The 80,000 Wooden Blocks of Complete Collection of Buddhist Scriptures displayed at the Pohyon Temple in Mt Myohyang is a precious national treasure showing the development of the printing technology of the Korean nation.

The complete collection is a Buddhist encyclopedia compiled in the period of Koryo (918-1392) with the Buddhist scriptures and other relevant books.

The first complete collection was made in Korea in the first half of the 11th century, but it was burnt by foreign aggressors.

From 1236 to 1251, another complete collection was made and it was composed of 6,793 volumes of over 1,530 kinds. That is the one which has been handed down till now.

It is regarded as part of proud cultural heritage of the Korean people and world-famous cultural heritage for its excellent printing technology. The wooden blocks look like delicate sculptures.

It is a precious cultural relic of the Korean nation and, at the same time, serves as a material proof showing through the development and promotion of wood block printing that solid technical foundations for inventing and using metal types for the first time in the world history were already laid in Koryo at that time.

President Kim Il Sung said that the complete collection and wooden block types are precious national treasures showing the development of the printing technology of the Korean nation, and that it is the great pride of the country and nation that ancestors had successfully produced the complete collection of thousands of volumes by making more than 80,000 wooden blocks hundreds of years ago.

The complete collection is recognized as the most perfect standard of the old ones known to the world.