盛唐之遗韵今又闻，千古之悬迷终有解
China is the birthplace of paper and printing,
as well as numerous book binding crafts which first emerged
during Yin-S hang era (殷商时代) when the oracle inscriptions were carved on
tortoise shells, that was 2,000 years before the appearance
of paper. Later, with the invention of bamboo slips, paper
and printing, the book binding package also developed into
a whole range of formats, from antiquated Policy Briefing
(简策), Scroll (卷轴), Dragon Scale (龙鳞), Sutra (经折), Butterfly (蝴蝶), Amalgamation (和合), Back-cover (包背) Wire-bound (线装) to contemporary paperback, hardcover and saddle-stitch.
On today's Chinese book market, you can find all these
binding packages, archaic or modern, except one: Dragon
Scale.
The heyday of the Dragon Scale package
was during the Tang
Dynasty with the latest such book believed to be produced
1,000 years ago by language scholar Wang Renxi (王仁煦) and his wife Wu Cailuan (吴彩鸾). Lady Wu was an accomplished calligrapher who hand copied the text of her husband's research
report on paper which was then bounded by Mr Wang with
Dragon Scale method. The final product looks like a scroll
when it is closed with the content viewable either by spreading
the scroll or flipping pages.
Yet somehow for centuries no one in
China seemed to be able to figure out how the package was
actually done. The situation eventually changed when Fortune
Blessing Studio (祐吉斋) tried their hand at the forgotten craft. Late
last year, the studio produced the first Dragon Scale book
in a thousand years, and early this year, Zhang Xiaodong
(张晓栋), a young master from
the studio, ascended the West Hill in the outskirt of Beijing, and entered Dragon Spring Temple (龙泉寺)
to present the second Dragon Scale binding book as his
gift to Abbot Xuecheng (学诚法师), his Buddhist master.
It took Zhang a year to hand copy the
entire Diamond Sutra on the book and illustrate Buddha images at the
edge of each page which has rendered two magnificent paintings
in 3D quality with the scenes shifting whenever you turn
a page - a great way to remind the reader the essence of
the Buddha's teaching: the impermanence of this material world and
of our impression about it.
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The Dragon
Scale binding book
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.. hand produced
by Zhang Xiaodong (张晓栋). Zhang demonstrates
how to view the entire content in one glance
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... or just
flip through to read one page at a time.
The twelve chapters of the sutra were produced
in twelve different styles of Seal Script
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... with the
paintings at both sides.
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(Source of info & images: Dragon Spring Temple)
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on New Year's Day 2011
Next: Chinese
Lantern Festival 2011
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