Another major Buddhist achievement – not unrelated in fact to the interest in public communication – is that nearly every attempt at early printing in the world, in particular in China, Korea and Japan, was undertaken by Buddhist technologists, with an interest in expanding public communication.* The first ever printed book (or, more exactly, the first printed book that is actually dated) was the Chinese translation of an Indian Sanskrit treatise (Vajracchedikaprajñāpāramitā), the so-called ‘Diamond Sutra’. This was translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva (a half-Indian, half-Turkish Buddhist
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