The Tripitaka Koreana - carved on 81258 wooden blocks in the 13th century - is the most successful large data transfer ever achieved by mankind. Information of 52 million characters, transmitted over almost 8 centuries with zero data loss - an unparalleled achievement.
The Tripitaka Koreana, stored at Haeinsa, a Buddhist temple in Gayasan National Park in South Korea, is the most comprehensive and oldest version of the Buddhist canon, with no known errors in its 52 330 152 characters arranged in over 1496 headings and 6568 volumes.
Accidental data transmissions over the centuries certainly occur in libraries, but the Tripitaka Koreana is a uniformly produced series of texts, and the obsessive level of care in its production and storage leaves no doubt that it was created with eternity in mind.
Each wooden block is 24 centimeters high and 70 centimeters long. The blocks range in thickness from 2.6 to 4 centimeters and weigh about three to four kilograms each. The wooden blocks are in pristine condition despite being created more than 750 years ago.
After this, the blocks were placed in the shade and exposed to the air for three years, after which they were finally ready for carving. After each block was carved, it was covered with toxic varnish to keep insects away and then framed with metal to prevent deformation.
If the wooden blocks were stacked it would form a pile 2.74 km high, when lined up it would be 60 km long and in total it would weigh 280 tons.
There is no sure way to calculate this, but 52 million carved Chinese characters is almost two gigabytes of information. So the Tripitaka Koreana has transmitted two gigabytes of data without any corruption or loss over almost 8 centuries: no other data created by man comes close to this.
Work on the first Tripitaka Koreana began in 1011 during the Goryeo-Khitan War and was completed in 1087. The act of carving 6000 wooden blocks was believed to be a way to bring about a change in fortune with the help of Buddha.
The Tripitaka is written in Pali, an ancient Indian language closely related to Sanskrit, and it is considered authoritative by Theravada Buddhists. In other Buddhist traditions, similar collections of scriptures exist, often referred to by different names, but the Tripitaka remains central to the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism.
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