One of the world’s earliest recorded examples of printed text will go on display in Melbourne this month, to mark the 20th anniversary of a long-running exhibition celebrating the evolution of the book.
The historical printed matter – known as the Hyakumantō Darani – dates back more than 1,250 years, when the most powerful woman in Japan, the Empress Shōtoku, ordered the creation of one million paper scrolls bearing Buddhist prayers. Each was to be encased in its own miniature wooden pagoda, although it is unclear if the ambitious decree ever reached its target. Today, about 44,000 of the Hyakumantō Darani are thought to exist, including one acquired by the State Library of Victoria last year.
It’s part of the institution’s blockbuster World of the Book exhibition, which has so far attracted five million visitors over two decades. The acquisition of the Hyakumantō Darani marks a rare example of printed text’s origins in Asia, about 700 years before the Gutenberg printing press democratised literacy across Europe.
“I would say it’s the most exciting acquisition that’s been made in the library in my time,” said Dr Anna Welch, the library’s principal collection curator.
The history of the book is global and unites us all as humans, she said, and the Hyakumantō Darani is the epitome of that ideal: it is a Buddhist Sanskrit text, originating in India, printed in Japan, in Chinese characters.
Small and extremely fragile, the scroll has been protected in its ornamental casing for the past millennium. Library curators unrolled it briefly to digitise it and make a facsimile, which will go on display next to the pagoda, with the original remains shielded from modern lighting which would cause it to deteriorate rapidly.
Significantly more robust in nature is another ancient object in the library’s rare book collection: a 4000-year-old cuneiform tablet dated circa 2050BC.
“It’s a remarkably solid and stable form of data carrier, and a great way … to show the beginnings of the story of the written word,” said Welch, of the clay tablet hailing from the Sumerian empire in southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq and parts of Iran).
The ancient symbols of its cuneiform script – used by people from multiple language groups throughout the bronze age and into the dawn of the common era – are surprisingly prosaic.
“You might have hoped that it says something very beautiful and poetic – a remnant of the ancient past, or voice reaching out to us,” said Welch. It is, in fact, a receipt: a record of taxes paid for the purchase of sheep and goats. “But that’s where writing began – as a tool for government bureaucracy.”
Along with the Hyakumantō Darani, another recent acquisition will go on public display for the first time in the rolling exhibition. An ancient precursor to correction fluid, the medieval scribe’s knife is thought to have originated in the 15th century. It was used to scrape typos from prepared animal skins known as vellum – the material most books were made from before the printing press ushered in the era of paper in Europe.
“What’s really beautiful about it, apart from the rarity of having an object like this in Australia, is that its handle … is carved into the shape of a book,” said Welch. “It was a tool for a scribe who obviously very much loved their job.”
The new edition of the State Library of Victoria’s World of the Book exhibition opens on Saturday 31 May at its Dome Galleries
