On August 12, 2026, the kickoff meeting for the joint digitization project of the Yongle Southern Canon and Yongle Northern Canon, a collaboration between Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou and Shandong Library, was successfully hosted at Lingyin Temple. This cooperative initiative marks a key effort by both parties to conserve, organize and digitally leverage precious Buddhist scriptures, as well as a tangible practice to advance the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture.
As one of China’s earliest and most time-honored provincial public libraries, Shandong Library is a national key institution for ancient book conservation. It has long committed itself to the collection, preservation and academic research of ancient classics. Boasting a signature special collection of Buddhist scriptures, the library houses over 20,000 volumes of Buddhist texts from successive dynasties, including early engraved Buddhist scriptures and major versions of the Buddhist Tripitaka compiled in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Notably, two copies of the Yongle Southern Canon and one copy of the Yongle Northern Canon in its collection have been inscribed on the National Register of Precious Ancient Books.
The joint digitization project undertaken by Lingyin Temple and Shandong Library serves as an innovative model for Buddhist monasteries partnering with public cultural institutions to boost the preservation and inheritance of Buddhist scriptures. The two sides draw on their respective strengths to achieve complementary advantages. Endowed with profound Buddhist cultural heritage and years of accumulated technologies, professional expertise and practical experience in Buddhist text digitization, Lingyin Temple provides solid professional support for the project’s implementation. Shandong Library, on the other hand, contributes its abundant and rare collection of Buddhist literature, laying a solid foundation for the digital collation of the canonical texts. Jointly, the two parties will facilitate the upgrade of these precious classical resources from static collection to dynamic digital preservation, in-depth academic research and inclusive public access.
Coinciding with the 1,700th anniversary of Lingyin Temple’s founding, the project launch embodies the temple’s proactive response to the mission of conserving and inheriting Buddhist scriptures in the new era. Going forward, the two sides will build on this cooperation to deepen exchanges and collaboration, making sustained contributions to the inheritance of fine traditional Chinese culture and the high-quality development of Buddhist scripture digitization.
