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Catalogue of the Yongle North Tripitaka (Yongle Bei Zang) 《永樂北藏》經錄

The printing block of Yongle North Tripitaka was produced in Beijing starting in 1421 (Yongle’s reign, Ming dynasty) until 1440 (Zhengtong’s reign). In total, there are 636 sets, 1621 scriptures, and 6361 fascicles. The contents are indexed according to the Thousand Character Classic1, from tian (天) to shi (石). A large number of copies were distributed to major temples in China. The carvings of other classics began again in year 1584 (Wanli’s reign) and led to an addition of 36 canons, 41 sets, and 410 fascicles to the Yongle North Tripitaka. Also included were 4 canons and 4 tables of contents (in total 16 sets, 153 fascicles) from the Yongle South Tripitaka. This edition has some features that distinguish it from the old fold tripitaka books: enlarged typeface and type page, 25 lines per page, 5 and a half pages, 17 characters per line, and characters printed in the Zhao calligraphic style.
This database contains the catalogue of the Yongle North Tripitaka.

Note: Thousand Characters Classic is an essay that was written using exactly 1,000 Chinese characters, none of which were repeated. These characters were sometimes used sequentially to substitute numbers 1 to 1,000 to prevent tampering with numerations.


Digital Database of Buddhist Tripitaka Catalogues,
Dharma Drum Buddhist College