May 1st 2020,
11 tweets,
4 min read
1. You sometimes get the impression that books evolved in this manner
Scroll> scroll folded up like an accordion (折叠装）>codex,
with each new stage replacing the past.
I doubt if this is correct, esp. if you look at Chinese books. All three forms are still used today.
Scroll> scroll folded up like an accordion (折叠装）>codex,
with each new stage replacing the past.
I doubt if this is correct, esp. if you look at Chinese books. All three forms are still used today.
2. It goes without saying that the Chinese do use codices, I.e. books that look very much like the ones used in the West. Here are some I have lying around 
3. But texts in the other 2 formats are still produced. Let's start with the scroll. Here are buddhist mantras printed as an extremely tiny scroll, that are sold on Taobao item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a… . These are intended to be rolled up and encased in small pipes as amulets.
4. All the "advances" in bookbinding technology come to nought here, as issuing the text as a scroll is probably the *only* economic way of presenting such a tiny text-- a tiny codex is simply too troublesome/expensive.
5. Accordion style texts are still produced, but it seems only religious texts are so issued . Here are three such texts. The bigger 2 are Taoist, the smaller is buddhist
6. As you may know, these books are basically a long sheet of paper, that has been folded into a zigzag shape, with cardboard covers on either end, as this demonstrates
7. These books have a curious property: it is very easy to turn their "pages", an operation that can be done with one finger as you can see here
8. This is a huge advantage when the religious texts are being chanted: you do not need to waste time in turning the pages with a big hand movement like you'd do no a codex...
9/ In turn, these books can be made much smaller than a codex, and so can be consulted unobtrusively whilst performing a ritual. I have personally seen Taoist priests referring to such a book, whose pages were about 3 cm wide and 10 cm long.
10/ hence, like the scroll, the accordion style binding has a peculiar advantage that the codex does not possess. Hence the three styles of bookbinding coexisting.
11. an extreme example of the materiality of the accordion style binding is the Japanese esoteric practice of tendoku 転読 , which involves cascading the pp. of such bk between the hands as a means of reading it:
This can only be done wth such a binding
This can only be done wth such a binding
