Journeys on the Silk Road: A Desert Explorer, Buddha's Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World's Oldest Printed Book
Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters
Lyons Press, Sep 4 2012, $24.95
www.lyonspress.com
ISBN: 9780762782970
Inside the cave buried over a millennium ago by the Gobi Desert lie Buddhist manuscripts including the oldest known printed book The Diamond Sutra circa 868. With the sands receding, in 1900, a Monk finds the grotto containing Buddha's Secret Library. In 1907 Hungarian archeologist Aurel Stein and his terrier Dash journey to the remote cave, a depository of ancient Buddhist scrolls. The Monk guarding the trove allows Stein entrance and to leave with some document’s including a printed copy of the Diamond Sutra. In the twentieth century the Diamond Sutra travels to the British Museum and Wales.
This is an exciting historical account of two journeys: that of Stein to and from the cave, and that of the Diamond Sutra from the cave. Readers will feel they are traveling with the brave archeologist on the Silk Road and later accompanying the prized manuscript on its twentieth century trek to include moving to Wales for safekeeping from the Nazis. This is a winner as Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters provides the vivid travels within the larger context of the major events that shaped the first half of the twentieth century.
Harriet Klausner
Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters
Lyons Press, Sep 4 2012, $24.95
www.lyonspress.com
ISBN: 9780762782970
Inside the cave buried over a millennium ago by the Gobi Desert lie Buddhist manuscripts including the oldest known printed book The Diamond Sutra circa 868. With the sands receding, in 1900, a Monk finds the grotto containing Buddha's Secret Library. In 1907 Hungarian archeologist Aurel Stein and his terrier Dash journey to the remote cave, a depository of ancient Buddhist scrolls. The Monk guarding the trove allows Stein entrance and to leave with some document’s including a printed copy of the Diamond Sutra. In the twentieth century the Diamond Sutra travels to the British Museum and Wales.
This is an exciting historical account of two journeys: that of Stein to and from the cave, and that of the Diamond Sutra from the cave. Readers will feel they are traveling with the brave archeologist on the Silk Road and later accompanying the prized manuscript on its twentieth century trek to include moving to Wales for safekeeping from the Nazis. This is a winner as Joyce Morgan and Conrad Walters provides the vivid travels within the larger context of the major events that shaped the first half of the twentieth century.
Harriet Klausner
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