A KOREAN BUDDHIST ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT

BETH McKILLOP

DURING the selection of manuscripts for loan to the 'Arts of Korea' Gallery which opened in the British Museum in July 1997, a richly decorated Korean Buddhist copied in gold pigment around 1390 was identified, conserved and prepared for display. The manuscript seems to have received little attention since it was acquired by the Department of Printed Books of the British Museum in 1884, as part of a collection of important Japanese, Chinese and Korean editions amassed in Japan by the bibliophile Sir Ernest Satow (i 843-1929). It may be surmised that the volume moved to Japan from Korea between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps like so many Korean inventions, treasures and skills, leaving Korea in the course of the Hideyoshi invasions of the 1590s. The pioneering French bibliographer Maurice Courant described it in the introduction to Bibliographie Coreenne (1895-1901): I must not omit to mention two ancient manuscripts which are not well-made copies but works of art; one, dated 1446 is in the Varat Collection... the other is in the British Museum; these are a volume of the Mahavaipulya purnabbuddha sutra prasannartha sutra (no 2634, II) and a volume of the Buddhavatamsaka mahavailpulya sutra (no 2635, V); these two manuscripts are in the form of a concertina, on a very thick paper, both with covers painted dark blue; the characters beautifully written, and the paintings quite perfect, are executed in gold. Of the second sutra, Courant wrote: The British Museum, I5io3.e.t4. possesses a fragment of an edition of this work; it is a tall, narrow volume of the height of a tall octavo, set out as a concertina, 58 leaves; it is hand-written in golden letters; two leaves of illustration executed in the same fashion are at the head of the text; blue cover with golden designs.' This article attempts to place the volume in its historical context and to point out some of the distinguishing features of Korean manuscript copies of Buddhist scriptures.

I. KORYO, A KINGDOM DEVOTED TO THE BUDDHIST FAITH The kingdom of Koryo succeeded Silla in governing the Korean peninsula, when Wang Kon £^ (d. A.D. 943) seized power in 918. Already during the United Silla period, from 158 668 to 918, the Buddhist faith had taken firm hold over Korean society at all levels Devout believers attended services and processions at the imposing temples and monastic communities which flourished across the length and breadth of the country. First in the eleventh century, and again between 1237 and 1251, the entire corpus of Buddhist scriptures, the Trtpitaka, was carefully copied, carved on blocks and printed as an act of devotion, and to beseech Buddha's protection against successive northern attackers who threatened the survival of the state. Religious communities accumulated great wealth, and commissioned ceremonial furniture such as bronze bells to be positioned in temple courtyards and halls; fine green-glazed ceramics for use during ceremonies, and wooden chests covered with lacquer and inlaid with burnished mother- of-pearl to contain the holy scriptures. As well as large devotional paintings of Buddhist deities such as and Avalokites'vara, finely painted in glowing mineral colours on silk to hang in temple halls, artists also produced small-scale images of the preaching Buddha, surrounded by angels and disciples. These scenes, known in Korean -A.^ pyonsang ^1^@ or transformation images, preceded the text of copies of scriptures, such as the Lotus, Diamond and Garland . In common with sculpture and ceramics, these paintings are devotional in inspiration, and were produced by craftsmen at the behest of royal and noble sponsors wishing to gather through the production of a portrait of a deity or copy of a holy scripture. Because pyonsang paintings have normally been conserved in temple libraries, guarded by monk librarians, a good number have survived until the present day, providing one of the most valuable sources of information about the painter's art in mediaeval Korea.

II. THE TEXT OF THE The British Library volume forms part of an important Buddhist scripture, the Buddhdvatamsaka-mahdvaipidya Sutra., usually known as the Avatarnsaka (Garland., or Flower Ornament) Sutra (T 279 in the Taisho numbering). The Avatanisaka Sutra is one of the major texts of the (Korean Hwaom ^Wt) school, a syncretist branch of that flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-917). Huayan Buddhism continues until the present day to attract millions of followers, particularly in East Asia. The volume is a section from the translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra into Chinese made by a Khotanese monk, Siksananda, between A.D. 695 and 699. This translation is sometimes called the 'Tang' or 'new' translation, to distinguish it from the earlier, shorter translation by Buddhabhadra made between A.D. 418 and 421. Siksananda's translation is in eighty chapters, compared to Buddhabhadra's sixty, principally because the longer version contains records of more Assemblies and Audience Places - these are sermons delivered by the Buddha to gatherings of monks and , and are the narrative framework around which the philosophical and devotional teaching of the text is structured. The British Library volume is number 32; it forms part of chapter 25.

159 Chapter 25 is devoted to the 'Ten Dedications' (in Korean sip hoehyang -VM'k ), and describes the acts of bodhisattvas as they bestow merits on other beings in order to bring about universal enlightenment. The Ten Dedications is one of the longest and most important chapters of the Avatarnsaka Sutra. Its description of the merging of individual bodhisattvas with the enlightenment of all beings refers to one of the central strands of Huayan: the 's quest for the enlightenment of all beings pursued through fifty-three stages and countless kalpas. Each of the Ten Dedications has a particular character: the tenth is the 'boundless dedication equal to the cosmos'. The following extract from Cleary's translation^ gives a flavour of the text with its lush imagery and repetitive similes: Great etilightening beings also dedicate the roots of goodness cultivated by giving of teaching to the aspirarion to purify all buddha-lands and adorn them with inexpressibly many embellishments, each buddha-land as vast as the cosmos, purely good, without obstructions, with pure light, the Buddhas manifesting the attainment of true awakening therein, the pure realms in one buddha-land able to reveal all buddha-lands, and as of one buddha-land, so of all buddha- lands, each of those lands adorned with arrays of pure exquisite treasures, as measureless as the cosmos - countless thrones of pure jewels spread with precious robes, countless jewelled curtains and jewelled nets draping, countless precious canopies with all kinds of jewels reflecting each other, countless jewel clouds raining jewels, countless jewel flowers all around, completely pure, countless pure arrays of balustrades made of jewels, countless jewel chimes always emitting the subtle tones of the Buddhas circulating throughout the cosmos, countless jewel lotuses of various jewel colours blooming with glorious radiance, countless jew^el trees arrayed in rows all around, with flowers and fruits of innumerable jewels, countless jewel palaces with innumerable enlightening beings living in them, countless jewel mansions, spacious, magnificent, long and wide, far and near, countless jewel ramparts with exquisite jewel ornaments, countless jewel gates hung all around with strings of beautiful jewels, countless jewel windows with pure arrays of inconceivable numbers of jewels, and countless jewel palms, shaped like crescent moons, made of clusters of jewels - all of these embellished with myriad jewels, spotlessly pure, inconceivable, all produced by the roots of goodness of the enlightened, replete with adornments of countless treasuries of jewels.

We shall note below that this passage is vividly conjured up in the landscape and assembly scene which precedes the text of the British Library volume. Francis Cook has written of the Avatarnsaka Sutra as follows: Reading this mammoth work is, to put it mildly, an unforgettable experience[...]everything is done on a gargantuan scale. If one simile is good, ten are always much better. The reader is staggered by the loving description of scenery, down to the number of leaves on the trees with their configuration and coloring; with the descriptions of perfumed trees and golden lotuses, singing birds, clouds that emit wonderful odors and sounds, varieties of clothing and jewels, the long lists of names of Bodhisattvas and Sravakas assembled to hear the teaching, more numerous than all the sands in a million Ganges Rivers, and so on for page after page. Moreover, the sutra is a vehicle for [...] the doctrine of the infinitely repeated intercausality and identity of all

160 phenomena. There is a great amount of drama and color in the Avatatnsaka, but it is all there to serve the overriding concern of Buddhism, to show man what he must do to become free, and what freedom is.^ It is interesting to note as an aside that the final chapter of the Avatamsaka, the Gandavyuha or 'Flower Collection' Stltra, existed as an independent text in before its incorporation into the Chinese translation of the Avatamsaka. It concerns the wanderings of a young hero, , whose quest for all-pervading knowledge has been compared to the Pilgrim's Progress in the Christian tradition. The protagonist travels over India to visit fifty-three sages, before his final encounter with the bodhisattva . Sudhana's journeys form the subject matter for illustrated books and scrolls in China and Japan and inspired the famous stone carvings at , Indonesia.* The Avatanjsaka Sutra was copied out and printed many times in Korea. Its evocation of the blessings and joy awaiting those who recognize and embrace the Buddha^s teachings exerted a strong influence on believers.

III. THE BRITISH LIBRARY VOLUME The text is preceded by an exquisite, delicately painted frontispiece, depicting a preaching scene (fig. i). The Buddha sits on a platform high above a pavement with balustrades, facing out towards an audience of bodhisattvas and monks. Beside him is a cintdmani or flaming jewel, representing the universal satisfaction of desires. Three pieces of rock, each placed in a lotus bowl, are nearby, and emit rays of brilliant light. The entire right section of the painting is dominated by areas of fine undulating lines, giving the image a shimmering surface which enhances the brilliance of the golden pigment. The gowns of all the figures, the flaming nimbus that surrounds the seated Buddha and the light that emanates from the rocks and jewels are all composed of curved lines. The Buddha's superior status is conveyed by his position and by the fiame-shaped outline of the double aureole which is behind him. Lesser figures by contrast have rounded-outline aureoles, of which only the lower part is decorated with repeated wavy lines. Bodhisattvas, occupying a middle position, sit cross-legged upon lotus-flower- shaped pedestals, framed by flaming aureoles composed of an upper plain oval set over a lower section filled with curving thin lines. In the upper section of the left of the composition, a bodhisattva raises his arm beside a sphere divided into nine sections, which appears to flow into the aureole of the seated bodhisattva, possibly representing the nine previous dedications recounted in earlier chapters. The Buddha's hands form the gesture bodhyagrf, right hand clasping the upraised index finger of the left.^ The hands of the listening disciples are raised in the anjali position, with joined palms denoting respectful listening. The listening assembly is shown as if floating on a cushion of stylized clouds. A mountain landscape covered with trees stretches into the distance. The pavement and platform on which the teaching Buddha and listening disciples are disposed has six jewel- Fig. I. Frontispiece illustration to volume 32 of the Garland Sutra., gold pigment on white mulberry paper. Painting dimensions 44x21.5 cm. BL, Or. 7377

adorned pillars at its lower level. The image is a single scene, covering four folds. It is enclosed in a border of vajra thunderbolts and cakra spheres, representing the force of truth which is like a thunderbolt, and the wheel of law whose spokes in multiples of eight allude to the eight-fold path of self-conquest. The full-length panel at the far right tells the reader that this is the pyonsang (transformed image, a depiction of a preaching Buddha with assembly and selected narrative themes, a type of religious painting found in hand-copied and printed sutras from China, Korea and Japan) for the 32nd volume of the Avatartuaka Sutra, which describes the Tenth of the Ten Dedications that constitute Chapter 25. The short captions in the second and fourth sections of the painting name the 'Bodhisattvas and Vajra-messengers of the Buddha-Lord' and the 'Boundless dedication equal to the cosmos'. The page is positioned to produce a seven-centimetre upper margin above, and a margin of 4.5 cm. below the text block which measures 21 cm. This page layout is unique to Korean books, and distinguishes them from Chinese and Japanese books. 162 Fig. 2. The Perfection of Wisdom {Astasahasrikd Prajndparamitd Sutra in Satiskrit). India (Bihar), c. 1145. BL, Or. 6902, ff. i63v

Although were copied in Chinese characters in all three countries, Chinese and Japanese books usually have equal top and bottom margins. Another distinguishing feature is the positioning of the illustrative matter. In Japanese Buddhist sutras this usually follows the text, while in Korean and Chinese texts the illustration precedes the text. The concertina-folded format of the volume refers to the Indian origins of the text. Of the numerous materials used in the manufacture of books in south and south-east Asia, palm leaves of narrow rectangular shape have long been closely associated with Buddhist scriptures, and so the narrow rectangular shape of folded-page scriptures in Korea and China recalled the subcontinental origin of the holy text copied on their pages (fig. 2). The first paper manuscripts of Buddhist texts made in Central Asia were also in this format. Buddhist scriptures had reached East Asia via the communities of Central Asia, where they were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. It should be noted however that manuscript Buddhist texts were also regularly copied on sheets of paper that were joined to form a scroll (printed Korean Buddhist texts are usually found as either folded or thread-bound volumes).** Following the frontispiece is the text, beginning with title and translation information. Each of the fifty-eight pages or folds of text consists of six columns of seventeen characters. A border composed of a thin inner and broad outer gold band marks the extent of the text block. Each column of characters is divided from its neighbours by a thin gold line (Plate VIII). The copying has been done with meticulous care and attention, in the formal style of calligraphy known as regular script (in Korean kaew f^# ) but the scribe was not faultless: corrections to individual characters are apparent on folios r5r (sol U), 22r (p'a m), 24V (pop fe) and 25r {chol ^ ), following the foliation scheme applied to the manuscript in 1909 when its pressmark was corrected to Or.7377, 163 presumably in recognition that it had earlier been miscatalogued as a printed book. Handwritten Korean sutras of the Koryo period were sometimes pohshed or burnished with buftalo horn or ivory to impart a sheen, but it is uncertain that the technique was applied in this case, although the bright surface of the characters is unimpaired, even after some 500 years. On the other hand, the volume has suffered some deterioration over the years. Paste staining is visible at the join of sheets 25V and 26r and water stains discolour the margins near the beginning and end of the fascicle. Worm damage can be seen in various places including the back cover near the edges, and on the far right panel of the frontispiece. Both covers have been damaged by friction during handling. The paper on which the manuscript is written appears to have been well sized and dried using a method still practised by skilled papermakers in South Korea today, which requires laborious brushing of the nearly-dry paper followed by pounding to smooth the surface.^ Only the covers are made of a paper which has not been sized and burnished to the same degree of stiff shininess as the text pages. Coloured using the vegetable dye indigo, these are adorned in the conventional style for Korean Buddhist sutras in folding volume format of the thirteenth to early fifteenth centuries. Four large floral medallions, of the type known as precious visages (in Korean posang ^tl ), often found on Chinese and Korean Buddhist objects, have been overlaid with a rectangular panel bearing the title of the sutra along with a reference (in the form of a character from the Thousand Character Classic,^ the character chu il , number ioi in the series) to the box number in which the volume should be stored.^ The corpus of Buddhist scriptures amounted to thousands of volumes, and lacquered chests inlaid with mother-of-pearl were made to store and protect them. The Thousand Character Classic was also used to number these chests. The title panel sits on a lotus pedestal and at its head is a cap in the shape of a flowerhead (Plate VIII). From each bloom a short chain of golden spheres trails outwards into the area of the cover which is painted with silver pigment to form a curving cloud or plant motif composed of thick outlines filled with closely-spaced fine lines. At the edge of the page, a frame of broad and thin gold lines encloses the four medallions, and in its turn contains a repeating scroll device. The Tenth Dedication volume was part of a set produced for a royal or noble patron. Not only the covers and frontispiece, but also the entire text were executed in gold pigment. It was a special, luxurious production, carefully checked by the scribe and an overseer, as can be seen from the seals placed carefully over the joins to each sheet (on the blank side of the paper) and from the proof-reader's notes lightly copied on the reverse of the first sheet (fig. 3). The volume has been tentatively dated to the late fourteenth century, by analogy with other surviving examples of golden sutras copied on undyed paper (in Korean, paekchi kumni^U.^Jf^). It is uncertain if the volume was produced just before or just after the fall of Koryo in 1392.^^ It is probable that the last of the eighty chapters bore a dedicatory colophon recording the names of those who sponsored the copying of the holy text and mentioning the circumstances or the names of those for whose benefit it was done. Because the volume has been separated from its 164 -h

•• • M.'% ^J>

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t

Fig. J. Checker's notes from the reverse of the overlap of sheets one and two of Or.7377, shown in three sections. In the original these fortn a single column. companions, we can only guess about the circumstances that led to the pious act of copying out the holy words of the Garland Sutra.

V. HAND-COPIED BUDDHIST SUTRAS IN KOREA The practice of copying out sutras in gold flourished in the Koryo period; most surviving examples date from the fourteenth century. A government-sponsored Sutra Scriptorium is mentioned in the official history, the Koryosa, for 1181, and later was divided into separate Silver and Gold Letter Scriptoria. The production of de-luxe copies of the entire Tripitaka and of particularly popular scriptures such as the Lotus and Avatanisaka Sutras was achieved on the basis of widely available texts, since the woodblocks for the printed Tripitaka had been carved between 1236 and 1251. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when Korea was part of the Mongol empire, the royal family became elosely linked by marriage to the Mongol rulers of China. Numerous sutra copying projects were undertaken during this period, sponsored by royal and noble patrons seeking redemption and salvation.^^ Some tens of Korean sutra manuscripts survive in collections in Korea, Japan, Western Europe and the United States. In most of these, indigo-dyed paper was used not only on the cover, but throughout the volume (in Korean, kamchi kumni'^^^W.)}^ The contrast between the brilliant shining gold or silver pigment and the deep blue-black indigo of the paper produced a particularly opulent effect, well suited to the tastes of the sophisticated royal and aristocratic patrons who had the texts copied.^^ In 1396, General Yi Song-gye, after overthrowing Koryo and establishing himself as the first Choson king, Taejo, set up his capital in the vicinity of Seoul, far to the south of the Koryo capital. King Taejo continued to extend royal protection to the Buddhist community as well as sponsoring sutra copying, and so until the mid-fifteenth century, scribes continued to copy Buddhist sutras in gold at royal behest for special occasions. It was in the last years of Koryo and early decades of Choson that a number of sutras was copied using gold pigment on plain paper, perhaps reflecting a preference for more austere colours in the manufacture of decorative and devotional artefacts. In some cases, only the frontispiece was painted in gold, to be followed by text written in black ink. Of the gold- and silver-copied Koryo sutras that survive in public and private collections throughout the world, the British Library's copy of the Tenth Dedication is one of a mere handful written entirely in gold on fine quality stiff white paper. With the Amitdbha Sutra of 1341, formerly in the Victoria and Albert Museum and now in the British Museum,^"^ it is one of only two Koryo sutras in United Kingdom public collections. This article is written in the hope that a wider audience than hitherto will recognize Korean Buddhist illuminated manuscripts and their place in the corpus of East Asian Buddhist literature.

1 M. Courant, Bibliographie Coreenne (Paris, 1895- 8 Qjanziwen (The Thousand Character Classic). 1901). I have provided translations of Courant's Many editions of this widely used work survive. text. British Library, 15229.0.13 is an example of a 2 T. Clear), The Flower Ornament Sutra (Boulder composite volume containting six editions of the and London, 1984), Chapter 25, Ten Dedi- work, each in a distinctive caUigraphic style. cations, pp. 530-693: quotation from p. 681. 9 Youngsook Pak, 'Illuminated Buddhist Manu- 3 F. H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net scripts in Korea', Oriental Art, iii/4 (1987-8), of Indra (University Park and London, 1977), PP- 357-73- pp. 22-3. 10 Sang-guk Pak, Sagj'ong (Seoul, 1990), pp. 72fF.; 4 J. Fontein, The of Stidhana (The Yi Tong-)u, Koryo Purhma (Seoul, 1981), pi. Hague and Paris, 1967). 57-68; Art from Late Koryo to Early Choson 5 M. de iMallman, Introduction a Piconographie du Dynasty (Chonju, 1996), pi. 7-13. Tantrisme Bouddhique (Paris, 1975). 11 Sang-guk Pak, op. cit., pp. 76-89; Yi Tong-ju, 6 T. H. Tsien, Paper and Printing, Science and Koryo Purhwa, pp. 254-6; J. Meech-Pekarik and Civilisation tn China 5:3 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. P. Pal, Buddhist Book Illuminations (New York, 227-31. 1988), pp. 261-8. 7 'Hanjr by Venerable Young Dam, Koreana, 12 For examples offered for sale in the art market, vii/i (Seoul, 1993), pp. 8-13; this issue of see Christie's sale, Korean Works of Art, New Koreana is dedicated to Korean paper manu- York, 22 April 1992, lot 80, and 26 April 1995, facture and arts and crafts. lot 56. 166 13 Youngsook Pak, art. cit., p. 359, and Kim and Pak, 'Object of the Month: Illuminated Manu- Kim Lee, Arts of Korea (Tokyo, 1974), p. 262. script of the Amitabha Sutra', Orientations (Dec. 14 This manuscript was described by Youngsook 1982), pp. 44-8.

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