• 2022-09-05

Premier of the Executive Yuan Tseng-chang Su, Minister without Portfolio Bing-cheng Lo, Minister of Education Wen-chung Pan, and Minister of Finance Jain-rong Su attended the 2022 National Anti-drugs Contribution Awards Ceremony on June

24, after which they stopped by National Central

Library to see the Exploring and Reading France

@NCL: Books and Special Collections Exhibition. They enjoyed seeing the manuscripts of famous writers such as Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and George Sand. They also took a close look at the eight rare books that are part of the Chengding Tang Collection within the NCL special collections. The books on display in this exhibition are all rare treasures and this is indeed a rare opportunity for people to see the originals.

Afterward, with Director-General Shu-hsien Tseng’s warm and welcoming invitation, Premier Su and the other officials took time to come to see NCL’s Rare Books Room and special collections vault. Special collections staff gave an in-depth introduction about the acquisition stories about the rare and ancient books. In addition, the NCL staff also introduced about the value-added utilization of ancient rare books. Apart from the Diamond Sutra, which is popular with library patrons, this year NCL authorized Linking Books to raise money from the public to replicate a small-character Song version of the Lotus Sutra that also contains Sanskrit. (It is commonly known as the King of the Sutras). With regard to the ending of the book, where Master Deqiu—who was a monk at the Huiyun Monastery in Southern Song—expressed his desire to stay true to the faith and prayed for “peace in the realm and joy to the people in their labours.” Premier Su stated that this is what he was trying to accomplish. In addition to connecting with the Buddhist wisdom from previous ages, he hopes that the power of these Buddhist sutras, which are national treasures, could help Taiwan to find peace and its people happiness.