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A Study on the Manufacturing Technique of the Ancient Hand-copying Paper

Chi-Sun Park 1

1용인대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Based on an excavated ancient paper recently, we could know that paper was invented prior to Cai Lun(蔡倫) of Later Han Dynasty. The technique of manufacturing paper was handed on to Korea peninsular with Buddhism and then to Japan. After the invention of paper, Sutras written on paper were manufactured and preserved up to now. It is regretable to say that our neighbor China and Japan have relatively more old papers than Korea. At the moment, Silla’s paper was left only 4 items, i.e. National Treasure No. 126 Mugujeonggwangdaedaranigyeong (無垢淨光大陀羅尼經), National Treasure No. 196 Paejimukseodaebangqwangbulhwaeomgyeong (白紙墨書大方廣佛華嚴經) or Silla Avatamsaka Sutra written in ink on White paper, Mugujeonggwang-dharani(無垢淨光陀羅尼) excavated from Nawonri 5-storied pagoda, and Mugujeonggwang-dharani excavated from West 5-storied pagoda at hwaeomsa. Among them, what we certainly know the date of production was only Paejimukseodaebangqwangbulhwaeomgyeong. Therefore, we have no option to investigate the characteristics of Silla’s manuscript scrolls. The only one method to investigate the characteristics of Silla’s manuscript scrolls is to make clear the difference between Paejimukseodaebangqwangbulhwaeomgyeong and the manufactured chinese and japanese manuscript scrolls. It was until recently that most of study are related to the bibliographical one and, as a result, the scientific research has been supporting the bibliographical one. We can say that a concomitant feature among China, Japan and Korea is the preparation process of making paper and a subsequent dochim(搗砧) or a stamping treatment, a method smoothing paper by beating it on a fulling block. The ancient paper than the modern paper has several characteristics of which a space between paper-fibers is jam-packed and of high density and its surface is opaque and smooth because people of ancient smash and crush the long fiber made of hemp or Dack-fiber and make a fibril by pounding them in a mortar or a treadmill in the process of paper-manufacturing. I would say that wild horses could not get it out of the characteristic of an ancient paper in investigating a few paper relics. However, we can not help researching the characteristics of an ancient paper through a comparison between an antient paper-manufacturing technique and a few relics at the present time.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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