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Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks

Type Object Region Korean Peninsula Time 1011–1087

The Tripitaka Koreana (Eighty Thousand Tripitaka) are pear-wood printing blocks of Buddhist canon carved in the Goryeo dynasty, first carved in the e…

Timeline

  1. 1011–1013Gaeseong · GoryeoAmid Khitan invasions, Goryeo initiated the first carving of the Tripitaka on the grounds of praying for national protection, but the blocks were burned when the Khitans withdrew, leaving only fragments.
  2. 1021–1087Haeinsa · South Gyeongsang ProvinceThe recarving project began at Haeinsa in 1021, gathering old editions from Song, Liao, and Goryeo, recruiting widely among sutra-copying monks and carvers, and completing over 81,000 pear-wood canon blocks over more than sixty years, with meticulous textual collation.
  3. 1238Haeinsa scripture hall · South Gyeongsang ProvinceDuring the Mongol-Yuan invasions the woodblocks were moved to Haeinsa's scripture hall for safekeeping; despite repeated warfare in later ages they survived intact, were inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1995, and became the model for East Asian woodblock-printed Buddhist canons.

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