It is the world's earliest, dated, printed 'book', found in Chinese Turkestan at the turn of the century, and shipped off to Britain to reside in London's British Museum.
Today, the priceless 1,100-year-old Diamond Sutra sits in a 'terrible condition', according to one preservation expert, in the Oriental Conservation Studio of the British Library, damaged by repair treatments done in earlier eras by well-meaning museum staff.
Its condition and how to reverse it, has baffled some of the world's leading chemists and antiquarian paper conservators over the past 20 years.
Now, its expert carers believe they are on the verge of a breakthrough which could see the unique document, the Buddhist equivalent of part of the Bible, restored to its former glory by the turn of the century.
Produced by woodblocks, the book bears the date May 11, 868AD, centuries before printing or the use of paper was known in the West.
When the Diamond Sutra is restored, it will go to its new permanent home in the Gallery of Treasures in the new British Library. There, it will sit alongside the Magna Carta and other printed artefacts in a specially-designed, atmosphere-controlled glass case.
It will not be going home. The British Library has no plans to return the Diamond Sutra to China, which has never asked for it back, despite regarding the British archaeologist who discovered it as a thief.
