PROBLEMS IN THE HISTORY OF CHINESE BINDINGS

LI ZHIZHONG translated by FRANCES WOOD

THE origins and development of different binding formats form a subject of importance amongst the many aspects of the history of the Chinese book that require further research. In 1986, I published an article on the distinctions between ym^jsAe ['pleated ' or accordion binding with the first and last pages pasted onto outer boards], the 'whirlwind' binding and the 'Sanskrit' [or po{ht type binding], in order to clarify the forms and dispel errors.^ While in London in September of that year I examined some of the manuscripts found in the cave at , in China, currently held in the , and as I looked at them, saw that they provided further valuable evidence for the study of the evolution of the different types of Chinese bindings.

^SANSKRIT' BINDING Fanjia zhuang^ literally 'Sanskrit' binding but more graphically translated as po{ht format, is a non-Chinese form which originated in India, the home of .^ The naiuG fanjia is an early Chinese term used to designate the format of Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures written on palm leaves. Another name was heiye jing [palm leaf sutra]. Amongst the Chinese literary references to palm leaves are two from the account of the early pilgrim Xuan Zang (602-664), ^' y^ P [Account of the countries to the west] where in juan 11, describing Nepal he says, 'Not far to the north of the capital city are many palm groves in an area of over thirty /; [about ten miles] in circumference. The leaves are long and glossy and all the documents of the country are written on them.' In his preface to the account of the country of Fusheyan, Xuan Zang notes with approval, 'there, poems are produced and perfected and the texts inscribed and passed down on palm leaves'. In juan 18 of the You yang za zu [an eighth century miscellany compiled by Duan Chengshi] it states, 'Palms originate in Moqiezhi; they are six to seven feet high and evergreen and there are three types . . . The of the western regions are written on the leaves of all three types. If the leaves are carefully preserved they will last for five or six hundred years'. In the account of the Southern Man [Man was a general term applied to minority tribes of the South-West] in the Jiu Tang shu [History of the , compiled 940-945], Suipodeng state, south of Linba, is said to produce '. . . rice which ripens every month. There are scholars there who write

104 on palm leaves.' The Xin Tang shu [a later history of the Tang, compiled 1044-1060] describes the western regions including '. . . Tianlan, where there is a script and the people are skilled at calendrical calculations. They believe in the Buddhist heavenly way and record events on palm leaves.' Such accounts amply demonstrate that the Chinese were aware that in ancient India and much of tropical South Asia, it was customary to use palm leaves as the major writing material and that the early Sanskrit Buddhist texts of India were commonly written on this type of leaf The form of binding of books and documents is affected by the basic materials used. As the Buddhist sutras of ancient India were written on palm leaves, their binding had to adapt to the material and thus arose what the Chinese call 'Sanskrit' binding (fanjia zhuang). [The term consists oifan meaning 'Sanskrit',yVa 'pressed between or sandwiched between* and zhuang 'binding']. The term was originally used in China to designate Sanskrit Buddhist texts written on palm leaves and bound between boards.-' The number of leaves depended upon the length of the text inscribed. The leaves were all pierced at the same point on each leaf, threaded with hemp or silken cords of considerable length, and placed between wooden or bamboo boards which were also pierced and threaded with cord. The length of the cord meant that it was possible to turn the leaves without unthreading them; in storage, the cord was wound securely round boards and leaves. We know about this form of binding from surviving examples and also from literary descriptions. In juan 25 of the Zi zhi tongjian [Mirror of history, late eleventh century] discussing the year 862 in the reign of the Yizong emperor, it states that the emperor was 'excessively devoted to Buddhism, to the extent of neglecting the affairs of government. He was often at the altar in the Xiantai [complete peace] hall receiving instruction in the dharma from the monks of the inner temple and there were always monks in attendance. He also set up a prayer mat inside the palace and chanted sutras himself with a fanjia or po{ht in his hand.' A note on this text by the dynasty scholar Hu Sansheng explains that, 'What is meant hy fanjia is a palm leaf sutra, bound between boards.' Two important points emerge, one, that Hu translates 'palm leaf sutra' ^s fanjia, secondly, he suggests that a palm leaf sutra, once bound becomes 2i fanjia [or 'Sanskrit' binding], and that it is the binding that requires the extension of terminology. In the Fo xue da dian [Great Dictionary of Buddhism, 1922, reprinted 1984], Ding Fubao (1874-1952) defines/i2«;/fl by supplying the alternative terms 'palm leaf sutra' or 'Sanskrit text box'. He defines 'Sanskrit text box' as one of various terms for palm leaf binding. 'Many layers of palm leaf are placed between two boards and bound with cord. This is easily inserted into a box so the whole is called a 'Sanskrit text box'. Du Bao of the Sui (A.D. 581-618) in his Da ye za ji [Random notes on the Great Task] includes a vivid description of the appearance of palm leaf texts, demonstrating the technical use of the term fanjia: 'The southern gate of the eastern capital [] was the Cheng fu [Continuing happiness] gate and to the south of the gate was a bridge over the Luo River which led to the place where sutras were translated. The sutras came from abroad, and were written on palm leaves. The leaves were like those of the 105 loquat, with a broad surface, inscribed horizontally, and arranged according to the length of the sutra. They are now called y^«/Vfl.' In the first juan of the Xu gao xiu zhuan [Further account of elevated cultivation], it states: *In the twenty-three years from the reign of Liang Wu Di [502-547] to the beginning of the reign of Chen Xuan Di [557], sixty-four sutras, collections, records and biographies in 2^0 juan were written as translations of sutras on palm leaves in 24.0 jia [or pot^htY^ and in the second ^M^M, 'In 606, a decree was passed which referred to the sutra translations of the Shanglin yuan [Upper grove garden] of Luoyang which had exceeded itself in the glorious task and produced 5647/^1 containing over 1350 items.' The Buddhist works brought back to China by Xuan Zang were listed in the Xi yu ji^ '224 , 192 Mahayana commentaries and fourteen Vinaya texts; fourteen Sthavirah texts, fifteen Mahasahghikah texts, in 520 Sanskrit bindings, comprising 670 items'. In the Song gao seng zhuan [Bibliographies of eminent monks], Fotu xiehan is described as a 'Translator o£fanjia\ and the ^rsi juan of the same work describes Shibukong returning to the capital in 746 having collected Prajnaparamita po{hi\n Ceylon. References in juan 3 include one to a monk from the western borders who collected potM^^ the period 836-840 and the instruction that 'those who translate fanjia texts should not employ excesses of Confucian elegance'. The account of India in the 'foreign countries' section of the Song [History of the Song, compiled 1343- 1345], describes the monk Dao Yao who, 'returned from the western regions with a crystal Buddha figure and forty fanjia sutras that he had been given' and states that after the Kaibao reign period (969-976) there was 'an endless stream of monks from India with gifts of pot^hf. These accounts demonstrate the etymology of the Chinese term fanjia; it meant Sanskrit Buddhist sutra texts written on palm leaves, originating in India but it also referred to Buddhist texts translated into Chinese. The term arose from both the content {fan - Sanskrit) and the exterior appearance of the binding {jia - sandwiched between boards) and later came to serve as a synonym for both palm leaf sutras and Indian Buddhist texts. In the past, there has been a confusion between fanjia or pot^kT format and jingzhe zhuang or 'pleated sutra binding' [sheets of paper pasted together, pleated and encased between a board or boards] and many writers have failed to make any distinction between them at all. As I have tried to demonstrate, the original meaning of fanjia comprises texts written in non-Chinese script, bound in the/>(?(Ar format, quite distinct from the Chinese text of sutras, which from the fifth to the ninth century were usually in the scroll format and from the tenth to the twentieth century frequently bound in the 'pleated sutra' form.^ In the British Library collection from Dunhuang, there are a number of examples of this originally Indian format in a Chinese transformation. S.5532 is a manuscript version of an uncanonical Buddhist sutra, Chan men jing, written on nineteen leaves of thick, coarse hemp paper, inscribed on both sides. There are six lines of script on each page, written top to bottom on the leaves which measure 20 x 7.5 cm. About 5 cm. from the top and 10 cm. from the bottom, each leaf is pierced with two holes. Though 106 Fig I Xuan Zang, translation of the Vidydmdtrastddhitridas'aidstra: ninth century copy. S. 5537 the string and covers have been lost, it is clear from the length of the leaves and the position of the holes, that this is an example of the po(ht format in China and an imitation of the Indian palm leaf/^oMf. The manuscript is undated but the paper and ink suggest that it is very likely a late Tang (618-907) or Five Dynasties (907-960) product and that in ninth and tenth century China, pot^hT bindings co-existed with *pleated sutra' bindings. Two other manuscripts, S.5533, an uncanonical Buddhist work, Fojing shu shi^ and S.5537 (fig. i), Xuan Zang's A.D. 648 translation of the Vidydmdtrasiddhitridaiasdstra are similar. Both are written on the same coarse hemp paper, inscribed lengthwise, with all leaves of both manuscripts pierced by a single hole about a third of the way down the central column. S.5533 has traces of rubbing around the hole from the string that was once threaded through and the outer marginal lines are not inked but appear to have been produced by pressure, an aspect that may be of interest to those researching the history of paper manufacture. Like S.5532, the ink and paper suggest that both are late Tang or Five Dynasties (ninth to tenth century) in date. The three examples demonstrate that when the 'pleated sutra' binding first became widespread in the ninth and tenth centuries, an imitation of the potht format also appeared. Though no examples from the intervening years have come to light, the fanjtalpo{hT format was to evolve. Later block-printed Mongolian and Tibetan sutras, and Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) gold-flecked palace editions of Buddhist sutras are often formed of separate leaves, printed on both sides and assembled between thick, carved or cloth-covered boards and the whole wrapped up in cloth. This later development can also be called fanjia or pothi. The origin, spread and trans- formation of the fanjia binding is now clear. It began in ancient India, was imitated in the Tang and Five Dynasties period in China, and later evolved in the Ming and C^ng.

WHIRLWIND BINDING Whirlwind binding developed during the Tang dynasty when the scroll format was prevalent. It was a development based on the scroll, as an answer to the difficulties of scanning a text in the scroll format. A series of leaves, the first inscribed on one side, the rest inscribed on both sides, was pasted onto a long paper scroll, in overlapping sequence (fig. 2). When pasted, the leaves were read from left to right. As it retains the outer casing of a scroll (and was rolled up, right to left, for storage), it is externally indistinguishable from a scroll. When unrolled, the separately pasted leaves swirl out and open, thus the style of binding was originally called xuanfeng ye 'whirlwind leaves* and is now generally called whirlwind binding although another term, based on the neat overlap of the pages, was longlin or *dragon scale' binding. Both names are equally descriptive, but what is important about the format is that it is transitional between the scroll and folded leaf bindings (ce ye), for it has aspects of both. It improves upon the inconvenience of the scroll without quite achieving the excellence of the folded leaf, for 108 Fig. 2. Diagram illustrating Whirlwind Binding from J-P. Drege, 'Les accordeons de Dunhuang' which further development was necessary and here, again, the Dunhuang manuscripts in the British Library provide some evidence. S.5444 is a late Tang manuscript copy of the {Vajracckedikd Prajndpdramitdsutra\ written in unruled columns on both sides of coarse, hemp paper leaves. A few of the leaves are missing. On the verso of the penultimate page is the statement, 'printed by the Guo family of ', which means that it was copied from an edition printed in Sichuan. There follows a series of incantations and a colophon stating that it was copied on behalf of the faithful by a man of eighty-two in the second year of the Tian you reign period, 905, which tallies with the cyclical date also given.^ The format of this manuscript is worth study. From the exterior, the spine is somewhat flattened for each successive folded leaf appears to have been glued slightly to the right of the last, forming an overlapping spine of'dragon scales'. The system is not enormously different from the whirlwind binding. I do not know what name to give this binding form which lies between the whirlwind binding and the later folded leaf bindings [ce ye]. Here, the devout eighty-two year old has set to work to transform the format. The long scroll backing [of the whirlwind] has disappeared or been transformed into the 109 front (missing) and back covers of a ce [folded leaf book]. At the same time, the relatively large leaves of the whirlwind format have become the relatively small (ii x i6 cm.) leaves of the folded leaf book. This is not quite a regular ce [folded leaf book, a term most commonly applied to single volumes of the later classic Chinese thread-bound book] but it is not very different from the regular ce except in the way the spine is formed of folded leaves pasted side by side. Xiu (1007-1072) of the Northern Song, wrote in the second ^Mflw of his Gui tian lu [Record of Retirement]: 'The books of the Tang dynasty were all in the scroll format; later there were leaves made like today*s ce [folded leaf book]. All those who wanted to consult written works found scrolls clumsy to unroll, therefore they began to write on separate leaves. Wu Cailuan*s Tang yun [Rhymes of the Tang] and Li He's Cai xuan [Colourful selection] were of this latter type.' Ouyang Xiu was a prominent figure of the early Northern Song and must have seen many Tang and Five Dynasties books with his own eyes. His statement that all Tang books were in the scroll format accords with the evidence but his reference to 'leaves' has been imperfectly understood, partly because the original meaning of the character ce is a bundle of wood or bamboo slips (used as a writing medium before the invention of paper). Later it came to mean a volume, a folded leaf book or booklet. Early book historians were puzzled as to how Ouyang Xiu's 'leaves' could resemble 'bamboo slips'. He was, in fact, talking about leaves that had been bound together, not single sheets. He continued to explain that leaves were used since consultation of scrolls was cumbersome, and that the leaves were bound in the method used for Wu Cailuan's Tang yun and Li He's Cai xuan. No early copies of the latter survive but a Tang manuscript copy of the former, whose full title is Wang Ren xu kan miu bu que qie yun [Wang Renxu's corrected work on rhymes] has been preserved in the Palace Museum in Peking. Its binding format is the whirlwind binding described above, or rather, the description of the whirlwind binding is based on this manuscript. This, combined with the format of S.5444, helps us to understand what Ouyang Xiu meant by ce which was probably the whirlwind binding and the transitional booklet form of the Tang and Five Dynasties which was still common in the early Northern Song. This is another example of the origin and development of a binding which was gradually transformed into the ce or folded leaf booklet.

BUTTERFLY BINDING Butterfly binding^ is a format which reached maturity after woodblock printing began to flourish in the Song, and which was fashionable for about 400 years, during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) periods. In the preface to the 'arts' section, Yi wen zht^ of the Ming shi [History of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), printed in 1759] it says that 'all the Mi ge [Secret cabinet; the imperial rare book collection] books from the Song and Yuan periods were exquisite. They were all bound in the "reverse fold" format and mice could not harm them'. This description is of butterfly binding and demonstrates the popularity of the style in the Song and Yuan. no m:l*i

^. J- Diamond Sutra; late ninth or early tenth century copy. S. 5450

III Do the origins of the butterfly binding lie in the Song as has been traditionally assumed? Obviously origins and mature forms are different as conditions and settings differ and on the basis of two booklets in the British Library collection from Dunhuang, the origins of the butterfly binding must be re-examined. S.5450 (fig. 3) and S.5451 are both manuscripts of the Diamond sutra, written on the prevalent thick, coarse paper, roughly identical in size and identical in binding format. S.5451 was copied at the end of the Tang and measures 15X 11 cm. The first page is missing but the colophon at the end gives the title of the sutra and, like S.5444, states that it was copied from a printed edition from the same source, *by an old man of eighty-three' with a date from the Tian bao era of the Tang, equivalent to 906, the year before the dynasty fell.^ Both S.5450 and S.5451 are composed of a series of folded leaves, folded in the centre to form four pages. After folding, a line of paste some 5 mm. wide was spread along each side of the fold, on the verso of each section and the sections were stuck together; the pasted parts and the folds forming the spine. This method of folding and pasting is virtually identical with that used in later 'butterfly binding' and marks the first surviving attempt to create such a form. Another example of this type of pasted binding is seen in S.5448 which contains a manuscript of the Dun huang lu [Account of Dunhuang] followed by six pages of a eulogy of a local official, written on seven sheets of thick, stiff, hemp paper. It must be late Tang or Five Dynasties and suggests, together with the other examples, that the format was not rare in this period, and that, as printing flourished in the subsequent Northern Song period, the format developed into the butterfly binding. The classic butterfly binding of the Northern Song was suited to the blockprinting technique of a single block to the leaf, each leaf printed on one side only. The printed sheets were folded, ordered and pasted one to another along the fold, forming the spine. The centre of the block, [ban xin, literally the 'heart of the block'] was at the centre of the book, forming the inner side of the spine, like a butterfly's body between the wings. When the book was closed, it was like a butterfly folding its wings as it alights on a flower, hence the name of the format. We now have evidence that a similar type of binding^ was used in the late Tang and Five Dynasties and, as it suited the printing method of the Song with one woodblock per sheet, it became popular as printing expanded. The butterfly binding was gradually replaced by the bao bet or 'wrapped back' binding; a change whose origins and development are also illuminated by Dunhuang flnds.

WRAPPED BACK BINDING In this format, the spine of the book is covered; hence an alternative name li bei or 'internal spine' binding. It was traditionally viewed as starting in the Southern Song (i 127-1279) and reaching its peak of popularity in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911), used particularly in the neifu 'Palace' editions and other publications produced for official use. A large number of wrapped back books survive abroad as a

112 Ftg. 4. An uncanonical Buddhist Mantra Da bei xin zhen yan, copied 960-976. S. 5589 result of the dispersal of the imperial Ming palace manuscript Yong le da dian^^ [Great encyclopaedia of the Yong le reign, 1403-1424] and the C^ing palace manuscript Si ku quan shu [Complete 'ibrary of the four treasuries, 1773-1787]. An examination of surviving editions including the original binding of the Southern Song printed edition of the Wen yuan ying hua [Glories of the literary garden, a literary anthology] suggests that the format had already appeared in the preceding North Song period. ^•5589 (fig- 4) is the latter ywflM of an uncanonical Buddhist work in manuscript, Da bei xin zhen yan [Mantra of the heart that seeks to save all], written on both sides of coarse sheets of hemp paper, roughly as broad as a contemporary 32mo. but almost square. The leaves are folded in the centre, gathered in twos and sewn with apricot- coloured thread. Viewed from the inside the method appears to be saddle-stitching. Strips of paper some 6 cm. long and 2-4 cm. wide are pasted over the spine but where the bottom strip is missing, two rows of sewing can be seen (there are five rows in all but the top three are covered), similar to the stitching of a contemporary sewn binding. This binding with firmly attached leaves and a semi-wrapped spine is not very different from the later 'wrapped back' style and may be considered to be its forerunner. The colophon to S.5589 states that the works were copied 'under the founding emperor of the Song', Zhao Kuangyin. He became emperor in 960 and was succeeded by his brother when he died in 976 so the booklet must have been copied during that sixteen year period, and demonstrates that wrapped back binding had already appeared at the very beginning of the Northern Song. As printing flourished in the Song period, the butterfly binding was popular for a considerable period of time though its shortcomings began to become apparent. The mature wrapped back binding appeared in the middle Southern Song as an answer to some of the failings of the butterfly binding. The method of folding the leaves is reversed in the wrapped back binding. After printing, the leaves are folded with the 'heart of the block' on the outside, facing outwards so that the margins to the left and right form the spine. The outer margin is then pierced and stabbed with short lengths of flattened paper twists to hold the leaves in place. Finally, a sheet of thick paper, slightly longer than the leaves, is stuck over the spine, completely covering it to produce the wrapped back binding. The leaves of S.5589 are not folded in the same way, nor stabbed like the classic wrapped back format but the treatment of the spine is the same. The wrapped back binding was suited to, perhaps decided by, the method of woodblock printing: printing on one side of the paper sheets and neatly binding the leaves together. However, as people began to consult books more frequently, it became increasingly apparent that wrapped back books split easily and a new format, the xian zhuang [thread-bound] book appeared.

THREAD BINDING The name of the form is derived from the characteristic sewn thread binding. It was traditionally supposed to have originated in the mid-Ming (fifteenth century) and the background to its development lay in the need to improve on the wrapped back binding which did not stand up well to heavy use. The explanation is reasonable in so far as it reflects on the sewing method but a mid-Ming origin does not accord with historical evidence. ^ Zhang Bangji of the early Southern Song wrote a collection of essays called Mo zhuang man lu [Record of Ink Village] in juan 4 of which he cites a statement by Wang Zhu, 'in making books, if the leaves are pasted, after a while they escape and get in a muddle. You have to take care not to lose leaves and to re-create the page sequence in order to re-copy the work. A method of restoring such works is to stitch them which makes them more durable. I had several ce [volumes] of the Dong family's Fan lu [Manifold dews] with the pages disordered and upside down after years of reading. I was exhausted by the effort of guessing at the original order and gradually linked all the pages together to have them stitched.' Wang Zhu's 'style' was Yuanshu; he was from Songchen in Yingtian (present-day Henan province) and he lived during the Northern Song in the first half of the eleventh century. He came from an official family and himself both studied and served as a teacher. During the reign (1023-1056) of the Rencong emperor of the Northern Song, he participated in the compilation of the Ji yun [Collected rhymes]. He lived not more than a century after the establishment of the dynasty and his personal experience of different bindings should be sufficient to

114 demonstrate that thread binding had appeared, perhaps before he was born. Yet this is only a literary account; what of the evidence? In the past it was impossible to substantiate Wang Zhu's account but six thread-bound books in the British Library's Dunhuang collection clarify the matter. All six are Buddhist devotional works written on both sides of folded and stitched leaves of coarse hemp paper. S.5534 *s a manuscript of the Diamond sutra, 12 x 16 cm. Like S.5451 and S.5444, also copies of the Diamond sutra, it was written out by the same indefatigable octagenarian copying a printed edition, as noted in his colophon, where he states that he wrote it in the fifth year of the Tian zhen reign period, when he was eighty-three. Tian zhen is a reign period of the Tang Zhao zong emperor (ruled 889-904) but it did not last five years. However, the accompanying cyclical characters provide a date of 905 (the second year of the Tian you reign of Li Zhu, the Zhao xuan Emperor of the Tang), just two years before the Tang fell.^^ This booklet is bound in a manner almost identical with S.5451: folded leaves pasted together at the spine, but in S.5534, there are additionally two stab marks about 7 mm. from the outer edge of the spine, about 15 mm. from the top and bottom. Though the thread has long since disappeared, these indicate the existence of thread binding during the Tang. S.5531 and S.5535 sre 'compendium' volumes, containing selections from popular canonical and non-canonical Buddhist works. The binding format of S.5531 still preserves the stitching. The leaves are inscribed on both sides; after folding they form four inscribed pages. The volume (which is incomplete) consists of four gatherings of thirty-two pages and measures 120 x 70 mm. In each gathering, four holes are pierced along the central fold and the leaves are saddle-stitched (with multi-coloured twisted thread). On the outer spine are four rows of stitching, closely resembling a contemporary sewn binding. On the recto of the last leaf there is a cychcal date which could correspond to 860, 920 or 980. The paper, ink and calligraphic style set the book within this period, most probably at 920, in the Five Dynasties. S.5535 preserves stab holes suggesting that it was once thread-bound, and also has two single-leaf covers, front and back, of reddish-brown hemp cloth. S.5539, ^ 'eulogy on the ten voids' has four stab holes along the spine where the thread has subsequently been lost and, like S.5535, must also be a Five Dynasties work. S.5536 is another copy of the Diamond sutra; the text (which is preceded by a prayer) inscribed on both sides of the leaves. Four holes are pierced through the gathered leaves at the spine; the stitching also runs horizontally in four rows across the outer spine and there are two further holes on the outer spine, top and bottom threaded with string which is tied with a bow and fast knot in the centre of the spine. All the elements of the original binding have been preserved. Though the manuscript is undated, judging from the type of paper and ink used, it must date from the Five Dynasties. A work that can be dated with some certainty to 929 is a copy of section 25 of the , S.5554, 14.5 x 11.5 cm., consisting of twenty-two leaves, crudely inscribed on both sides. The colophon gives a cyclical date which probably corresponds to 929 and says that it was copied by Ma Senya of the Bao en temple. Two holes are stabbed "5 Fig. 5. Diamond Sutra, copied circa 970. S. 5646 through the spine and two-stranded string is sewn horizontally across the spine and tied in a bow between the two holes. The booklet and its binding are in a very good state of preservation. A very early Northern Song work, dating from circa 970, is a manuscript of the Diamond sutra, S.5646 (fig. 5), with a preface which is followed by drawings of the four Boddhisattvas and the eight Diamond protectors. There is a colophon which dates the copying of this and other texts to the seventh year of the Qiande reign period of the Song (963-967), a reign period of the founding emperor Zhao Kuangyin. There were not as many as seven years in the reign period and doubtless the copier in the remote north-west did not know that the reign period had been changed for this is 116 certainly a very early Northern Song example. There are fifty-two leaves with three holes pierced through along the spine. Two-stranded thread is sewn horizontally across the spine and tied in a bow in the centre of the spine, over the central hole. From the examples listed above, we may conclude that the origins of the thread- bound book did not lie in the mid-Ming but rather the decades between the end of the Tang and the beginning of the Northern Song (907-960). For the subsequent several hundred years it was relatively ignored in favour of the popular, pasted 'butterfly binding' and the wrapped back binding. As these two methods gradually revealed their shortcomings, the thread binding was revived to replace them during the Ming. Though the principle was the same, the folding and method of stitching was not exactly the same in the tenth and the fifteenth centuries. Indeed it was not until the use of metal type in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in China that the same form of sewing across the spine was revived. We have described the pot^ht binding, the pleated sutra binding, whirlwind binding, butterfly binding, wrapped back and thread binding and their origin and spread. The conclusion we draw is that, whether we rely upon textual reference or the surviving examples, all these binding types had their origins in the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, demonstrating that this was a crucial period, one of great innovation and change in the history of Chinese bindings. A major characteristic of the period is that there is no single format but many variations to provide for the needs of the reader. A range of new formats emerged, displacing the previous scroll format. Some were not widely used at the time but constitute the hitherto unrecognized origin of a later form. From this point of view, the research value of the Dunhuang materials is enormous.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE Li Zhizhong, Acting Head of the Rare Book Section in the National Library of China, spent three weeks in the British Library in September, 1986, with the generous support of the British Council and the Universities' China Committee. Mr Li is the author of Zhong guo gu dai shuji shi [History of ancient Chinese books and documents] (Peking, 1985) and numerous articles on the history of the book in China, the most recent of which have been concerned with the development of the book format. A notable contribution to the history of the book was his article in Wen xian (2/1986) which clarified a previously misinterpreted form, the ^whirlwind binding'. The results of his present study of the tenth century paper manuscripts found at Dunhuang, north- west China, by in the early years of this century, form a sequel to this last article. It was published in Chinese in tht Journal of the Chinese Library Association in 1987. The development of the various forms of Chinese bindings has previously been little studied. Literary references exist and Chinese bibliographers have tended to conservatism, following written accounts rather than investigating the, admittedly rare survivals. The history of the development of paper has been similarly dogged by bitter 117 battles between conservative textual historians and archaeologists who have to struggle to get physical evidence accepted in the face of the written tradition. For example. Pan Jixing's work on excavated paper samples (of which an account is included in Chinese Studies^ British Library Occasional Papers, io (London, 1988)), has caused a tremendous stir in China. In this context, Mr Li's work on the later Dunhuang manuscripts now in the British Library's collections is greatly to be welcomed. His work on binding format, preceded by the work of Jean-Pierre Drege of the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique in Paris, has not met with the universal approbation of the more traditionally-minded Chinese scholars. The place of the Dunhuang manuscripts in the history of the Chinese book is in itself a difficult one for Dunhuang was for much of its history an outpost on the Chinese frontier, a last stopping place for the great Buddhist pilgrims of the Tang dynasty. When Chinese power was at its height, Dunhuang was fully incorporated into the Chinese state but during periods of disunion or weakness at the centre, its peripheral position left it cut off from the capital. This may, in part, explain the varying nature of the texts and formats found in the Buddhist cave-library. Connections with western and metropolitan China were close during the height of the Tang dynasty as the variety of fine papers (some undoubtedly manufactured far away in Central China) suggests and there are many references to Sichuan, both in manuscripts mentioned by Mr Li and in fragments of printed calendars from Chengdu, for example. Yet the distance from the capital may help to explain the variety of formats found in the late ninth and tenth centuries which, as Mr Li seeks to demonstrate, anticipate binding formats traditionally ascribed to later periods. It is not possible to demonstrate a direct connection between the Dunhuang prototypes of the butterfly, wrapped back and thread-bound books of the later Ming and Qing dynasties, as no intermediate examples have come to light. However, the relatively recent discovery of a whirlwind binding in the library of the Palace Museum in Peking gives hope for the future, and much work remains to be done on the Dunhuang examples, whether in London, Paris or Peking. F. w.

Wen xian, ii (Peking, 1986). The fortuitous (Geneva, 1979), pp. 17-28, anticipates some of discovery of a Tang period (A.D. 618-907) manu- his conclusions. script in the form of a scroll with a series of 2 Buddhism entered China probably during the leaves pasted onto it, in the Palace Museum in Later Han, A.D. 25-220. The translation of the Peking, provided the first evidence of a format Buddhist scriptures began immediately and the previously known (and misunderstood) from succeeding centuries saw many Chinese monks literary accounts. Another example has since travelling to India to collect scriptures which been identified in the Pelliot collection in the would have been written on palm leaves. The Bibliotheque Nationale, described by J-P. most famous of these travellers was Xuan Zang, Drege, 'Les accordeons de Dunhuang', Contri- 602-664, who, after a sixteen year journey, butions aux etudes de Touen-houang, iii (Paris: returned to China with 520 cases containing the Ecole Franfaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1984), palm leaf manuscripts of 657 Buddhist works pp. 196-204. Drege's article 'Les cahiers des for translation. manuscrits de Touen-houang', Contributions^ ii 3 In India, the/»o(Arformat continued in vogue for

118 manuscript production well into the nineteenth divides the two pages, and pasted together along century, particularly (but not exclusively) for the fold to form the spine. As the thin sheets of Hindu and Jain religious texts in Sanskrit or paper are printed on one side only, and the outer Prakrit or for vernacular translations and com- edges of the sheets are not glued together, but mentaries (where the original was also often left loose, like a butterfly's wings, turning the quoted) in various parts of India, particularly pages involves looking at a lot of blank paper as eastern India, Bombay, Benares and Tanjore. It the books tend to fall open between the leaves, also passed over into the printing of religious rather than at the printed surface. texts, for example, the many nineteenth century 8 See note 6. lithographed editions from Bombay, a tradition 9 Using more robust paper (translator's note). which still persists in Benares today. There was 10 The Yong le da dtan was kept in the Hanlin a natural resistance to adopting the codex format Academy whose premises were adjacent to those for such texts because of its association with the of the Foreign Legations set up in late nineteenth Muslims responsible for its introduction. In century Peking. During the siege of the Lega- binding terms this means of course loose leaves tions in the Boxer Uprising (1900), the Hanlin between boards usually held by a cord although Academy was destroyed by fire. Some 800 of there was also a tendency in the nineteenth the original 4946 juan survive today, many in century for printed works to be bound along the libraries outside China including the British long edge so that in reading the leaves could be Library collections. See Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, turned over in the traditional manner. I am Paper and Printing, in Joseph Needham, Science indebted to Graham Shaw of the India Office and Civilisation in China., vol. v, pt. i (Cam- Library for this note. bridge, 1985), p. 174. 4 Here, the jia of fanjia is used as a nominal 11 Reign periods were used to denote dating in marker for potht. In Chinese, where a number traditional Chinese texts. Each emperor had a precedes a noun, a nominal marker (varying series of personal names and during the Han according to the noun) is placed between them. (206 B.c.-A.D. 220) to Song (A.D. 960-1260) 5 It is probable that earlier Chinese writers con- dynasties, reigns were subdivided into many fused the two, assuming that fanjia must be different reign periods, each with an auspicious synonymous with 'pleated sutra' binding as they name. From the Yuan (1260-1368) to the Qing had never seen any Chinese pothT. (1644-1911) reigns were no longer subdivided 6 The old man who copies from Sichuan printings but had a single, though still auspicious, name. will reappear in the context of binding develop- Cyclical dates are derived from a repeating sixty ments for many of the manuscripts he copied year cycle. The confusion of reign period and (S.5451, S.5534) exhibit new and crucial fea- cyclical date in this case may indicate the slow- tures; a truly transitional man. ness with which news travelled in tenth century 7 Butterfly binding consists of entire leaves, China. The old man was perhaps unaware that printed with two pages of text from a single a reign-name bad been changed in the distant woodblock. The leaves are folded in the middle, capital; the cyclical date would have been easier along the central line of the woodblock which for him to calculate.

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