Experts from China, as well as countries which seriously damaged the encyclopedia when invading in 1900, gathered in Beijing for the first time in a bid to better preserve, publish and promote the "cultural treasure."

Fewer than 4 percent of its original 22,937 volumes remain now but the encyclopedia?s importance to scholars remains undiminished.

The original encyclopedia preserves a lot of texts that were lost after the compilation, said Soren Edgren, a professor at Princeton University of the United States.

"Any serious student of Chinese history knows about Yongle Dadian," said Edgren, who was in Beijing yesterday to attend the first international symposium marking the 600th anniversary of the compilation.

More than 3,000 scholars and officials spent four years from 1403 to compile the volumes under the order of Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Apart from the collection of books at the imperial library, up to 8,000 books were bought from all parts of China for the compilation at the time, making the encyclopedia the only source for the ancient books that had long disappeared, said Ren Jiyu, director of the National Library of China.

The "Eight-Power Allied Forces" -- aggressive troops sent by countries including Britain, the United States, Russia and Japan -- invaded Beijing in 1900, setting fire to some volumes of the Yongle Dadian while plundering others and transporting them to their own countries. Only 800 volumes of the monumental encyclopedia remain today, with just half of them in China and the rest scattered overseas, Ren said.

"We commemorate the fact that 600 years ago, Chinese scholars assembled in Beijing to compile the monumental book," said Edgren.

"We recall that some 100 years ago the remaining volumes of the encyclopedia were tragically scattered in Beijing, and many were taken abroad."

Ren, Edgren and other scholars attending yesterday's symposium agreed it is imperative to reprint all the remaining parts of the encyclopedia so it can be studied and shared by more people.

Since December, the Beijing Library Press has begun making full-size replicas of all the remaining volumes of the Yongle Dadian collected at the National Library of China, according to Ren.

"We plan to finish duplicating all the existing volumes that can be found in the Chinese mainland within one and half years," said Ren.

"We hope we can reprint the other volumes scattered outside China."

(China Daily April 18, 2002)