Xuan Zhuang (translator)
Daihannya-kyo (Mahaprajnaparamita sutra). Books 1 and 100, Japan, Nara, monastery of Kofuku-ji, 1227.
Rare 1227 Kofuku-ji Daihannya-kyo printing
Rare survival from the completed 1227 Kofuku-ji printing of the Daihannya-kyo, the monumental Mahaprajnaparamita sutra, here preserving Books 1 and 100 in their original handscroll format, with the distinction of documented temple provenance.
Rare survival from the completed 1227 Kofuku-ji printing of the Daihannya-kyo, the monumental Mahaprajnaparamita sutra, here preserving Books 1 and 100 in their original handscroll format, with the distinction of documented temple provenance.
P.O.R.
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2 woodblock-printed scrolls (26.3 x 892 cm; 26.3 x 864 cm), the first made up of 14 joined leaves, the second of 9 joined leaves. Chinese text. Stored in a fitted wooden case. Overall wear, creasing, staining, and localized losses to the paper consistent with age and use; the wooden box rubbed and worn.
Printed at the Nara monastery of Kofuku-ji, the set belongs to the great medieval Japanese campaigns of Buddhist textual production, in which the physical multiplication of scripture served not only study and recitation but also the ritual projection of merit and protection.
The text had entered East Asia through the translation made by Xuan Zhuang in 663, and the present scrolls stand within that long afterlife of transmission, showing how the vast scripture continued to be stabilized, circulated, and used in Kamakura-period Japan. Their preservation as two substantial fascicles, each still measuring more than eight metres in length, gives the object an immediately persuasive material authority; the wooden storage box further retains the character of the ensemble as a temple book-object rather than a detached textual fragment.
Produced in the same year that the Karoku-ban campaign reached completion, these scrolls constitute a concise witness to one of the defining centres of Buddhist printing in medieval Nara and to the enduring prestige of the Daihannya-kyo in Japanese religious culture.
Provenance:
1) Kofuku-ji Monastery, Nara.
2) In a French private collection of East Asian printing, acquired in the 1960s or 1970s.
3) Étude Tajan, Hôtel Drouot, 23 Oct. 2001, lot 63.
4) Sam Fogg, London.
Sam Fogg, MS 8094.
Printed at the Nara monastery of Kofuku-ji, the set belongs to the great medieval Japanese campaigns of Buddhist textual production, in which the physical multiplication of scripture served not only study and recitation but also the ritual projection of merit and protection.
The text had entered East Asia through the translation made by Xuan Zhuang in 663, and the present scrolls stand within that long afterlife of transmission, showing how the vast scripture continued to be stabilized, circulated, and used in Kamakura-period Japan. Their preservation as two substantial fascicles, each still measuring more than eight metres in length, gives the object an immediately persuasive material authority; the wooden storage box further retains the character of the ensemble as a temple book-object rather than a detached textual fragment.
Produced in the same year that the Karoku-ban campaign reached completion, these scrolls constitute a concise witness to one of the defining centres of Buddhist printing in medieval Nara and to the enduring prestige of the Daihannya-kyo in Japanese religious culture.
Provenance:
1) Kofuku-ji Monastery, Nara.
2) In a French private collection of East Asian printing, acquired in the 1960s or 1970s.
3) Étude Tajan, Hôtel Drouot, 23 Oct. 2001, lot 63.
4) Sam Fogg, London.
Sam Fogg, MS 8094.
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