Thus the oldest book in the world must surely be the gutenberg bible oldest printed book in the west, from c. Erica eisen the oldest printed book in the world lrb 12 october. The diamond sutra is part of a larger canon of early mahayana sutras known as the prajnaparamita meaning perfection of wisdom sutras. The diamond sutra, which bears the date 868 ad, was found in a walledup cave in dunhuang, northwest china, in 1907, along with other printed items. According to reports, the book, exhibited in 2003, was estimated at about 2,500 years old. It is widely accepted that the earliest mechanically printed fulllength book was the gutenberg bible, printed in mainz, germany c.
The exact date of the composition of the diamond sutra in sanskrit is uncertainarguments for the 2nd and 5th centuries have been made. Bbc news entertainment oldest printed book on display. A book thought to be the oldest surviving printed book in the world has gone on display at the british library. Right now, the book known as the oldest in the world is a severalpagelong volume held by the bulgarias national museum of history. The book is comprised of six pages of beaten 24carat gold covered with etruscan script, one of the few writing systems scholars have yet to decipher source. Entertainment oldest printed book on display bbc news.
A colophon at the end of the dunhuang diamond sutra scroll dates it to 868, nearly six centuries before the first gutenberg bible. The world s earliest complete, dated and printed book goes back to may 11, 868. The cover on the surviving volume of the metal type edition records in french the oldest known korean book printed with molded type, with 77 as date. A copy of this sacred text, which was discovered in the mogao caves of dunhuang, china, has been described as being the world s earliest complete survival of a dated printed book. Do you, however, know which the oldest dated printed book still in existence even today is. Five things to know about the diamond sutra, the world s oldest dated printed book printed over 1,100 years ago, a chinese copy of the diamond sutra at the british library is one of the most. And yet, this work came to the limelight only in the early 20th century. The gutenberg bible, also known as the 42line bible, is listed by the guinness book of world records as the worlds oldest mechanically printed. The diamond sutra was printed by method of woodblock printing, a strenuous method in which the text to be printed would be carved into a woodblocks surface, essentially to be used to stamp the words onto the writing surface medium.
A chinese version of a key text in the mahayana buddhist tradition, this diamond sutrafound among. Equally incorrect are websites whose claims are based on the premise that a book is a printed object. Jikji is known to be the first printed book using movable metal print technology by koryo korea. The buddhist text known as the diamond sutra is believed to be the oldest surviving printed book in the world.