Places & destinations
KoreaPlaces & destinations
Haeinsa and the Tripitaka Koreana
Eighty-one thousand woodblocks carved in the thirteenth century, kept without air conditioning.
On the mapSouth Gyeongsang
A first woodblock version of the Buddhist canon burned during the Mongol invasion of 1232. The Goryeo kingdom began a second, finished in sixteen years: eighty-one thousand three hundred and fifty-two birch blocks treated with seawater, carved on both sides, fifty-two million characters with no known error. The two halls that have housed them since 1398 regulate humidity through their openings alone, set at different heights on each façade, and through a floor of charcoal, lime and clay. Not one block has moulded in six hundred years.
In the magazine
Articles that cover this topic.