中国古代活字印刷术新论(上)

A New View on Ancient Chinese Movable Type Printing (Ⅰ)

活字印刷术的发明人、发明时间和发明地点,一直是学术界关注的热门话题。活字印刷的技术原理与古代玺印完全相同,早在先秦时代就已经被发现并被应用了,《秦陶量》《秦公簋》《能原镈》《攻敔王夫差剑》和《■簋》等均系用活字在泥范上钤印然后翻铸而成。采用活字印刷术批量复制文献在北宋毕昇之前已得到应用,时间可以追溯至后晋天福年间。毕昇的贡献在于用胶泥制作活字,改进了排印工艺。木活字也不是元代中期王祯发明的,王祯的贡献也在于对木活字进行改进与完善。活字印刷术的特点是快速排印,快速换印他书,节约成本,适合一次性大批量印刷;但是书版随印随拆,不如雕版印刷适合长线书籍的出版,技术更为复杂,对工匠的要求比雕版印刷高得多。与雕版印刷术相比,活字印刷术发展较为缓慢,没有成为中国古代文献复制方式的主流,这与它的特点以及产生和发展的社会环境相关。

The inventor, the invention time and place of the movable type printing have been the hot topic in the academic community. This article discusses the following issues: Was there movable type printing earlier than Bi Sheng? Was there wooden movable type printing earlier than Wang Zhen? Was the movable type printing the mainstream in ancient China? What are the limitations and optimal scope of application of ancient Chinese movable type printing? What are the differences between ancient Chinese, ancient Korean and Gutenberg’s movable type printing in Europe? The technique of movable type printing is exactly the same with imperial seals which was discovered and applied in the pre-Qin times. '秦陶量', '秦公簋', '能原镈', '攻敔王夫差剑' and '■簋', etc were all mud molded with moveable type and casted. Bi Sheng’s contribution is making moveable type with clay and improving typesetting. Wooden moveable type was not invented by Wang Zhen whose contribution is actually the improvement of wooden moveable type. The characteristics of moveable type printing was rapid typesetting and cost saving, fit for mass printing. However, the printing block was disassembled after printing. Its techniques were more complex and demanding than woodblock printing. Accordingly, woodblock printing was more appropriate for long-term printing of the same book. Compared with woodblock printing, moveable type printing developed slowly. It did not become the mainstream of document duplication in ancient China. Compared with the same period of ancient Korea and the end of Middle Ages of Europe, moveable type printing was not used widely, and books printed with it were not as many due to the characteristics of moveable type printing and the social environment in ancient China.