[2] It is often called the Palman Daejanggyeong ("Eighty-thousand Tripitaka") due to the number of the printing plates that comprise it.

[6][7] The Tripiṭaka was designated a National Treasure of South Korea in 1962, and inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World international register in 2007.

[8][1] Historically the Tripiṭaka was closed except for Buddhist events and scholars but 2021 it was opened to members of the public who preregister.

[12] Choi's Goryeo Military Regime, which moved the capital to Ganghwa Island due to Mongol invasions, set up a temporary organization called "Daejang Dogam".

The act of carving the woodblocks was considered to be a way of bringing about a change in fortune by invoking the Buddha's help.

To once again implore divine assistance with combating the Mongol threat, King Gojong thereafter ordered the revision and re-creation of the Tripiṭaka; the carving began in 1237 and was completed in 12 years,[4] with support from Ch'oe U and his son Ch'oe Hang,[16] and involving monks from both the Seon and Gyo schools.

The production of the Tripiṭaka Koreana was an enormous national commitment of money and manpower, according to Robert Buswell Jr., perhaps comparable to the US 1960s Apollo program Moon landings.

[19] The UNESCO committee describes the Tripiṭaka Koreana as "one of the most important and most complete corpus of Buddhist doctrinal texts in the world".

[7] The historical value of the Tripiṭaka Koreana comes from the fact that it is the most complete and accurate extant collection of Buddhist treatises, laws, and scriptures.

The quality of the wood blocks is attributed to the National Preceptor Sugi, the Buddhist monk in charge of the project,[4] who carefully checked the Korean version for errors.

After each block was carved, it was coated in a poisonous lacquer to keep insects away and then framed with metal to prevent warping.