Journeys on the Silk Road
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Journeys on the Silk Road |
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HomeDiamond
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A desert explorer, Buddha's secret library, and the unearthing of the world's oldest printed bookBy Joyce Morgan and Conrad WaltersWhen a Chinese monk broke through a hidden door in 1900, he uncovered one of history's greatest literary secrets: a 1000-year-old time capsule of life along the ancient Silk Road. Inside the chamber on the edge of the Gobi Desert, documents were piled from floor to ceiling. The gem among them was the Diamond Sutra of 868, now recognised as the world's oldest printed book. The sutra, a key Buddhist teaching, was made more than 500 years before printing transformed European civilisation. The book's journey — by camel through treacherous deserts, by boat to London's curious scholars, by train to evade the bombs of World War II — merges an explorer's adventures, political intrigue and continued controversy. The words of the Diamond Sutra have inspired Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley and the Dalai Lama. Its path from East to West has coincided with the growing appeal of Buddhism in the contemporary world. As the Gutenberg Age cedes to the Google Age, the discovery of the Silk Road's greatest treasure is an epic tale of survival, a literary investigation and an evocation of the travelling power of the book. A US EDITION OF JOURNEYS ON THE SILK ROAD WILL BE AVAILABLE IN SEPTEMBER |
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From cave to cave ... find out what happened to the Diamond Sutra in World War II by reading Joyce Morgan's paper, just published by the British Museum. Read the article. |
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Contact
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US publisher: Globe Pequot Press
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New York agent: Pamela Malpas
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