Training the Trainers: Materiality of Ming Books and Manuscripts.
This online lecture series brings together leading scholars from North America and China to explore Ming dynasty book and manuscript culture. Presentations will be followed by Q and A with the speakers.
Weekly sessions on Mondays at 4 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).
Monday, June 1, 2026
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Zoom Webinar
Speaker: Jiang Wu | 吴疆, Regents Professor, Dept. of East Asian Studies and Director of Center for Buddhist Studies, Harvard University
This lecture explores the transformation and transregional spread of the Ming Buddhist Tripiṭaka, arguing that the late Ming marked the starting point of the modernization of the Chinese Buddhist canon. After briefly outlining the traditional structure of the canon—its tripartite division (經, 律, 論), case organization, catalogue traditions and woodblock printing practices—the Jingshan Canon (径山藏) or Jiaxing Canon (嘉興藏), whose string-bound format (方冊), rationalized catalogues, standardized case divisions and regulated page grids reflect a new consciousness of typographical order and reproducibility. The disciplined use of Song-style typeface and refined layout further stabilized the canon as a coordinated publishing enterprise rather than an accumulated scriptural archive.
The lecture then traces the transmission of this Ming bibliographical model to early Edo Japan in the Ōbaku Canon (黄檗藏), where Ming structural principles were preserved and technically consolidated. Finally, drawing on Wu's first-hand examination of the Ōbaku Canon presented to the India Office Library in 1875 by the Iwakura Mission—conducted at the British Library in February 2026—the talk considers the canon’s entry into modern library systems. By foregrounding catalogues, layout, typeface, and institutional reclassification, this talk reframes the Ming Buddhist canon as the structural foundation of canonical modernity and highlights its continuing relevance for librarians and curators working with Ming printed works and manuscripts.
This program will be delivered in Chinese with live, simultaneous English translation.
Click the RSVP to register now.
Dr. Jiang Wu (Harvard University, 2002) is currently a Regents’ professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, director of Center for Buddhist Studies. He published in areas such as seventeenth-century Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan/Zen Buddhism, the role of Buddhist canons in the formation of East Asian Buddhist culture, and the historical exchanges between Chinese Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism. Other interests include Confucianism, Chinese intellectual history and social history, and the application of electronic cultural atlas tools in the study of Chinese culture and religion.
Presented by UCLA Library, The Claremont Colleges Library and Columbia University Libraries with funding support from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.
www.library.ucla.edu/visit/events-exhibitions/training-the-trainers-materiality-of-ming-books-and-manuscripts/
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA Library