Jikji
Korea invented printing with moveable type in 1377-- 78 Years Before the Gutenberg Bible
Jikji is the oldest extant document printed on movable metal type in Korea in 1377.
The Jikji (直指) (1377)
Jikji (直指) is the abbreviated title of a Korean Buddhist document Baegun hwasang chorok buljo jikji simche yojeol (백운화상초록불조직지심체요절, 白雲和尙抄錄佛祖直指心體要節) which can be translated as “Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests’ Zen Teachings”. This volume contains the essentials of Zen Buddhism compiled by the Zen Master Baegun (白雲, 1299–1374) in the late Goryeo (高麗, 918–1392) dynasty and was printed in the old Heungdeok-sa (興德寺) temple in Cheongju (淸州) city, using movable metal types in July 1377.
This book is recognized as the world’s oldest movable metal-type-printed book.
It is an important technical change in the print history of humanity. UNESCO confirmed Jikji (直指) as the world’s oldest metal-type-printed book in September 2001 and includes it in the Memory of the World Programme.1
How Did Jikji Get to France?
At some point in the early 1890s, Victor Collin de Plancy, the French ambassador to Korea, added an old Buddhist-oriented book to his already sizable collection. He had no idea that Baegun hwasung chorok buljo jikji simche yojeol (“Jikji,” for short) was the oldest extant document printed on movable metal type.
Jikji remained his property until 1911, when it was sold to the collector Henri Vever, who bequeathed it to the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)2 in 1950. The book entered the collections in 1952. Kept at the BnF under the reference Coréen 109 in the “Grande Réserve” of the Manuscripts Department, it is one of the most precious items in the collections and is treated accordingly. Every effort is made to keep its handling and movement to a minimum.3
A timeline of the journey is here.
In the decades that followed, its value in the eyes of historians and cultural anthropologists has risen enormously—evidence most of all that the printing press derives from East Asia and not Johannes Gutenberg’s workshop in Mainz, Germany.
Will Korea ever get the Jikji Back?
The book, Jikji, and One NGO’s Lonely Fight to Bring it Home, by Richard Pennington, is dedicated to the fearless Dr. Park Byeong-seon. It traces the Jikji story from its composition by a monk named Baegun to its printing at Heungdeok Temple in Cheongju, Korea in 1377 to Collin de Plancy to its present circumstances in a lockbox at the National Library of France.4
In 2021 the French culture minister has said she will actively consider lending "Jikji," the world's oldest existing metal-printed book made in ancient Korea, for exhibitions in South Korea.5
From Jikji to Gutenberg: 650th anniversary of the printing of Jikji in July 2027.
From Jikji to Gutenberg is a collaborative research project involving nearly 40 scholars living in 13 different time zones who will investigate the technological evidence related from the invention of book printing.6
The project will produce a catalog of scholarly essays to be published by The Legacy Press (Ann Arbor, MI) which will accompany an international exhibit to be held simultaneously in 44 research libraries, each a major cultural destination in its own right.
This cooperative transnational exhibit will commemorate the 650th anniversary of the printing of Jikji in July 2027. The goal for the core interpretive element of each library’s exhibit will be a 42-line Gutenberg Bible displayed for the first time together with its complement: an earlier Korean book printed from cast-metal type. In the Chinese tradition of the Four Great Inventions (the compass, gunpowder, papermaking, and printing), each exhibit will direct attendees toward the Bibliothèque nationale de France where its beautiful copy of the 42-line Gutenberg Bible will be showcased with the venerable Jikji.7
Jikji Global Homepage
The Jikji Gobal Homepage provides digitization of the original text.8
Edmondson, Ray, Lothar Jordan, and Anca Claudia Prodan. The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme: Key Aspects and Recent Developments. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG, 2019.
UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It calls for the preservation of valuable archival holdings, library collections, and private individual compendia all over the world for posterity, the reconstitution of dispersed or displaced documentary heritage, and increased accessibility to, and dissemination of, these items
Pennington, Richard. (2019). Jikji, and One NGO’s Lonely Fight to Bring it Home. Lulu Publishing Services. Release Date: September 27, 2019. ISBN: 9781684709335. A
France: “Jikji”, a treasure of the world of printing | BnF – Institutional website
From Jikji to Gutenberg. A digital publication from the J. Willard Marriott Library
Ibid.
Jikji Global > Original Text of Jikji > Commentary on the Original Text (globaljikji.org)
This is an amazing story. We are lucky that the first text set in movable time has been preseved so well for so long. It will be a pleasure for the world to celebrate its return to Korea.
Fascinating!
I am confused as to whether there was only one copy of the Jikji printed? (You say someone owned "the Jikji" as if there was only one). And do we think the knowledge was transmitted to Gutenberg or was that an independent (though later) invention?