Paging the book doctors

THE ARTICLES ON THESE PAGES ARE PRODUCED BY CHINA DAILY, WHICH TAKES SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENTS

In the ancient book restoration department at the National Library of China a mixture of traditional craftsmanship and new technologies have been used (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY )

For Tian Tingting, aged books sometimes resemble stale puff pastry. Often suffering from water damage, or having been snacked on by bookworms, the centuries-old pages are crispy and rotten, and in many cases stuck together.

“They are too fragile,” Tian says. “You can’t be too careful when separating them.”

She is a book restorer at the National Library of China, the world’s biggest repository of ancient Chinese books. More than 2.7 million such books – defined as those published before the fall of monarchy in China in 1911 – are now housed at the library.

Sometimes the restorers behave more like chefs. For example, an old but efficient way to separate the pages is to steam them in a pot for six minutes, no longer and no less. Then a small bamboo stick and patience will help to split them apart.

Steaming can also help Tian carry out other restoration procedures. Once new paper is used to replace the rotten part of an ancient book, that same cooking-style method can greatly accelerate the ageing process, giving the repair the patina of an antique appearance.

Nevertheless, in the restoration of ancient Chinese books, the basic principle is to maintain the original appearance of the book as much as possible with the minimum necessary intervention. “So in most cases a page is merely partially fixed,” Tian says. “Only when a page is severely damaged will we consider remounting the whole piece of paper for consolidation.”

The restored Bodhisattva Maitreya’s Previous Life in Tusita Heaven , printed in 927 (PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

In April Tian enjoyed a career highlight when her restoration of a copy of Tangwencui –“a collection of fine Tang Dynasty (618-907) prose”–from the 1520s won her the first prize in the national competition of ancient book restoration, which was launched by the National Centre for Preservation and Conservation of Ancient Books.

“The written classics have borne our civilisation for thousands of years and have been passed down for generations,” Rao Quan, director of National Library of China, said at the award ceremony. “But they have always faced danger, ranging from war to worm. So the restorers play a vital role in the conservation of the books and prolonging the linage of Chinese literature.”

Among all the awardees in the competition, the work by Hou Yuran and her team from the National Library of China’s restoration department was, arguably, the most important. The 4ft-long scroll, The Bodhisattva Maitreya’s Previous Life in Tusita Heaven (first volume), was printed in 927 and came into the library’s possession in 2015. The sutra is the world’s second-oldest known dated printed work, only after the Diamond Sutra printed in 868, which is also a Buddhist scripture from China and now part of the collection at the British Library.

“It’s a rare example of early-stage printed work,” Hou says. “But its condition was complex when it was handed to us. It was broken, and its colour was fading.”

By analysing the material, an ancient papermaking method using the bark of mulberry trees was adopted to produce new paper to make patches. An even bigger challenge was water stains on the scroll. In Hou’s experience, it takes strong chemicals to get rid of them.

“For the safety of the paper, we decided not to pursue perfection and left the stains there,” Hou says. “People in the future will also be able to better understand what the scroll has gone through. It’s key historical information as well.”

In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) book Zhuanghuangzhi, which focuses on the mounting of paper works onto bindings or scrolls, the author wrote: “Restoration is like seeing a doctor. If the doctor is good, your illness will be gone immediately following the treatment. If not, you may die taking the medicine.”

Previously published on Chinadaily.com.cn