Paper Ancestor for a Thousand Autumns

Author: Xu Huanjie
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Papermaking is one of China's four great inventions of ancient times, and this book was published to commemorate the 1900th anniversary of Cai Lun's invention of paper. The book is divided into six chapters: Inheritance, Origin, Examination, Dust Removal, Art and Literature, and Dynamics, providing a comprehensive and systematic introduction to Cai Lun's achievements in papermaking and the various introductions and praises by later generations. In five thousand years of human civilization, technological inventions have never been as valued or noted as they are today. "Science and technology are productivity" is now recognized worldwide. It can be said that whoever holds the technological high ground will dominate the world. Last year, Cai Lun's hometown, Leiyang City, invested heavily to expand Cai Lun Garden, renovate the Cai Lun Memorial Hall, build a Science and Technology Invention Square, erect a bronze statue of Cai Lun, and successfully held the 2001 China (Leiyang) Cai Lun Science and Technology Invention Festival, as well as the public memorial ceremony for Cai Lun. As an important part of the festival, the city also held the 2001 China (Leiyang) Cai Lun Academic Symposium. Scholars and experts from Beijing, Shanghai, Fujian, Shaanxi, and Hunan, as well as journalists from Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, Science and Technology Daily, and China Culture News, gathered in Leiyang to discuss the great achievements of Cai Lun, the ancestor of papermaking. This was undoubtedly a visionary move. I believe that holding these activities was not for fame or to attract attention, nor was it merely to promote Leiyang by commemorating Cai Lun. Instead, it aimed to promote the spirit of science and advance the development of science and education in Hunan, making its significance profound and its influence far-reaching overseas.
Eighteen hundred years ago, Cai Lun used materials such as hemp heads, tree bark, fishing nets, and discarded cloth to create the first plant-fiber paper in human history, replacing rare animal hides, expensive silk, and cumbersome bamboo slips, bringing paper closer to the people and making it an indispensable necessity in every household. Cai Lun's outstanding contributions not only found an inexhaustible source of materials for papermaking but also developed a set of papermaking methods and basic principles, including cutting, soaking, bleaching, pulping, diluting, scooping, squeezing, and drying, which have been inherited by later generations of papermakers. Thirty years after his death, Cai Lun's historical achievements were recorded in the contemporary historical work "Lian Guan Han Ji," making him the first inventor in Chinese history to be written about by historians. However, due to various historical, realistic, political, or academic reasons, Cai Lun, the world-renowned great inventor, was once arbitrarily belittled, neglected, or even obscured by the dust of time. This can only be described as an unspeakable tragedy. Yet, history is the island left behind by the flowing river—it is unchangeable. Over the past forty years, continuous research, rigorous testing, and scientific analysis by the papermaking community and historians have led to increasingly clear conclusions. The so-called "Western Han paper" that had been widely publicized were either waste hemp, unsuitable for writing (far from being true paper in the modern sense), or artifacts interfered with by chronological errors or brought in by tomb raiders. The true inventor of papermaking was undoubtedly Cai Lun, with no other contenders. Although new discoveries may continue with further archaeological research, as of today, "Cai Lun invented papermaking" is the only just conclusion.
Cai Lun's invention of papermaking greatly accelerated the progress of human civilization and, as a result, is naturally admired and praised by experts and scholars in both the East and the West. Professor Yamashita Inji, a Japanese historian, said: "The invention of Chinese paper and printing is indeed an unparalleled honor for the people of Asia. The contributions of Cai Lun and Bi Sheng are truly magnificent." Professor Sukhman of the Soviet Union, in his book "Papermaking," wrote: "Eighteen hundred years ago, Cai Lun of China invented paper, and no other invention has had a greater impact on cultural development." Michael Hart, an American scholar, not only ranked Cai Lun as the seventh most influential person in history in his book "The 100 Most Influential People in History" but also gave him an extremely objective and fair evaluation: "In fact, Cai Lun's position is far more important than that of other inventors. This is because most inventions are products of their time, and even without him, others would have made them. Cai Lun was different. Papermaking appeared nearly a thousand years after his invention, and Europeans learned it from the Arabs. Similarly, some Asians, even after seeing paper made in China, still did not know how to produce it themselves. Clearly, the papermaking process is extremely complex—it is not an inevitable outcome of cultural development but rather a special contribution made by a special person to human society. Cai Lun was such a person, and his papermaking technology remained the foundation of the papermaking industry until the widespread adoption of mechanical printing in 1800."
So many foreign scholars can give such fair and thorough evaluations of Cai Lun. As descendants of the Yellow River and the Yangtze, we should even more vigorously promote his spirit,，。 Today, by commemorating and promoting Cai Lun, we learn from his "diligence, sincerity, science, and pioneering spirit," bravely undertake the historical mission of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, continuously improve our national quality and modernization level, and inject new connotations and vitality into our excellent traditional national culture. Comrades in Leiyang, Hunan, with the support of peers in the papermaking and historical fields, have compiled the academic achievements of scholars and experts on Cai Lun over the past forty years into a book titled "The Eternal Legacy of the Paper Ancestor." At the time of publication, they asked me to write a preface, and my heartfelt words are as follows, serving as the preface.