Series

Reading the Yilin

How the Yilin text on this site is verified, character by character, against a hand-copied 1780s manuscript.

The hub

The Manuscript

Every verse on this site is checked against a hand-copied 1780s manuscript, character by character. The object itself — photographed leaf by leaf.

Part 1

When the Ink Cannot Decide

We have been reading one scribe's handwriting for months. The evidence accumulates and the conclusions keep coming apart — and some distinctions the digital text records are simply not present in the ink.

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