The final decision will be announced at UNESCO’s annual meeting in Warsaw, Poland in May.

The stock, which consists of more than 3,000 wood blocks dated between 17^th and 19^th century, has been preserved at Vinh Nghiem (also known as Duc La) Pagoda in Bac Giang’s Yen Dung District.

The pagoda itself was built by the founder of Truc Lam Zen Buddhism, King Tran Nhan Tong, in the 11^th century.

The blocks include Buddha’s teaching, Buddhist works carved by artisans from Hai Duong province and other localities in the north.

Tran Van Lang, director of the Bac Giang Provincial Museum, said the blocks have been carved with Han Chinese script or nom (Vietnamese characters transformed from Han) on both sides.

Lang said that the whole content of the blocks had been available onto paper at the end of last year, after six-months of printing. The blocks had been put into ten titles.

The blocks have been carved by artisans using the wood of the thi tree (a kind of permission), which is while, and hardly cracks. The wood is soft and easy for carving on when it is fresh and gets tougher and harder when it dries.

The sizes of blocks vary from the biggest of 1 by 0.5m to the smallest of 0.15 by 0.2m in dimensions.