Thread by @incunabula

This is the oldest surviving book printed with movable type.

Printed in Tangut script with movable wooden type during the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Western Xia, it dates to c. 1150 - 3 centuries before Gutenberg and 2 centuries before the famous Korean Jikji printing. 1/7

The book is The Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union 吉祥遍至口和本續 [shown in Tangut script below]. 9 volumes - 7 of which are complete - were discovered in the ruins of the Baisigou Pagoda in Helan County, Northwest China in 1991, after it had been illegally blown up. 2/7

The Baisigou Pagoda was situated in a remote location in the Helan Mountains, about 10km from the nearest road. A local peasant discovered that the pagoda had collapsed; investigation revealed it had been blown up by unknown criminals intending to steal the relics inside. 3/7

In August of 1991 an expedition led by the archaeologist Niu Dasheng (牛達生) from Ningxia Museum carried out investigations at the site. A number of artefacts, concentrated in a small area in the middle of the collapsed pagoda, under about a metre of rubble, were discovered. 4/7

The artefacts included woodblock prints of Buddhist images, tablets inscribed in ink with Tangut script, a scroll written in cursive Tangut characters, and more than 30 volumes of printed books and mss, including the 9 volumes of the Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union. 5/7

The book is currently held at the Ningxia Institute of Archaeology in Yinchuan, and because of its immense historical significance it's included in the official list of 64 Chinese cultural treasures which are forbidden from ever leaving the country for exhibition abroad. 6/7

For more on the Tangut script, see @BabelStone's wonderful site here:
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/

And you'll find more photos of the Baisigou Square Pagoda discoveries, including the movable type 'Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union' volumes here:
babelstone.co.uk/Tangut/Baisigo…

7/7

@BabelStone A few more photos of the 'Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union', including one showing the volumes as they were first found in the rubble of the collapsed Baisigou Square Pagoda.

@BabelStone There's no English language book (yet) on this, but the premier Chinese reference has an English abstract:

Ningxia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Bàisìgōu Xīxià Fāngtǎ 拜寺沟西夏方塔 [The Western Xia Square Pagoda at Baisigou]. Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 2005

@BabelStone One of the characteristic features of the book which indicates it was printed using movable type is that very occasionally characters are found inverted, ie printed upside down - typical of books printed with movable type but which can't accidentally occur in a woodblock edition.

That it was specially printed using wooden type rather than clay type is indicated by the occasional presence of uneven lines between the columns of characters, which were left by bamboo strips used to set the wooden type (but which were never used for setting clay type).

Tangut, a Tibeto-Burman language, was the language of the Western Xia, an empire which was annihilated by Genghis Khan in 1226. Almost all its written records and architecture were destroyed, and its history remained obscure until 20th-century research in the West and in China.

The Baisigou Square Pagoda is not the only ancient structure in northeast China to yield relics of Tangut printing. When the Hongfo Pagoda, in Helan County, Ningxia, was renovated in 1990 a number of Western Xia printed texts were discovered, together with original woodblocks.

The Tangut script was a logographic writing system. At the latest count, 5863 Tangut characters are known. According to the History of Song (1346), the script was designed by the high-ranking official Yeli Renrong under Western Xia Emperor Li Yuanhao's supervision in 1036.

A great number of Buddhist scriptures were translated from Tibetan & Chinese, and block printed in the Tangut script. Although the Western Xia dynasty collapsed in 1227, the script continued to be used for another few centuries, the last surviving example occurs as late as 1502.