The Diamond Sutra : the story of the world's earliest dated printed book

"The Diamond Sutra" is the world's earliest dated printed book. It was produced some 600 years before Gutenberg's movable type printing in Europe, and is clearly the product of a mature printing industry in China. This new book, the first to focus on the Diamond Sutra, describes the discovery of the Sutra by Sir Aurel Stein in May 1907 in a hidden cave on the edge of the Gobi desert. The book discusses in-depth the invention of paper in China and the origins of Far Eastern printing as well as the content of the Sutra. It reveals how it was made, before considering the condition of the Sutra, including the recent extensive conservation work. The book also contains a full reproduction of the Sutra.