Books
The dissemination of sacred texts
Introduction
Both Buddhism and Christianity were faiths of the book, even though many of their adherents were not fully literate. Here we look at the religious texts and their formats as they travelled along the Silk Roads.
The Sacred Texts
The Christian Bible was formed of pre-Christian texts in Hebrew which were brought together as the ‘Old Testament’, and new texts compiled in the first centuries of Christianity in Greek, called ‘The New Testament’. In northwest Europe it was usually found in Latin, translated from the Greek, and written in the Latin/Roman alphabet. The existing languages of northwestern Europe, such as Celtic, Old English and Old Norse, were written using various scripts, including runic, but these started to be replaced with the introduction of the Latin alphabet. Although a long text, the Bible could be produced as a single volume, as in the English-produced Codex Amiatinus [ EXH72 ] shows: this has 1030 leaves. In addition, there were other Christian texts such as those giving monastic rules [ EXH65 ].
The Buddhist canon consisted of numerous texts, divided into three categories: the historical Buddha’s lectures—called sutra [ EXH71 ]—which were initially passed down orally among his disciples but in the 1st century BC were transcribed; monastic rules (vinaya—see EXH66 ); commeentaries and philosophic works (abidharma—see EXH23 ). Many of these were written in Pali, rather than Sansrkit, and this became the basis of the original complete canon which was formed by the 5th century. Other language canons, including Chinese and Tibetan, had different vinaya and abidharama sections and these continued to develop until printing.
When the Chinese canon was printed in the late 10th century (972–983), it consisted of over 5,000 texts and required 130,000 woodblocks. The 81,248 woodblocks from the 13th-century printing of the canon in Korea survive today in Haeinsa (海印寺). In east Asia, the canon was written in Literary Sinitic, but with a vocabulary that had many new words from Sanskrit and Pali. It was transcribed using Chinese script: hanja in Korean and kanji in Japanese. However, both cultures developed their own scripts over the following centuries. In Korea, idu, a system to write Korean language using Chinese characters, started to be developed from the 6th century or earlier.
Image: Woodblocks from printing the Tripiṭaka Koreana (the Buddhist Canon) in storage at Haeinsa (海印寺), image from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
Scribes
In the early centuries of their conversions, both regions relied on their continental neighbours for a supply of sacred texts, and they established scriptoria where texts from the continent were copied by scribes. In Britain, there were co-ed or double monasteries where both men and women were educated—such as at Whitby which was run by Abbess Hild (614–680)—and both worked as scribes. It was during Hild’s leadership that the Synod of Whitby was held, which ruled in favour of the Latin over the Celtic church [ EXH16 ].
Buddhism also had a tradition of monks and nuns owning and copying texts, as seen in the colophons—the text at the end—of many surviving Buddhist manuscripts which give the name of the copyist.
Materials
It is probable that Korea and Japan produced the materials they required locally: paper for the scroll, carbon ink, wood for the stave and roller, silk for a tie and possibly also for a cover, sometimes painted [ EXH71 ]. Paper was graded by quality, the highest grade using bast fibre from the bark of the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera), and the lower grades, bast fibre from hemp (Cannabis sativa L.).
The making of washi (Japanese paper).
Parchment was produced in both Britain and Scandinavia, but might also have been imported: such as seen for the Codex Amiantus [ EXH72 ]. The iron gall ink required gallnuts, iron vitriol (copperas), and gum arabic. Many Christian texts were illuminated, the pigments sometimes local, but also sometimes imported, as seen in the lapis from what is now Afghanistan used by the female scribes and artists at Dalheim, Germany in the 11th or 12th centuries. However, use of this expensive pigment is not found in Britain or Scandinavia until later. Books were bound between wooden or leather covers, sometimes stiffened with parchment from unwanted manuscripts.
Parchment making.
Books were not only kept in monasteries. Extracts from the sacred texts were made into smaller, more portable books, often illustrated: their owners were not necessarily fully literate. In Buddhism, one of the most popular extracts was chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, concerning the compassionate qualities of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. Here also, we see the start of the use of the codex in the 9th-10th centuries in China especially for small private booklets such as this where the format was more economical in terms of paper.
In Christianity, gospel books —containing one or more of the four Gospels from the New Testament—became popular both in the monasteries and for individuals, such as that sent with St Augustine to Britain [ EXH15 ], the one found in Cuthbert’s grave [ EXH10 ] or that used at Dalby in Denmark [ EXH73 ].
Printing
In Buddhism, replicating the word or image of Buddha was considered an act of merit, and it is perhaps not surprising that Buddhists took advantage of the new technology of printing. Before printed books, they were already producing stamps of the Buddha which could fill pages of paper with his image. Printing using woodblocks was a clear development from this: many of the early prints in China were of prayer sheets with an image above and a short text below, as seen here.
Printing was probably developed in China in the 7th century, but spread rapidly to Korea and Japan. The dharani scroll [ EXH88 ] found in Seokga Stupa [ EXH52 ] in Korea, can be dated to the early 8th century. Soon after, we have the printed texts of the million dharani project sponsored by Empress Shōtoku (r.764–770) in Japan [ EXH25 ].
Printing used carved woodblocks, as seen in those surviving in Haeinnsa in Korea. Although moveable type printing was tried, woodblock printing was more efficient for languages using the Chinese script and to print on fine paper, readily available at this time. Illustrations could also be carved and printed. Printing was also used for disseminating religious texts when it was developed in Christian Europe, but this was several centuries later.
A replica of one of the printing blocks for Tripiṭaka Koreana, image from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
Final Thoughts
Through books, both Buddhism and Christianity spread both the message of their religion and the literary languages of the continental edges of early medieval Eurasia: Literary Sinitic and Latin. Both also provided a means of education and linked people to a wider world of faith and literacy.
