A canon carved in wood
Haeinsa stands on Mount Gaya in South Gyeongsang province in southern Korea. It is best known as the home of the Tripitaka Koreana, a complete edition of the Buddhist canon carved on wooden printing blocks in the thirteenth century. The collection is usually said to contain around 81,000 blocks, which is why it is also called the Palman Daejanggyeong, the “Eighty Thousand Tripitaka”. Each block is carved on both sides.
“Tripitaka” means “three baskets” and refers to the main divisions of the canon: discourses, monastic rules and philosophical analysis. The Korean edition also includes commentaries and other material. Compare it with the Pali Canon, which belongs to the Theravada tradition, and with the Chinese-language collections that form the base of East Asian practice. The Tripitaka Koreana is in classical Chinese, the shared scriptural language of East Asian Mahayana Buddhism, and it contains many of the Mahayana sutras that Korean monks have studied and chanted.
Why it was carved
An earlier set of blocks had been made in the eleventh century, in the hope that the Buddha’s protection would help the kingdom to withstand invasion. Those blocks were lost to fire during the Mongol invasions of the early thirteenth century. The Goryeo court, which had moved to Ganghwa Island to resist the Mongols, then ordered a new set. The carving is traditionally dated from 1236 to 1251, roughly fifteen years of work.
The reasoning, as it is usually presented, combined devotion with statecraft: producing the canon was an act of faith and merit, and it was also hoped to bring the kingdom’s protection. Scholars debate how much weight to place on each motive, but the scale of the project during wartime is not in doubt.
How the blocks reached Haeinsa
The blocks were stored at first near the Goryeo capital on the island. They were later moved, and by the end of the fourteenth century they are recorded as having come to Haeinsa, which had a long reputation as a centre of learning. Haeinsa itself is traditionally dated to the early ninth century. It is associated with the Hwaeom (Flower Garland) school of study.
The storage halls
The blocks are housed in the Janggyeong Panjeon, a pair of long halls built in the fifteenth century on a slope above the main courtyard. The buildings are plain, with wooden lattice windows of different sizes on the front and back walls. These are generally explained as a means of letting air move through the halls so that the blocks stay dry. The ground inside is traditionally said to have a layer of materials such as charcoal and salt, though the exact arrangement should be taken from specialist sources, not from tradition alone.
The result is that the wooden blocks have survived for more than seven centuries, which is remarkable for a collection of this size. The halls and the blocks have been inscribed on UNESCO lists: Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon, the Depositories for the Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks, was added to the World Heritage List in 1995, and the woodblocks themselves were registered in UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme in 2007.
Why scholars value the text
Several reasons are commonly cited:
- Completeness. It is one of the most complete early collections of Buddhist texts in Chinese.
- Care in editing. The text was compared with earlier Chinese and Korean editions, and the Korean editors are said to have corrected many errors. Modern editions of the Chinese canon have drawn on it as a reliable base.
- Craftsmanship. The characters are carved in an even, regular hand. Traditional accounts describe the work as the product of many carvers, but the tales that the whole thing was done in a single style should not be taken too literally.
- Survival. The blocks have outlived fires that destroyed many other temples and survived later wars and upheavals.
The way a monastic library and printing house worked is part of the wider story of monastic education, in which texts were copied, studied and chanted within the community.
Seeing the blocks today
The Janggyeong Panjeon is generally not open to walk through. Visitors typically view the exterior of the halls from outside and can see sample blocks and printed pages in exhibition spaces. Rules on access, preservation work and photography change, so check current official sources for details. The halls and nearby buildings are part of a working temple, so dress modestly, speak quietly and follow local guidance.
Haeinsa is also one of the Three Jewel Temples of Korea, regarded by tradition as the temple of the Dharma because of this collection. Some visitors combine a visit with a night in a temple stay programme, which is described in a separate article. Walking on Mount Gaya can involve steep paths and changeable weather, so prepare accordingly.