When did King Gojong of Goryeo order the carving of the Tripitaka Koreana?
King Gojong of Goryeo issued a royal decree in 1237 to carve new wooden printing blocks. The project took twelve years to complete, finishing around 1249.
Questions about Tripitaka Koreana
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What materials and processes were used to construct the woodblocks for the Tripitaka Koreana?
Workers used birch wood from southern Korean islands which they soaked in sea water for three years before cutting it. They boiled the pieces in salt water to remove starches and coated each finished block with poisonous lacquer to repel insects.
Where is the Tripitaka Koreana currently housed and how many buildings protect it?
Haeinsa Temple houses the wooden printing blocks in South Gyeongsang Province within four specific buildings dedicated to housing these sacred texts. A new depository built in the early 1970s damaged some blocks almost immediately so those damaged blocks were subsequently moved back to their initial spots.
How many characters and pages are contained in the Tripitaka Koreana collection?
A total of 52,330,152 Hanja characters fill the entire collection spanning 81,258 pages. It contains 1,496 titles divided into 6,568 books across all the blocks.
When was the Tripitaka Koreana designated as a UNESCO Memory of the World register entry?
UNESCO inscribed the collection in its Memory of the World international register on the 2nd of May 2007. This designation makes it one of only three woodblock collections registered globally by the organization.