Iconic books are texts revered as objects of power rather than just as words of instruction, information, or insight. In religious and secular rituals around the globe, people carry, show, wave, touch and kiss books and other texts, as well as read them. This blog chronicles such events and activities. (For more about iconic books, see the links to the Iconic Books Project at left.)

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Library of wooden printing blocks


If:book also provides Ben Vershbow's account and vivid pictures of the Haeinsa monastery in Korea where the Tripitaka Koreana is housed--88,000 wooden printing blocks of Buddhist scriptures engraved in the 13th century. His description of the monastery's ceremonies and its popularity with tourists as well as pilgrims underscores the rituals that convey iconicity to texts--in this case, not the books themselves but the blocks by which books can be printed.

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