seals, either of wood or stone, portraying the Buddha, which they stamped on paper or silk times without number. It was but a step from this to block printing, a long step, perhaps, but a step none the less. Block printing led to the problem of ink, an ink that would lie evenly on a flat surface.
It was but natural, then, that the Chinese, who invented block printing, should also manufacture the finest of inks. There were about a dozen grades. One of the best was derived from t'ung oil, soot and lampwick grass, to which was added isinglass made from fish maws, a preparation of camphor to give it an agreeable odor and gold leaf for luster. The ink was then molded into sticks, dried and decorated with graceful characters. It was ready for use when rubbed on an ink slab and moistened with water. From a habit the Chinese have of sucking their writing brushes to a fine point, the phrase "to eat ink" has become a synonym of "to study."
Ming Huang gave great impetus to calligraphy when he founded the Hanlin Academy, "The Forest of Pencils," oldest cultural institution in the world.
Paper was already in general use throughout the Empire. It was made of a wide range of substances-rice straw, hemp, mulberry, bamboo. That used for painting was typically white with a fine pattern of parallel mold marks. Paper was invented six hundred years before the reign of Ming Huang, but it was under him that it achieved its widest use as a cultural product.
Among other things, the Buddhist monasteries seized
