Mogao Library Cave Hid Scrolls

In 1900, a Taoist monk named Wang Yuanlu discovered a sealed chamber at the Mogao Caves in China’s Gansu province. The cave contained approximately 1,100 scroll bundles and over 15,000 Buddhist texts, with the last recorded date indicating its sealing around 1002. Among the lost manuscripts was a printed copy of the Diamond Sutra dated 868. The discovery became one of the greatest manuscript finds in Central Asian history and revealed the earliest known dated printed book.

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