Under the direction of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China, China-CEEC Libraries Union was established in October 2018 in Hangzhou, China, with its secretariat permanently set in Hangzhou Public Library. 60 libraries from China and CEEC, on a voluntary basis, seek common progress made on the principle of "equality, mutual benefit, inclusiveness and openness".
The Very Collection in My Library aims to introduce treasures kept in each member library to audience in China and Central and Eastern European countries and bring ancient books into the limelight, through of which people could enhance their understanding of cultures and histories of other countries.
This episode here is presented by Chen Jun, the director of Nanjing Library, introducing you the rare ancient book the clay-gold handwritten copy of Avatamsaka Sutra of the Liao Dynasty.
(The Very Collection in My Library is updated on Cooperation between China and CEEC official website http://www.china-ceec.org/ and CHINA CULTURE.org https://cn.chinaculture.org/.)
The clay-gold handwritten copy of Avatamsaka Sutra was written in the Liao Dynasty, 1035 A.D., nearly a thousand years ago. The "clay-gold" is a golden pigment made of gold powder, referring to the writing material of Buddhist scriptures. There are a few of documents handed down from the Liao Dynasty. The complete scripture includes 80 volumes and the volume collected in Nanjing Library is the only extant copy, which has high cultural relics value, cultural value and academic value.
In history, scriptures written in clay-gold were only used when royal magnates or wealthy family carrying out grand prayers. Unrolling the scroll, it is astonishing to see that the Buddhist scripture is still bright and shining, elegant and dignified today although it has been kept almost over a thousand years.
This precious sutra was found by chance in the folks and successfully purchased by Mr. Shen Xieyuan, a famous bibliographer of Nanjing Library, in the 1950s. Today, this sutra has been selected into the first group of "List of State Level Rare Ancient Books" and has become a much-told story in the collection of ancient books in Nanjing Library.
2024-05-09
