334 Printing, invention in China Printing, invention in China Paper and printing were both invented by the Chinese, with immense importance for the advancement of civilization in China and worldwide Papermaking was invented in China around 100 c.e The technology spread to the Muslim world in the eighth century by Chinese papermakers taken prisoners by Muslims in Central Asia; it spread to Spain by the Moors in the 12th century In 175 leaders of the Han dynasty (202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) ordered that the Confucian classics be engraved on stone slabs to ensure their correct transmission Scholars began to make rubbings from the stones with paper; copies made from rubbings were the precursors of block printing The popularity of Buddhism in China in the post-Han centuries created a demand for printed charms, holy pictures, and religious texts by the pious The earliest printed books were made during the Tang (T’ang) dynasty (618–909) They were Buddhist texts carved onto pear-wood blocks, which were inked with India ink (made with soot from oil lamps) A sheet of paper was pressed over the block, which became a printed page Some Tang era printed texts (including a copy of the Diamond Sutra printed in 868) have been preserved in the caves in Dunhuang (Tun-huang), an important early center of Chinese Buddhism in northwestern China Feng Dao (Feng Tao) is regarded in China as the publisher of the first books He lived in the 10th century in Chengdu (Chengtu) in Sichuan (Szechwan) province, then a center of the printing industry He received a commission from the government and spent 21 years between 932 and 953 editing and printing a set of the Confucian classics Since Confucianism was China’s state ideology and school curriculum and the state examinations were based on the Confucian canons, it was important for the government to issue a definitive text The technology quickly spread to Korea and Japan Private printers were soon printing histories, Buddhist and Daoist (Taoist) treatises, and other works, using both wood and metal blocks Under the Song (Sung) dynasty (960–1279) Chinese printed books reached their high point The next step in printing was development of the movable type, which a contemporary work credits to a man named Bi Sheng (Pi Sheng), who experimented with movable fonts made of iron during the 1040s This invention made books more available and cheaper In 970 the printing press in China began to print money, the first country to use paper currency Paper cur- rency was common during the following Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), and it was one of the marvels Marco Polo described in the book of his travels Papermaking spread from China westward via the Silk Road, to the Arabs in the eighth century, and the Arabs spread the technology to Europe The first paper mill in Europe was built in France in 1189 Printing also spread westward from China during the 13th century when China met Europe under the Mongol empire See also Gutenberg, Johann Further reading: Carter, Thomas F The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward New York: Columbia University Press, 1955; Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin Written on Bamboo and Silk, The Beginning of Chinese Books and Inscriptions Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2004 Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur Puranas The puranas (ancient lore) are a genre of the religious literature of India They were the scriptural basis for the development of many of the Hindu sects The name purana is derived from a Sanskrit word meaning “old stories.” There are a great many puranas, but only 18 are considered as the authoritative core of the form of Hindu sacred writing, known as the Puranas They developed into the popular literature about gods and goddesses (such as Sati and Parvati) to which the people even of the lowest castes could become devoted (bhakti) The Puranas are smriti (remembered) texts The Vedas, in contrast, were shruti (heard) by the ancient rishis (holy men) The Vedas were for the “twice born” of the highest caste and were felt to not be for the lower castes The Puranas became the sacred literature of many of the lower castes for whom the Vedas were a closed book Tradition set the main Puranas as the great 18 (mahapurana) There are an enormous number of upapuranas (secondary or smaller puranas) Eighteen upapuranas were chosen to be the Upa-Paranas, which attached “beneath” their respective purana The vast body of writings that became the Puranas began as a body of oral traditions Since they were not the exclusive preserve of a priestly class they enjoyed wide circulation As a result there are many versions and variants of the Puranas Some of these can be traced to the Mauryan dynasty However, the Puranas are only clearly known historically from the Gupta dynasty (c 320–500) and beyond