Tripitaka Koreana Buddhist texts will go digital, Cultural Heritage Administration says

Korean Heritage

Published: 18 Mar. 2024, 17:59

Tripitaka Koreana Buddhist texts will go digital, Cultural Heritage Administration says

Goryeo Daejanggyeong, or Tripitaka Koreana, engraved on approximately 80,000 woodblocks, are stored at Haein Temple in South Gyeongsang. [CULTURAL HERITAGE ADMINISTRATION]

The Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) announced Monday that it will digitize the Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, or the Depositories for the Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks housed in Haein temple.

If the cultural heritage, physically located in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang, gets a digital makeover, it will be more easily accessible for and utilized by the general public, according to the CHA.

Tripitaka Koreana is the most complete collection of Buddhist texts, engraved on 80,000 woodblocks between 1237 and 1248. This was between 24th and 35th year of King Gojong during the Goryeo Period (1237-1248). The texts were created to defend against invasions from the Mongols and are recognized by Buddhist scholars around the world for their outstanding accuracy and superior quality. They were inscribed in the Unesco Memory of the World Register in 2007.

To spread the information engraved on this Tripitaka Koreana, Buddhist monks had printed them with ink on paper, bound them into books and enshrined them in major temples across the country since the Goryeo Dynasty. However, only a few original copies are known to have survived in Korea and Japan, though none in complete form, making it near impossible for the general public to have access to the content.

The administration said it will create a replica of the woodblocks and scan the texts and digitize all 80,000 of them by 2025.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]