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On the Digitalization of Tripitaka ×
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EPISTÉMÈ Vol.11 pp.3-19
On the Digitalization of Tripitaka
Key Words : Tripitaka,Haeinsa,Gutenberg,woodblock prints,Valéry,Worringer,Derrida,matres lectionis,Buddhist texts,typography,calligraphy,Western alphabets
Abstract
Dating back to the 12th century, the Tripitaka of Haeinsa took about sixteen years to be produced with all plates being of the same size and of a uniformly aligned style with regard to typography. After the scribes of the Tripitaka were bent to the normative discipline, it became possible for ‘mechanical' operators to complete the main advantage of writing. The situation is comparable to the Europe practice of woodblock-printed books, in which texts were engraved as an image. Considering its digitalization, however, the recently completed digital Tripitaka merely reproduced the image of the text, including neither the materials on which it is based nor the impressive spectacle of thousands of tablets lying on the shelves of Haeinsa Temple. It should be noted that the sacred is not reproducible because no image depletes real figures and no alphabet is written in the same exhausted manner.