Haeinsa Temple: Printing Blocks of the Tripitaka Koreana

SOUTH KOREA, South Gyeongsang, Hapcheon; Goryeo dynasty

There have been two wooden printing block versions of the Tripitaka Koreana. The first version was commissioned in 1011 and took 77 years to complete. It was destroyed by fire during the Mongolian invasion of 1232. In 1236 a canon editorial department was established at the Goryeo court and the entire nation was mobilized to re-carve the printing blocks to pray for victory over the Mongols. The new version was completed in 1251 after 16 years and is known as the Tripitaka Koreana or Eighty-Thousand Tripitaka.
The printing blocks were relocated to Haeinsa Temple in 1398 during the Joseon dynasty. The wooden print blocks, together with the Woodblock Storage Halls, were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
There are 81,258 printing blocks carved from Jirisan Mountain birch wood. They are carved on both sides with 23 rows of 14 Chinese characters on each side. The Tripitaka includes 1,512 divisions and 6,791 fascicles of the sutras, vinayas, and abhidharmas. It is the standard reference work on the Buddhist canon and plays an important role in research on Buddhist texts. The 20th century Japanese Taisho Tripitaka was compiled based on it. In recent years, Haeinsa Temple has digitized the canon, and in 2003, they began to print the Tripitaka onto single-sided bronze blocks as a prayer for world peace and the reunification of Korea. By 2006, 160,000 blocks had been completed.