Jikji to be made into giant lantern wall
.jpg?w=728)
A giant lantern wall, bearing all the letters of Jikji, the UNESCO-listed ancient Korean Buddhist mantra and the world’s oldest existing book printed with movable metal type, is shown on Sunday, prior to the Jikji Korea festival set to start Sept. 1 in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. / Yonhap
By Park Jin-hai
Jikji, which is considered the world's oldest existing book printed with movable metal type, will be displayed as a giant lantern wall of letters during the Jikji Korea festival that will run from Sept. 1 to 8.
The UNESCO-listed ancient Korean Buddhist mantra, whose full title is “Baegun Hwasang Chorok Buljo Jikji Simche Yojeol” (Master Baegun’s Excerpts from the Buddhas’ and Patriarchs’ Direct Pointing to the Essence of Mind), was printed in Heungdeok Temple in Cheongju, 137 kilometers southeast of Seoul, during the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392). It is currently kept in the National Library of France in Paris.
The Cheongju city government, which has organized the biennial event to present the excellence of Jikji to the world since 2003, has upgraded the local event this year and will hold the festival. After failed efforts to loan the artifact from France, it instead made the 16,021 letters of the book into an 11.7-meter high and 87-meter long wall, made of 8,000 plastic boxes that can be lit during the festival.
“The visitors will see the spectacle of all those Jikji letters unfolded in front of their eyes,” said the organizer.