Tag Archives: China.
Tibetan Buddhists on Pilgrimage to Monastery.
Gannan, China:
Local Tibetan Buddhists on a pilgrimage to Labrang Monastery.
Pilgrims perform prostrations along the road, taking three or five steps between each bow.
Image Credit: Photograph by He Jian/TPOTY
Source: Travel Photographer of the Year 2018: the winners | Travel | The Guardian
The World’s Oldest Printed Book.
The Diamond Sutra is an ancient Buddhist sermon that generations of Buddhists have memorized and chanted since at least the fifth century.
The sutra, which meditates on the illusory nature of the material world—the central theme of Buddhism, was originally written in Sanskrit in India, from which it was translated to Chinese in 401 AD. It is said that the teachings of The Diamond Sutra “cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting.”
A copy of this original translation, printed on an 18-feet-long, yellow-dyed scroll of paper, is housed at the British Library in London. The last few lines of the text, the colophon, identifies who printed it, when and why.
It reads: “Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents, 11 May 868.
”The precise date makes this particular edition of Diamond Sutra the world’s oldest printed and dated book in existence.
The explicit public domain dedication is also the first in the history of creative work. The Diamond Sutra was printed using woodblock printing—a technique where the text to be printed is carefully carved as a relief pattern on a block of wood, and then stamped on paper or fabric after dipping the block in a pool of ink.
The scroll comprises of seven panels of paper, each of which was printed from a single block and stuck together to create a single scroll.
While individual sheets of woodblock-printed paper have been found dating to the early Tang Dynasty (7th century), the Diamond Sutra is the earliest complete book to be found intact.
The scroll was discovered by a monk inside a sealed-up cave at a site called “Caves of the Thousand Buddhas” near Dunhuang, in northwest China.
The dry desert air provided the perfect conditions for the preservation of the paper and the silk scrolls inside.
The yellow dye used on the scrolls comes from the Amur Cork Tree which has insecticidal properties. This contributed to the preservation of the scrolls.
Source: The World’s Oldest Printed Book | Amusing Planet
Honey Hunting on Cliffs of Yunnan Province.
Honey hunters Dong Haifa (top) and Mi Qiaoyun stand on a makeshift rope ladder, surrounded by bees as they work together gathering wild cliff honey on the cliffs of China’s Yunnan province, 11 May, 2019.
Image Credit: Photograph by Kevin Frayer / Getty
Source: Honey Hunting on the Cliffs of China’s Yunnan Province: Photos – The Atlantic
Sunrise in Guangxi Province.
Good Morning Damian Shan.
Major Open overall winner and Open Award Winner in Nature / Landscape.
Taken at sunrise in China’s Guangxi Province, along the Li River, this panorama by photographer Jesus M. Garcia is stitched together from seven vertical images.
Image Credit: Photograph by © Jesus M. Garcia / The Epson International Pano Awards
via Winners of the 2017 Epson International Pano Awards – The Atlantic
Recreating Mars in the Gobi Desert.
