymonp: The Dawn of Modern Geography. London, 1897. Vol. 1, chap. 7. ARABIC PREJUDICE AGAINST PRINTING KaRABACEK, J.: Papyrus Erzherzog Raineri: Fiihrer durch die Aus- stellung. Vienna, 1894. Pp. 248-249. CHAPTER XVI Encyctopepia Brirannica. Eleventh edition. Article China. Vol. 6, pp. 189-191. (An excellent summary.) Howorrn, Henry H.: History of the Mongols. London, 1888. Parts I. and II. Corner, Henri: Histoire de Chine. Paris, 1920. Vol. 2, pp. 369-432. Yue: Cathay and the Way Thither (see above). Vol. 1, sections 88-107. Beaziey, C. Raymonp: Dawn of Modern Geography. London, 1901. Volia;‘chap. 4: BRETSCHNEIDER, Emit: Mediaeval Researches. 2 vols. (see above). Beaziey, C. Raymonp: The Texts and Versions of Fohn de Plano Car- pint and William de Rubruquis. London, 1903. Yute, Sir Henry: The Book of Ser Marco Polo. Third edition, revised by H. Cordier, London, 1903. 2 vols. Pe.uiot, Paut: Les Mongols et la Papauté. Revue de l’Orient Chrétien, 1922-1923. Series 3, vol. 3 (23), nos. 1 and 2, pp. 3-30. BIBLIOGRAPHY 271 CHAPTER XVII Howortn, Henry H.: History of the Mongols. London, 1888. Part III. Browne, Epwarp G.: Persian Literature under the Tartar Dominion. Cambridge, 1920. Pp. 3-104. Yue: Cathay and the Way Thither (see above). Vol. 3, pp. 108-133. Yue: The Book of Ser Marco Polo (see above). Vol. 1, pp. 74-76, 428-429; vol. 2, pp. 466-478. Pe.uior, Paut: Les Mongols et la Papauté. Series of articles to be pub- lished in Revue de [Orient Chrétien. For list see Rev. de Or. Ch., series 3, vol. 3 (1922-1923), pp. 2-3. CHAPTER XVIII KarasaceKk, J.: Papyrus Erzherzog Raineri: Fiihrer durch die Ausstel- lung. Vienna, 1894. Pp. 247-250. GrouMAnn, ApoLr: Corpus Papyrorum Raineri III. Series Arabica, I, 1. Allgemeine Einfiihrung in die Arabischen Papyri. Vienna, 1925. (In preparation.) CHAPTER XIX FOR CHINESE ORIGIN T’u-shu-chi-ch éng (see above). Book 807, section zh ply Hh, sub-sec- tion tii ja a. Tz’ ti-y tian (see above). Articles HE F- R and #& Fi. Wirxinson, W. H.: The Chinese Origin of Playing Cards. American Anthropologist, 1895. Vol. 8, pp. 61-78. Cuuin, Stewart: The Game of Ma-Fong, its Origin and Significance. Brooklyn Museum Quarterly, October, 1924. FOR HISTORY IN EUROPE Encyc.opepiA Britannica. Article Cards. De Vinne, THEeopore L.: The Invention of Printing. New York, 1876. Pp. 88-108. Cuatro, Witiiam A.: Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards. London, 1848. See also Bibliography in Encyclopedia Britannica, She BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAPTER XX ay yy $i = (Asakura Kames6). See above. Pp. 4-6. (This includes references to a number of other Japanese works on the subject.) Torr! SHuxo: T/lustrated Catalog of the Shoso-in Treasury at Nara. 1908. English introduction. STEIN: Serindia (see above). Index, Si/k, printed. Forrer, R.: Die Kunst des Zeugdruckes. Strassburg, 1898. Forrer, R.: Die Zeugdrucke der byzantischen, romanischen, gothischen und spatern Kunstepochen. Strassburg, 1894. Baker, GeorcE P.: Calico Painting and Printing in the East Indies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London, 1921. CHAPTER XXI See Bibliography in Encyclopedia Britannica. Article Typography. Eleventh edition, vol. 27, page 541. CHAPTER XXII WN, +e (SHin Kua): 3S WF =e Be (Méng-ch i-pi-tan). Between 10S0 and 1093. Edition of 1631, book 18, section 9. F he (Wane Cuénc): BA BE (Nung-shu). 1314. Appendix of JR cr. fey BS YS We =F edition. oH a5 (Liu An). See above. Pp. 39-50. HE f#i ei (Yeu Té-n01) see above. Book 8, folios 1-5. Juien, Sranistas: Documents sur Tart, etc. (see above). Journal Asi- atique, 1847. Pp. 511-519. STUBE, R.: Die Erfindung des Druckes in China und seine Verbreitung in Ostasien. Beitrage zur Geschichte der Technik, 1918. Vol. 8, pp. 88 ff. Hire, Hermann: Ueber den alten chinesischen Typendruck (see above). Pp. 4-11. CHAPTER XXIII By y=) fle = (Asakura Kames6). See above. Pp. 125-128. Satow, Ernest: On the early History of Printing in Fapan. Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1882. Vol. 10, pp. 48-83. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ohh) Satow, Ernest: Further Notes on Movable Types in Korea. Same vol- ume, pp. 252-250. Courant, Maurice: Bibliographie coréenne. Paris, 1895. Pp. 148- 149. Also introduction, pp. xliii-lxi. STuBe, R.: Die Enfindung des Druckes in China und seine Verbreitung in Ostasien (see above). Hire, Hermann (see above). Pp. 11-15. CHAPTER XXIV See Bibliography in Encyclopedia Britannica. Article Typography. Eleventh edition, vol. 27, p. 541. WORKS FROM WHICH ILLUSTRATIONS HAVE BEEN REPRODUCED Grateful acknowledgement is made of the following works, from each of which one or more illustrations have been reproduced. ScHRAMM, ALBERT: Schreib- und Buchwesen einst und jetzt. Leipsic. No date. KaraBackK, J.: Papyrus Erzherzog Raineri: Fithrer durch die Ausstel- lung. Vienna, 1894. Yue, Sir Henry: The Book of Ser Marco Polo. Cordier edition. Lon- don, 1903. GusMAN, Pierre: La gravure sur bois et d’épargne sur métal du XIV" au XX°* siécle. Paris, 1916. STEIN, Sir M. Auret: Serindia. London, 1921. Pa 45 (Liv Ay): 4 BQ RE We Wa i FE (History of Chinese Printing). Shanghai, 1916. INDEX INDEX A Asu ZEYD, gI AGRICULTURE, Book of, 165, 166 Aumep III, Sultan, 112 AHMED TiGuUDAR, 127 ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 8, 19 Aw Tun (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), 86 Anbrew, bishop of Zayton in Fukien, 124 AraBIA, 98, 231 ARISTOPHANES, 89, 227 AUGUSTINE, ST., 90 B BACKGAMMON, 139, 229, 241 Bacon, RoGER, 92, 236 BanakArti (Garden of the Intelligent), 131, 132, 189, 239, 240 BANK NOTES, see Paper money BERNARD OF SIENNA, ST., 142 Brack DEATH, 153 Biock PRINTING, method, 26-27, 130, 131 significance of, 23-27 Bronze TYPE, see Movable type BuppHIST CANON, see Tripitaka C Carns, see Playing cards Castra.pi oF FEttTRE, Pamfilio, 122 CATHERINE II, 113 Cauma, RaBBAN, 127 Caves OF THE THOUSAND Buppuas, see Tun-huang Caxton, WILLIAM, IOI CENNINI, CENNINO, 148, 247 Cuanc Cu’ IEn, 86, 226 CHARMS, IO-II, 33, 36-37, 109, 119, T2se ace 37.00 38, Lal pe200r207, 209, 223 Cu’EN Cu’Il, 57 CHENG-TzU-T’uNG (dictionary), 141, 244 CHESS, 139, 141, 229, 242, 244 CHIO-NEN, 63 Cuou Ju-Kua, 114 CHRISTOPHER, ST., print, 142, 151 Cuu Hs, 58 Cuu I, 45 Cuu YU, 93, 203 Cuuanc Hsien Wana, 174 CHUANG-T2U, 66 Cray TyPE, see Movable type CoLUMBUS, 124 Compass, xi, 55, 92, 93, 153, 161; 230 Conrucian CLassics, cutting of in stone, 12-15, 212 printing of, 45, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 60, 62, 64, 67, 71, 137, 159, 181, TOOL STI, 212"218 CosMAs, 120, 121, 235 Coup et, PHIL., xiii D Damascus, 98, 100, IOI, 121, 153, 154 De Gama, Vasco, 125, 237 De Provins, Guyot, 93 De Rusruauis, WILLIAM, 76, 92, 120, T21, 22%, 232, 236, 236 De Vinne, THEODORE L., 24, 175, 200, 250, 257, 259 278 De Virry, Carp1nal, 93 DESIGN PRINTING ON PAPER, 30 Duaranl, vii, 35-38, 208, 209 Diamonp Sutra, 14, 30, 32, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 63, 65, 66, 107, 181, 207- 211, 221, 222 Dice, 139, 140, 141, 229, 243 Doxyo, 35 DoMINoEs, 140, 243 E EARTHENWARE TYPE, see Movable type EeyPr, xii, Xv, 17, 25, 99, 100, 109, IIo, 129, 133-138, 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 155, 180, 185, 194, 201, 229, 241, 246, 247, 248 Ex-EprisI, 100, 231 F Fan YEH, 3 Féno Tao, 2, 14, 24, 26, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50; 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 62, 63, 66, 69, 71, 110, 136, 159, 160, 162, 181, 199, 202, 203, 208, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, Ohh LE “FLYING MONEY,” 70, 71, 80, 223 FOLDED BOOK, 43, 108, 208, 209 FRANCE, 88, 121, 126, 127, 141, 147, 153, 185, 244, 245 G GEMBO, 35 Gencuis Kuan, see Jinghis Khan GERMANY, 116, 118, 141, 147, TSI pts3, 185, 244, 245 Guazan Kuan, 125, 129-130, 237, 239 Giovio, PauLo, see Jovius, Paulus GREECE, 85 GroHMann, ADOLF, 137, 190, 231, 233, 240, 244 INDEX GRUNWEDEL, 103 GuNPOWDER, Xi, 55, 92, 143, 153, 229 GUTENBERG, 17, 23, 24, 43, 53, 61, 69, 76, 125, 129, 132, 136, Ist, 192, 1535 1§5, 166 ,180, 182, 257, 259-260 H Hair PEN, xiv, 2 Han in CoLtece, 61 Hartn-at-Rasuip, 98 Henin, Sven, 96 Hirtu, FRIEDRICH, xii, 227, 230, 233 Hs1 Tsunc (Emperor), 44 Hsien Tsunc (Emperor), 70, 223 Hstan Ho, 140 Hstan Tsane, 29, 193, 207, 220 Hua Sut, 177, 258 Hui Tsunc (Emperor), 73 Hutacu, 126, 127 Hite, Hermann, xiii, xiv, 252 Hunc Wu (Emperor), 76, 80 Huncary, 116, 118, 121 I FAMILY, 58 Isn Batura, 114, 225, 233 Inn VaHas, gI IBRAHIM, I12 ImacE prints (European), 142, 150- 1$2, 155-156, 183, 246, 248, 249 Inv1A, 78, 87, 90, 93, 103, 120, 128, 131, 139, 145, 185, 190, 193, 207, 220, 226, 227, 228, 231, 241, 242 INK, 24, 25, 26, 154, 155, 181, 199- 201 Inscriptions, see Rubbings from stone inscriptions Iray, 88, 113, 129, 141, 142, PR ie KE 185, 237, 245 INDEX J JAPAN, I$, 17; 23; 24, 31, 32; 33-39» 41, 47, 52, 62, 63, 64, 77, 86, 90, 104, 107, 116, 136, 146, 147, 148, 149, 177, 179, IGT, 185, 206-207, 221,223, 243; 242. 247, 248, 254, 255, 257 Jincuis Kuan, 61, 65, 66, 75, 103, 106, 110, 116, 117, 126, 169, 232, 233 Jovius, Pautus, xiii, 120, 189, 234, 235, 259 JuLieN, STANISLAS, xiii, 198, 199, 20T, 202, 204, 251, 252 Justinian, 87 K KARABACEK, 4, 137, 231, 240 KaRA-KHOTO, 65, 67, 79, 107, 117, 220, 234 KaTA-KANA, 33 KHAIKHATU KHAN, 128 K1IBI-NO-MABI, 33 KLAPROTH, JULES, Xili, 230, 239 Ko-cHIH-CHING-yUan (Encyclopedia), XIV, 198, 199, 200, 202, 208, 210 Ko Hung, Io, 195, 196 Korea, $35 61, 63, 64, 955 116, 155, 166, 169-179, 182, 184, 185, 254—- 259 KOREAN PRINTING, Xiv, 53, 61, 169- 179, 254-259 Kos ov, 65, 67, 79, 117, 220, 221, 226, 234 Kovyouk KHAN, 120, 121 Ku K’ar-cuin, 19 Kusial Kuan, 58, 67, 75, 124, 127, £25, 223 KUO0-SHIH-CHIH, 45 Kuyuk Kuan, see Kouyouk Khan Kwammvu, 38 219 L Lao-12U, 29, 66, 67, 140, 243 Laurer, BERTHOLD, 89, 226, 227, 228 EDO GT. 8 t2) 702i o Lr Po, 29, 194 Li Sst, 8 Li Tsanc, 173, 256 Pete ids 2024213, 216 Liv An, 62, 189, 209, 210, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 251, 253,254, 268 Liu Pin, 44, 45, 47, 48, 66, 196, 209, 210 Louis, St., 121 M Ma Kao, 51, 213, 214, 216 Ma Tuan-.in, 71, 74, 192, 193, 203, Paso bites hg Row t Mau Jona, 140, 243, 244 Mancu Kuan, 67 MANICHEISM, gO MA&r Yaus-aana IIT, see Marcos, Rabban Marcos, RaBBan, 127, 238 MARIGNOLLI, 124, 236 MarINERS’ COMPASS, see Compass ME Ti, 2, 177, 258 Meapows, Tuomas T., xili, 203, 210, DIG 210.227 MEERMAN, GERARD, xiii, 189, 240 MEsoporaMIA, II0, III, 126, 137, 190 METAL BLOCKS, 26, 159, 206-207, 251 MetaL TyPE, see Movable type M1 T’o-sHAN, 37 Minc Huanc (Emperor), 29, 32 MoHAMMEDAN PENETRATION OF FAR East, gI MOoHAMMEDAN PRINTING, 68 MONGOL PRINTING, 61, 62, 109, 117, 118, 234 280 Monre-Corvino, JoHN oF, 122, 123, 154, 234, 236, 237 Morocco, 100 MovaBLE TYPE, 7, 23, 24, 25, 159-168, 169-179, 184, 185, 251-253, 254-259 Earthenware, 160-162, 167 Metal, 170-178 Tin, 162-163, 167 Wood, 161, 163-166, 167 Murtuk, 105 Muozzarrar, Izzupin, 128, 129 N NARA, 34, I12, 147, 205 NationaL Acapemy (Kuo-tzt-chien), LG PLL eC heh Combed Rom eo 07 Ue PR opi hte Nestorians, 68, 87, 89, 90, 91, 102, LOA, I Tce te NUREMBERG, IOI, 136, 142, 150, 231, 245 O Oporic, missionary, 124, 128, 225 OcarTal, 75, 118, 221, 232, 233 Origines Typographicae, xiii, 240 FE PaPER, invention of, 1-6, 190-191 “Paper oF Marquis Ts’al,” 3 PaPER, transmission of, 95-101, 230- 231 Paper Money, 70-81, 120, 121-122, 124, 128-129, 133, 222-226, 234; 238, 239, 243, 250 Papyrus, 97, 99, 194 PEGOLOTTI, 75, 124, 225 PELLIOT, PAUL, xvi, 13, 40, 45, 62, 66, 167, 197, 202, 207, 209, 210, 218, 221, 222, 226, 227, 229, 232, 234, 235, 238, 260 INDEX Pers, 60, 76, 81, 85, 87, 90, 103, 110, TIT, LIC 116, 118,128, 196-1ssai47, 143, 154, 185, 228, 229, 230, 233, 237-240, 242, 250 Pi SHENG, 160, 161, 167, 178, 181, 182, Wis 2cOr sey Piano Carpini, JOHN OF, 120, 121 235 PLAYING cCaRDs, 11, 66, 89, 119, 129, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 155, 156, 183, 241-246 Puiny, 89, 146 PoLanp, 116, 118 Potro, Marco, xi, 68, 70, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 98, 114, 122, 124, 166, 236, 238, 239 PoRCELAIN, 89, 93 Pounce, see Stencils PRESTER, JOHN, gI PRINTED TEXTILES, 30, 31, 34, 35, 105, 136, 145-149, 152, 154, 155, 184, 205, 246-249 First dated prints, 147 Methods of printing, 145-148 > R RASHID-EDDIN, 9, I15, 128, 130-132, 154, 189, 197, 219, 239, 240 Rémusat, ABEL, 140, 141, 244 Rocer, King, 100 ROMANIZATION OF CHINESE WORDS, XVill RUuBBINGS FROM STONE INSCRIPTIONS, 12-16, 29-39, 31, 197-199 Chief importance, 14 Earliest reference to, 13 Method of taking, 12 Transition from stone to wooden blocks, 15 INDEX Russia, 76, 111, 116, 118, 119, 420, TDP, Reedy 05 22 299s 235, 250, 259 SALADIN, 89, 93 SAMARKAND, 97, 98, 99, I00, 112 SANSKRIT PRINTING, 107, 169 Satow, Sir Ernest, xiv, 64, 174, 206, 221, Bh2FaC eR I66 SEAL IMPRESSIONS, 127, 235, 237 In China, 9-10 In Japan, 30, 63 SEAMS, JofL. 44, 75,50, 122,131, 152, 181, 184, I9I-I97, 205, 224, 235, 237, 238, 251 Suen Kwa, 93, 160, 172, 203, 214, 216, 220,125 200253 SHoku Ninoncl, 36, 64, 205, 206, 241 SHoToKu (EmpREss), 33, 34, 35, 38, 47, 181, 206 SICILY, 100, 229, 245 SILK, 2, 35 5, 345 43, 85-89, 190, 191, 193, 227, 230 SPAIN, I00, IOI, 112, 114, 141, 153, 154, 229, 230, 244, 246 STAMPS OF METAL AND WOOD, 30, 31, 181, 202 ¥ STEIN, Sir M. Aur, 2, 5, 8, 40, 96, 97, 207, 209, 247 STENCILS, 29-30, 31, 105, 155, 245 STITCHED BOOKS, 108, 208 STONE InscRIPTIONS, see Rubbings from stone inscriptions SUBHUTI, 4! Syria, 85, 90, 103, 113, 126, 228 43 T’at Tsunc (Emperor), 28, 29, 32, 170-171, 197, 198, 251, 255 281 Tal T’uNG, xviii, 189 T’Al-P’ING-YU-LAN 177, 242 TANGUT, I17, 232 TANGUT PRINTING, 65-66, 108, 234 TAoIsT CANON, printing of, 66 TAOIST CHARMS, I0, II, 12, 195, 196, 199 Tao-T&-CHING, 67 Ta’RIKH-I-BANAKATI, see Banakati THA’ALIBI, 97 TIBET, 28, 128, Ig1 TIBETAN PRINTING, I0g, 169 T’ren Min, 51, 52, 162, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217 Tin Type, see Movable type TRIPITAKA, 53, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 137, 203, 221 Ts’ar Lun (inventor of paper), 2, 3, 4, 96, 180, 181, Ig1 Ts’1n SHtu Huanc (Emperor), 2, 8, 192, 193, 194 Tso Tzt-1, 5 Tu Fu, 29, 220, 251 TUN-HUANG, 13; 14, 29; 39 31; 39; 49°, 42, 43> 45, $35 65, 96, 102, 104, 106, PopeeTOgs 110.) C17, (136) 147, 7807, 168, 182, 197, 198, 199, 207, 208, 209, 210, 222, 232, 234, 247, 248 TuRFAN, 29, 30, 31, 45, 62, 65, 88, 96, FOI EIT, O12) TG Its: 1345: 141; 147, 202, 207, 231-232, 234, 241, 248 TURKESTAN, Xil, XV, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 28, 30, 39, 85, 87, 90, 96, 97, 99, 102, 113, TiO eT 1G 8t29,0190, (197, 147, 191; 194, 195, 196, 202, 207, 227, 236 T’u-sHu-cHI-cH’£nG (Encyclopedia), Type, see Movable type TYPE MOULD, 166, 175, 182, 251 Tz’t-ytan (Encyclopedia), 140, 258 (Encyclopedia), 282 U Uicur Turks, 51, 61, 66, 102-111, 112, L116, 117; 119,012 7012894 44. 107, 175, 231-232, 259 Vi VIGLIONI, PrEeTRO, 128 VimaLa NirBHASA SUTRA, 36 von LE Coa, ALBERT, 103 Ww Wane An-sHIH, 72, 73, 159 Wane Cuéna, 160, 166, 167, 168, 253, 254, 260 Wanc CHIEH, 41, 42, 47, 181-182, 207, 209 Wanc Manc (Emperor), 70 INDEX Wanc WEI, 29 Wer Tanc (inventor of ink), 24, 25, 200 WELLs, H. G., xii Wen Ti (Emperor), 31, 202, 228 WIESNER, 4, 98 Woopen type, see Movable type Wu Cuao-, 49, 52, 57, 212, 217, 218 Wu Tao-1zi, 29 Wu Ti (Emperor), 70, 194, 222 a Yano WEI-CHUNG, 172 Yeu MEnc-r8, 68, 215, 219, 222 Y1, GENERAL, 169 YU FAMILY, 58, 219 Yunc Lo (Emperor), 76, 253, 255 ir) : Bec ee Spent , Pe. i he ced Pek heey Se my > s ¢ ~ es a A Bae (SP LC a DD a — oy - — =~ : — >. . = nomle ot es oa ie cn = re sa A + ae oa a & = 2. > — Pe coe a 7 te - Z186 .C5C32 The invention of printing in China and iii A 1 1012 00028 6320 Ovi ane