The Invention of Printing
(印刷术的发明)
5 min read
The invention of printing, probably by the 8th century, had a profound impact on the spread of knowledge, literacy, and culture in ancient China. It democratized access to knowledge by making books more affordable and widely available, which in turn fueled the emergence of a large intellectual class and the growth of a literate population.
The development of printing built upon several earlier technologies. The biography of Cai Lun (蔡伦) in the Records of the Later Han Dynasty (后汉书), compiled in the 5th century, records that “in ancient times, writings were generally made on bamboo strips or pieces of silk…Cai Lun devised the use of tree bark, hemp remnants, rags, and fishing nets to make paper…From then on, paper came into use everywhere.” This innovation is traditionally dated to 105 CE.
The long-standing use of seals (印章; image below shows seal impressions) and carved stone steles (石碑) to record and authenticate text in ancient China laid important groundwork for the invention of woodblock printing (木版印刷). The earliest documented use of seals for authenticating official documents dates to 255 BCE. Over time, seals—often carved from precious stone—became symbols of ownership or authorship in paintings, calligraphy, literary works, and government records. Seal carving required precise reverse carving of characters, a technique closely analogous to that used in woodblock printing. It also demonstrated that inked impressions could mechanically reproduce text or images, a foundational concept of printing.
Dating back to the late 2nd century CE, stone steles represent the earliest systematic effort to preserve texts permanently. Their purpose was to standardize canonical writings and prevent corruption through handwritten copying. The earliest surviving example is the Xiping Stone Classics (熹平石经), which include the Book of Changes (易经), the Book of Songs (诗经), the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋), and other Confucian classics. It was common practice to reproduce these inscriptions by applying ink to the stone surface and pressing paper against it to create rubbings—a process that clearly foreshadowed printing techniques. The left image below shows a demonstration of how a rubbing is made from a stone stele; the right image shows an example of a paper rubbing (拓本).
Experimentation in Buddhist monasteries with seals and stone-stele rubbings likely led to the invention of printing by the 8th century. Early woodblock printing applied the same principle as a seal on a much larger scale: text and images were reverse-carved onto wooden blocks, inked, and pressed onto paper (image below).
A printed Chinese translation of the Diamond Sutra (金刚经)—a nearly five-meter-long scroll combining text, calligraphy, and illustrations—was discovered in Dunhuang (敦煌) and dated to 868 CE. It is widely regarded as the world’s oldest known printed book. The rapid spread of Buddhism created an unprecedented demand for mass-produced texts, accelerating the adoption and refinement of full-page woodblock printing.
Seals thus provided both the techniques of reverse carving and ink transfer, as well as the conceptual basis for mechanical replication. Appropriately, the Chinese word for “printing” (印刷) literally means “seal rubbing.” Although not the sole influence, seals and stone steles were critical steps in the early development of printing in China.
Among the most significant technological achievements of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝, 618–907) was the widespread adoption of woodblock printing. While far more efficient than manual copying, woodblock printing remained labor-intensive and time-consuming, often requiring years of work by skilled craftsmen to publish a single book. Nevertheless, it quickly found broad application, especially for Buddhist sutras and official documents, and later for commercial and popular uses. During the Song Dynasty (宋朝, 960–1279), printing expanded on a large scale (first image below). Printed paper currency first appeared in China in the 11th century, also during the Song period. Marco Polo, who traveled to Yuan Dynasty China in the 13th century, noted the widespread use of paper money in his Travels (second image).
With the advent of woodblock printing, China developed a rich tradition of illustrated books. The earliest surviving example is again the Diamond Sutra of 868 CE (opening image). Another notable work is the illustrated Song Dynasty edition of the Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经; first image below), a text on mythical geography originally compiled in the first millennium BCE. During the Ming Dynasty (明朝, 1368–1644), advances in printing techniques enabled the production of multicolor printed images. As woodblock printing was applied to an ever-wider range of products, the consumption of printed materials expanded dramatically, including popular storybooks and Lunar New Year prints known as nianhua (年画; second image), which remain popular today.
Around 1040 CE, Bi Sheng (毕昇) invented movable type (活字印刷). His system used individual characters made from baked clay, each reverse-carved on a small block. The characters for a page were arranged on an iron plate coated with a mixture of pine resin and wax. When heated, the mixture melted, allowing the types to be pressed flat and fixed in place; after printing, the types could be disassembled and reused.
Four centuries later, Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type in Europe using lead-alloy letters cast from brass molds, dramatically increasing printing efficiency. In Europe, this development is often regarded as the beginning of printing, whereas in China printing is traced back to the earlier woodblock tradition, with movable type viewed as a later refinement. This difference reflects the nature of the respective writing systems. Alphabetic scripts require only a limited number of characters, making movable type economical and practical. By contrast, the thousands of complex Chinese characters made movable type far more costly and less efficient. As a result, even after its invention in 11th-century China, woodblock printing remained the dominant method for centuries.
For nearly a millennium after its emergence, woodblock printing was the primary means of disseminating information in China, enriching cultural life and supporting the formation of a literate and intellectually engaged society. From China, woodblock printing spread eastward to Korea and Japan by the 8th and 9th centuries, and westward along the Silk Road, influencing Central Asia and the Islamic world. By the 14th century it had reached Europe, where it indirectly contributed to the development of Gutenberg’s movable-type press in the 15th century.
Photo credit: Baidu.com; The Invention of Printing and its Spread Westward, Columbia University Press 1925