Jikji, Korea's greatest invention!!!

Saturday, October 4, 2008 by LookattheKite


Have you ever heard about Jikji?
Then, do you know about Gutenberg's Bible?

Well, if you are only familiar with the latter one, YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY READ THIS.

Jikji, the world's oldest extant movable metal type printing, was invented by Koreans in 1377 at Heungdeok Temple of Cheonju city. Jikji is the abbreviated term of Baegun hwasang chorok Buljo jikjisimcheyojeol.

However, Jikji is not mentioned as the world's first ever matalloid type in many of foreign websites. Some even states that Gutenberg's Bible was the first ever made matalloid type. Yet, this Jikji was devised 78 years before Gutenberg's invention.
So, VANK, a voluntary organization where students carry out missions to correctify wrong information about korea and make Korea better knonwn to the world, is also doing its best to correctify those incorrect historical records. Frankly, I didn't know much about Jikji either before participating in this campaign.

However, after I read the whole website about our Jikji, I figured that this invaluable invention of Korea should not only be known to korea but also to the whole world. Due to the movable metal type printing technique, it helped people to publish several books in one time. With this technique, it became probable to lower the high book price and spread thoughts and knowledges through the books to many people.

Yet, our Jikji is currently not in the right place. It is secured in France. Many Koreans were taught that French stole it from Korea during France's invasion in Choseon Dynasty. However this is not correct. One Frencheman collected this Jikji as a antiques and took it back to his country. Nevertheless I and Koreans strongly believe that Jikji should be returned to its rightful place.

This is one of the many evidence that Jikji is the world's first movable metal printing.

On the left is a traditional letter printed by woodcut printing. This woodcut printing takes a lot of time to make but it is printed very clearly. However, many of the metalloid type throughout the world had disadvantage of unclear printing. The very end of each letter is not printed well. We can see that the edge of Jikji's letters do lack clearness.




The picture showing UNESCO is registering Jikji.


Although Jikji is not yet widely known to the world, its value has already been officially acknowledged by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Significant contributions of Jikji to the preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage was recognized and at the 5th International Advisory Committee of UNESCO on Memory of the World Register held in 2001, it was finally inscribed on Memory of the World Register. Annually, UNESCO awards the UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize to commemorate the inscription of jikji. I feel sorry that so many foreign friends do not have knowledge of this.
The cover page of Jikji.

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