(11 Aug 2025) In the presence of a tightly rolled, yellowed scroll in the State Library of Victoria, it is hard not to feel a bit awe-struck.
Inside a glass cabinet in the centre of the library sits the oldest known mass-printed text in the world, the Hyakumantō Darani.
The finger-length item is a Buddhist prayer scroll that circulated more than 700 years before the invention of the Gutenberg press.
Its name translates as “1 million pagodas and Dharani prayers”, explains Dr Anna Welch, principal curator at the library.
Find out more here.
