"The muddy character" is indeed a Chinese invention
“The reason why the study of mud and woodblock prints has to be started with muddy characters.†On August 22nd, 72-year-old Sun Shou-ling touched his own book “The Mud Letterpress Bookâ€.
According to the introduction, in ancient China, there were “four inventionsâ€, one of which was printing. However, although in the “Meng Xi Bi Tanâ€, there were written records about “Literary Originator†Bi Sheng’s invention of movable type printing, there was no archaeological discovery of movable type fonts. As a result, for many years, the international academic community has challenged our country's printing technology: Koreans believe that they have copper movable characters and that they have the world's oldest physical evidence of movable type printing. Therefore, it is necessary to make "living legacy" of muddy characters. Some western media also claimed that the type printing was invented by the German Gutenberg in the 15th century AD. For a time, disputes and controversies about muddy characters are invariably heard.
On the day of September 1988, Sun Shouling, the then deputy curator of the Wuwei Museum, and colleagues cleaned up the remaining artifacts at the Himetung-dong Temple site and discovered the Western Xia Buddhist scriptures, the scriptures spoken by Vimalakirti (lower volume). After Sun Shouling's analysis and research, he found that the "Jie Jing of the Vermillion Margin" had unique features such as "straight line spacing, stroke distortion, ink inhomogeneity, and occasional broken pens", which were clearly different from the engraved plates. After numerous comparisons between day and night, Sun Shouling concluded that "The Verse of Vimalakirti" is not only a type of movable printed material, but also a print of muddy type. In order to prove the correctness of his own point of view, Sun Shouling decided to copy the characters out of his hands and use them again. Mud type printed book. Sun Shouling used the method described in "Meng Xi Bi Tan" to repeatedly explore the experiment. After more than three years, he finally succeeded in burning muddy characters and reviving the 6500-character muddy movable type printing book "The Verse of Vimalakirti" (below). volume).
The research results of Sun Shouling have been highly evaluated by experts at home and abroad and Western Xia cultural research experts. The domestic academia first affirmed that the “The Verse of Vimalakirti†(lower volume) is a version of the muddy wood, and UNESCO has fully affirmed Sun Shouling’s research results. Shi Jinbo, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, described Sun Shouling as the "first person to modern Xixia Wencai." In October 2002, Sun Shouling was appointed as an academic member by the Xixia Cultural Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In June 2007, Sun Shouling's “Method for Making a Live Character†was awarded a national invention patent.
A unique initiative
“After practice, muddy type printing has been proved by reality. But at home and abroad, there are woodcut prints, copper prints, and lead prints, but there has been no muddy prints. With regard to muddy prints, there are no written records in various history books. If we can produce mud-live prints, it will not only be a further interpretation of the printing of the movable type, but it will be a unique initiative at home and abroad.Therefore, I have been thinking about this issue over the years, and this year I started to work on making muddy prints. "Sun Shou-ling said.
According to Sun Shouling, he has been pondering the production of mud-printing drawings for many years, but he really started to work on it from the beginning of January this year. According to the original expectation, the production of mud-leaf prints should be completed before the end of the year, but unexpectedly, when it was truly devoted to work, it was earlier than earlier anticipated and in August it was successfully burned out in advance.
“The mud and wood prints are different from the production of texts. They require very high requirements for the furnace, require even heating, and the production process is more complicated and the firing area is larger. For example, at the very beginning, the first is mud and mud, and the mud is repeatedly and repeatedly. Many times, I have to spend a long time and need mud to wake up and use it. The mud I use now is mud that has been fermented for more than one year. Then there is the plate. When the mud is put into 78% water At the time of engraving, it was finally dried, heated, baked, baked, and soaked.†During the interview, Sun Shouling took out his own lively muddy tools to produce and explain.
The reporter saw that over 40 pieces of mud-printed prints made by Sun Shouling have been printed. Including the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, and some famous figures in modern times, such as the "Eighteen Arhats" and "The Sixteenth Servant", and the sleek, life-like Pegasus. “Next, I intend to combine the words and the paintings to produce a copy of “The Pramyo Pradesh and the Heart Sutra.†Let more people know and understand movable type printing and muddy prints!†Sun Shouling said with confidence.