The World of Asian Books

The
Yung Lo Emperor's Great Encyclopedia.
Compiled for the
Yung Lo emperor by some two thousand scholars between
1403 and 1407, this manuscript encyclopedia was the earliest
and largest in the history of China. The original was completely
destroyed during the final days of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),
but fortunately a manuscript copy, made between 1562 and
1567, survived. In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, this
copy was largely destroyed by fire with only a few hundred
of the original 22,000 volumes surviving. The Library has
forty-one volumes, the largest holding outside of China.
Shown here is part of a historical map of Hubei province,
with a detailed entry describing the history and geography
of the province. (Chinese Rare Book Collection, Asian
Division)
|
Newly opened in April 1997, the Asian Division Reading Room
welcomes the visitor with its high ceilings, bookcases of dark
wood, tall windows, and polished wooden stairways climbing the
book-lined walls. Seated at the handsome reading tables on any
given day might be a mix of scholars, students, and perhaps even
a saffron-robed Buddhist monk.
This guide offers a glimpse into the Library of Congress Asian
collection. Beyond describing the books, however, the following
pages also seek to convey something of the story of how they
came to this home so far from their origins. The early stages
of the story involve a fascinating cast of scholars, diplomats,
missionaries, explorers, adventurers, and soldiers. Among them
are a former officer in the French Foreign Legion who became
America's senior diplomat in China, a naval officer who served
as a model for Herman Melville's haunted Captain Ahab, and an
explorer who spent much of his life in remote mountainous regions
of China where he struggled to maintain some of the comforts
of his native Vienna while entrancing readers of National
Geographic with his adventures.
Before beginning our exploration of the Asian collection, some
introductory comments are in order. The most important concerns
the word book. Today many Asian books resemble their
Western counterparts, which has not always been the case. Asian
books traditionally took quite different forms, and many of the
Asian Division's treasures reflect these differences.
Long before paper existed, the written word in China was recorded
on bones, stone, bamboo strips, wooden boards, and silk. With
the invention of paper in China in about 100 A.D., written material
increased dramatically. Because Chinese characters were written
with a brush, the ink usually bled through the paper, making
it necessary to use only one side. Manuscripts in China initially
took the form of scrolls of silk or paper upon which were mounted
the individual written sheets of paper. The scrolls opened from
right to left, with a ribbon on the right edge to tighten and
fasten the scroll and a roller at the end of the scroll. The
color of the ribbon sometimes indicated subject matter, and identification
labels were attached to the end of the roller. A work usually
consisted of several volumes or scrolls that were put together
in a protective wrapper or book cloth, often made of silk or
bamboo matting, that held about ten rolls. The Asian Division
holds many early scrolls. Later, with the development of woodblock
printing, individual sheets of paper were folded over, tied together
at the back, and bound together into a volume. Again, an individual
work or title might require many bound volumes, stored in boxes
and labelled with their contents. Traditional Japanese, Korean,
and Vietnamese books took similar forms.

Sir
Thomas Stamford Raffles. A Javan in the Court Dress.
An
official with the British East India Company, Raffles arrived
in Penang, now part of Malaysia, in 1805 and went on to
become Lieutenant Governor of Java for five years after
the British temporarily expelled the Dutch in 1811. Some
eight years later, Raffles founded the British colony of
Singapore. He was knighted in London in 1817 for his scholarly
and comprehensive History of Java. This illustration
is taken from a French edition of the book and shows an
elegantly dressed member of the Javanese royal court. (Rare
Book and Special Collections Division)
|
Books in India took another form, with texts inscribed on long,
narrow pages of palm leaf or paper and loosely stacked together
between covers, often made of wood. This type of book spread
to many other areas, including Southeast Asia and Tibet. Both
forms are found in the Asian collection, especially in the older,
classical works.
This guide is divided into sections on "classical" Asia and "modern" Asia.
The Library initially concentrated on acquiring the great Asian
classics of religion, philosophy, history, geography, science,
medicine, and literature. Often rare and of great historical
value, many of these books are carefully maintained in the Asian
Division's rare book storage areas, but are available to serious
users. One of the aims of this guide is to provide a broader
audience an opportunity to learn about and see some of these
beautiful items. The modern section describes the Asian Division's
holdings on contemporary Asia. At the end of World War II, the
Library's acquisition policy turned from collecting traditional,
often rare, Asian material to obtaining current publications
from Asia. With the United States playing an increasingly active
role in world affairs, the Library moved to meet the growing
demand for information on current conditions. However, the division
into classical and modern Asia is not neat or precise. Many of
the traditional classics still make their way to the Library,
mainly in reprint form or from generous donors, which is especially
true for regions such as Southeast and Southern Asia that received
only limited attention from the Library before 1945.

Bhagavadgîta. A
cheerful decoration adorns this manuscript of the Bhagavadgîta, perhaps
the most popular of all Hindu religious works. Stylized
and geometrical rosettes reminiscent of pre-Muslim South
Asia styles are combined with floral ornament so typical
of Islamic decorative art. Nineteenth-century paper manuscript
from North India. (Southern Asian Collection, Asian
Division) |
There are, of course, limits to this brief survey. The Asian
Division's holdings are in the vernacular languages of Asia and
no systematic attempt has been made to deal with the huge volume
of work on Asia in English or European languages found in the
Library's general collections. Nonetheless, many of the Library's
other divisions have historically important material about Asia,
and some examples of these holdings have been selected to give
the reader a sense of the Library's overall holdings on Asia,
which include rare Western books, maps, photographs, and manuscripts.
The transliterations used in this guide are primarily those
used by the Library itself. Thus, although the Pinyin system
is widely used for Chinese today, this guide uses the earlier
Wade-Giles system that remains in use in the Library. An effort
has also been made to simplify the use of names for a number
of countries that have changed over time by using the modern
name. For example, "Thailand" is used throughout this guide even
though the kingdom was once called "Siam." The text also consistently
refers to the "Asian Division" even though this office went through
several name changes over the years before taking on its current
designation in 1978.
|