In addition, the administration announced on the same day that it would make public by the first half of next year the exact number of wooden blocks through the two-year investigation between 2012 and 2013 as part of a program to digitize the whole collection that has begun since 2000. (image: James Collins/flickr)
SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — The Cultural Heritage Administration said on October 19 that it is currently working on establishing a comprehensive plan to preserve the Tripitaka Koreana, or “Eighty-Thousand Tripitaka,” a Korean collection of 13th century Buddhist scriptures carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks stored in Haein-sa, a Buddhist temple in South Gyeongsang Province.
The preservation plan currently in preparation focuses on creating the framework for long-term conservation for generations to come.
In addition, the administration announced on the same day that it would make public by the first half of next year the exact number of wooden blocks through the two-year investigation between 2012 and 2013 as part of a program to digitize the whole collection that has begun since 2000.
Earlier in January this year, the administration said that the suspicion raised by a group of researchers that 17 out of 108 overlapping blocks were later replaced with forged ones and thus the number of the Tripitaka must be reassessed is groundless as the discrepancies were due to measurement errors of the researchers based on the administration’s own investigation.
By Sean Chung (schung10@koreabizwire.com)
