A KOREAN BUDDHIST ILLUMINATED

MANUSCRIPT

BETH McKILLOP

D U R I N G the selection of manuscripts for loan to the 'Arts of Korea' Gallery whichopened in the British Museum in July 1997, a richly decorated Korean Buddhist sutracopied 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 theDepartment of Printed Books of the British Museum in 1884, as part of a collection ofimportant Japanese, Chinese and Korean editions amassed in Japan by the bibliophileSir Ernest Satow (i 843-1929). It may be surmised that the volume moved to Japan fromKorea between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps like so many Koreaninventions, treasures and skills, leaving Korea in the course of the Hideyoshi invasionsof the 1590s. The pioneering French bibliographer Maurice Courant described it in theintroduction to Bibliographie Coreenne (1895-1901):

I must not omit to mention two ancient manuscripts which are not well-made copies but worksof art; one, dated 1446 is in the Varat Collection... the other is in the British Museum; these area volume of the Mahavaipulya purnabbuddha sutra prasannartha sutra (no 2634, II) and a volumeof the Buddhavatamsaka mahavailpulya sutra (no 2635, V); these two manuscripts are in the formof a concertina, on a very thick paper, both with covers painted dark blue; the charactersbeautifully 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-writtenin 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 someof 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 WangKon £ ^ (d. A.D. 943) seized power in 918. Already during the United Silla period, from

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668 to 918, the Buddhist faith had taken firm hold over Korean society at all levelsDevout believers attended services and processions at the imposing temples andmonastic 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 ofBuddhist scriptures, the Trtpitaka, was carefully copied, carved on blocks and printedas an act of devotion, and to beseech Buddha's protection against successive northernattackers who threatened the survival of the state. Religious communities accumulatedgreat wealth, and commissioned ceremonial furniture such as bronze bells to bepositioned in temple courtyards and halls; fine green-glazed ceramics for use duringceremonies, 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 Buddhistdeities such as Maitreya and Avalokites'vara, finely painted in glowing mineral colours onsilk to hang in temple halls, artists also produced small-scale images of the preachingBuddha, surrounded by angels and disciples. These scenes, known in Korean -A.^ pyonsang1@ or transformation images, preceded the text of copies of scriptures, such as theLotus, Diamond and Garland Sutras. In common with sculpture and ceramics, thesepaintings are devotional in inspiration, and were produced by craftsmen at the behest ofroyal and noble sponsors wishing to gather merit through the production of a portrait ofa deity or copy of a holy scripture. Because pyonsang paintings have normally beenconserved in temple libraries, guarded by monk librarians, a good number have surviveduntil the present day, providing one of the most valuable sources of information aboutthe painter's art in mediaeval Korea.

II. THE TEXT OF THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA

The British Library volume forms part of an important Buddhist scripture, theBuddhdvatamsaka-mahdvaipidya Sutra., usually known as the Avatarnsaka (Garland., orFlower Ornament) Sutra (T 279 in the Taisho numbering). The Avatanisaka Sutra is oneof the major texts of the Huayan (Korean Hwaom ^Wt) school, a syncretist branch ofBuddhism that flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-917). HuayanBuddhism continues until the present day to attract millions of followers, particularly inEast Asia. The volume is a section from the translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra intoChinese made by a Khotanese monk, Siksananda, between A.D. 695 and 699. Thistranslation is sometimes called the 'Tang' or 'new' translation, to distinguish it from theearlier, 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 AudiencePlaces - these are sermons delivered by the Buddha to gatherings of monks andbodhisattvas, and are the narrative framework around which the philosophical anddevotional teaching of the text is structured. The British Library volume is number 32;it forms part of chapter 25.

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Chapter 25 is devoted to the 'Ten Dedications' (in Korean sip hoehyang -VM'k ), anddescribes the acts of bodhisattvas as they bestow merits on other beings in order to bringabout universal enlightenment. The Ten Dedications is one of the longest and mostimportant chapters of the Avatarnsaka Sutra. Its description of the merging of individualbodhisattvas with the enlightenment of all beings refers to one of the central strands ofHuayan: the bodhisattva's quest for the enlightenment of all beings pursued throughfifty-three stages and countless kalpas.

Each of the Ten Dedications has a particular character: the tenth is the 'boundlessdedication equal to the cosmos'. The following extract from Cleary's translation^ givesa 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 tothe aspirarion to purify all buddha-lands and adorn them with inexpressibly manyembellishments, each buddha-land as vast as the cosmos, purely good, without obstructions, withpure light, the Buddhas manifesting the attainment of true awakening therein, the pure realmsin 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 thecosmos - countless thrones of pure jewels spread with precious robes, countless jewelled curtainsand jewelled nets draping, countless precious canopies with all kinds of jewels reflecting eachother, 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 thesubtle tones of the Buddhas circulating throughout the cosmos, countless jewel lotuses of variousjewel 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 innumerableenlightening beings living in them, countless jewel mansions, spacious, magnificent, long andwide, far and near, countless jewel ramparts with exquisite jewel ornaments, countless jewel gateshung all around with strings of beautiful jewels, countless jewel windows with pure arrays ofinconceivable numbers of jewels, and countless jewel palms, shaped like crescent moons, made ofclusters of jewels - all of these embellished with myriad jewels, spotlessly pure, inconceivable, allproduced by the roots of goodness of the enlightened, replete with adornments of countlesstreasuries of jewels.

We shall note below that this passage is vividly conjured up in the landscape andassembly 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 isdone on a gargantuan scale. If one simile is good, ten are always much better. The reader isstaggered by the loving description of scenery, down to the number of leaves on the trees withtheir 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, thelong lists of names of Bodhisattvas and Sravakas assembled to hear the teaching, more numerousthan all the sands in a million Ganges Rivers, and so on for page after page. Moreover, the sutrais a vehicle for [...] the doctrine of the infinitely repeated intercausality and identity of all

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phenomena. There is a great amount of drama and color in the Avatatnsaka, but it is all thereto serve the overriding concern of Buddhism, to show man what he must do to become free, andwhat freedom is.

It is interesting to note as an aside that the final chapter of the Avatamsaka, theGandavyuha or 'Flower Collection' Stltra, existed as an independent text in Sanskritbefore its incorporation into the Chinese translation of the Avatamsaka. It concerns thewanderings of a young hero, Sudhana, whose quest for all-pervading knowledge has beencompared to the Pilgrim's Progress in the Christian tradition. The protagonist travelsover India to visit fifty-three sages, before his final encounter with the bodhisattvaSamantabhadra. Sudhana's journeys form the subject matter for illustrated books andscrolls in China and Japan and inspired the famous stone carvings at Borobudur,Indonesia.* The Avatanjsaka Sutra was copied out and printed many times in Korea. Itsevocation of the blessings and joy awaiting those who recognize and embrace theBuddha^s teachings exerted a strong influence on believers.

I I I . THE BRITISH LIBRARY VOLUME

The text is preceded by an exquisite, delicately painted frontispiece, depicting apreaching scene (fig. i). The Buddha sits on a platform high above a pavement withbalustrades, facing out towards an audience of bodhisattvas and monks. Beside him is acintdmani or flaming jewel, representing the universal satisfaction of desires. Threepieces 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 goldenpigment. The gowns of all the figures, the flaming nimbus that surrounds the seatedBuddha and the light that emanates from the rocks and jewels are all composed of curvedlines. The Buddha's superior status is conveyed by his position and by the fiame-shapedoutline of the double aureole which is behind him. Lesser figures by contrast haverounded-outline aureoles, of which only the lower part is decorated with repeated wavylines. Bodhisattvas, occupying a middle position, sit cross-legged upon lotus-flower-shaped pedestals, framed by flaming aureoles composed of an upper plain oval set overa lower section filled with curving thin lines.

In the upper section of the left of the composition, a bodhisattva raises his arm besidea sphere divided into nine sections, which appears to flow into the aureole of the seatedbodhisattva, possibly representing the nine previous dedications recounted in earlierchapters. The Buddha's hands form the gesture bodhyagrf, right hand clasping theupraised index finger of the left.^ The hands of the listening disciples are raised in theanjali position, with joined palms denoting respectful listening.

The listening assembly is shown as if floating on a cushion of stylized clouds. Amountain landscape covered with trees stretches into the distance. The pavement andplatform 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 whitemulberry 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 isenclosed in a border of vajra thunderbolts and cakra spheres, representing the force oftruth which is like a thunderbolt, and the wheel of law whose spokes in multiples of eightallude 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 selectednarrative themes, a type of religious painting found in hand-copied and printed sutrasfrom China, Korea and Japan) for the 32nd volume of the Avatartuaka Sutra, whichdescribes the Tenth of the Ten Dedications that constitute Chapter 25. The shortcaptions in the second and fourth sections of the painting name the 'Bodhisattvas andVajra-messengers of the Buddha-Lord' and the 'Boundless dedication equal to thecosmos'.

The page is positioned to produce a seven-centimetre upper margin above, anda margin of 4.5 cm. below the text block which measures 21 cm. This page layout isunique to Korean books, and distinguishes them from Chinese and Japanese books.

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Fig. 2. The Perfection of Wisdom {Astasahasrikd Prajndparamitd Sutra in Satiskrit). India (Bihar),c. 1145. BL, Or. 6902, ff. i63v

Although Buddhist texts were copied in Chinese characters in all three countries,Chinese and Japanese books usually have equal top and bottom margins. Anotherdistinguishing feature is the positioning of the illustrative matter. In Japanese Buddhistsutras this usually follows the text, while in Korean and Chinese texts the illustrationprecedes the text. The concertina-folded format of the volume refers to the Indianorigins of the text. Of the numerous materials used in the manufacture of books in southand south-east Asia, palm leaves of narrow rectangular shape have long been closelyassociated with Buddhist scriptures, and so the narrow rectangular shape of folded-pagescriptures in Korea and China recalled the subcontinental origin of the holy text copiedon their pages (fig. 2). The first paper manuscripts of Buddhist texts made in CentralAsia were also in this format. Buddhist scriptures had reached East Asia via thecommunities of Central Asia, where they were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. Itshould be noted however that manuscript Buddhist texts were also regularly copied onsheets of paper that were joined to form a scroll (printed Korean Buddhist texts areusually 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 seventeencharacters. A border composed of a thin inner and broad outer gold band marks theextent of the text block. Each column of characters is divided from its neighbours bya thin gold line (Plate VIII). The copying has been done with meticulous care andattention, 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 foliosr5r (sol U), 22r (p'a m), 24V (pop fe) and 25r {chol ), following the foliation schemeapplied to the manuscript in 1909 when its pressmark was corrected to Or.7377,

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presumably in recognition that it had earlier been miscatalogued as a printed book.Handwritten Korean sutras of the Koryo period were sometimes pohshed or burnishedwith buftalo horn or ivory to impart a sheen, but it is uncertain that the technique wasapplied in this case, although the bright surface of the characters is unimpaired, evenafter some 500 years. On the other hand, the volume has suffered some deterioration overthe years. Paste staining is visible at the join of sheets 25V and 26r and water stainsdiscolour the margins near the beginning and end of the fascicle. Worm damage can beseen in various places including the back cover near the edges, and on the far right panelof the frontispiece. Both covers have been damaged by friction during handling. Thepaper on which the manuscript is written appears to have been well sized and dried usinga method still practised by skilled papermakers in South Korea today, which requireslaborious 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 thesame 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 volumeformat of the thirteenth to early fifteenth centuries. Four large floral medallions, of thetype known as precious visages (in Korean posang ^ t l ), often found on Chinese andKorean Buddhist objects, have been overlaid with a rectangular panel bearing the titleof the sutra along with a reference (in the form of a character from the ThousandCharacter Classic,^ the character chu i l , number ioi in the series) to the box numberin which the volume should be stored.^ The corpus of Buddhist scriptures amounted tothousands of volumes, and lacquered chests inlaid with mother-of-pearl were made tostore and protect them. The Thousand Character Classic was also used to number thesechests.

The title panel sits on a lotus pedestal and at its head is a cap in the shape of aflowerhead (Plate VIII). From each bloom a short chain of golden spheres trails outwardsinto the area of the cover which is painted with silver pigment to form a curving cloud orplant motif composed of thick outlines filled with closely-spaced fine lines. At the edgeof the page, a frame of broad and thin gold lines encloses the four medallions, and in itsturn 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 goldpigment. It was a special, luxurious production, carefully checked by the scribe and anoverseer, as can be seen from the seals placed carefully over the joins to each sheet (onthe blank side of the paper) and from the proof-reader's notes lightly copied on thereverse of the first sheet (fig. 3). The volume has been tentatively dated to the latefourteenth century, by analogy with other surviving examples of golden sutras copied onundyed paper (in Korean, paekchi kumni^U.^Jf^). It is uncertain if the volume wasproduced just before or just after the fall of Koryo in 1392. ^ It is probable that the lastof the eighty chapters bore a dedicatory colophon recording the names of those whosponsored the copying of the holy text and mentioning the circumstances or the namesof those for whose benefit it was done. Because the volume has been separated from its

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-h• • •

M.'%J>

. • ^ .

X

t

Fig. J. Checker's notes from the reverse of the overlap of sheets one and two of Or.7377, shownin three sections. In the original these fortn a single column.

companions, we can only guess about the circumstances that led to the pious act ofcopying 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 survivingexamples date from the fourteenth century. A government-sponsored Sutra Scriptoriumis mentioned in the official history, the Koryosa, for 1181, and later was divided intoseparate Silver and Gold Letter Scriptoria. The production of de-luxe copies of theentire Tripitaka and of particularly popular scriptures such as the Lotus and AvatanisakaSutras was achieved on the basis of widely available texts, since the woodblocks for theprinted Tripitaka had been carved between 1236 and 1251. During the thirteenth andfourteenth centuries, when Korea was part of the Mongol empire, the royal familybecame elosely linked by marriage to the Mongol rulers of China. Numerous sutracopying projects were undertaken during this period, sponsored by royal and noblepatrons 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 notonly 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-blackindigo of the paper produced a particularly opulent effect, well suited to the tastes of thesophisticated royal and aristocratic patrons who had the texts copied.^^

In 1396, General Yi Song-gye, after overthrowing Koryo and establishing himself asthe first Choson king, Taejo, set up his capital in the vicinity of Seoul, far to the southof the Koryo capital. King Taejo continued to extend royal protection to the Buddhistcommunity 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 sutraswas copied using gold pigment on plain paper, perhaps reflecting a preference for moreaustere 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 privatecollections throughout the world, the British Library's copy of the Tenth Dedication isone of a mere handful written entirely in gold on fine quality stiff white paper. With theAmitdbha Sutra of 1341, formerly in the Victoria and Albert Museum and now in theBritish Museum, "^ it is one of only two Koryo sutras in United Kingdom publiccollections. This article is written in the hope that a wider audience than hitherto willrecognize Korean Buddhist illuminated manuscripts and their place in the corpus of EastAsian Buddhist literature.

1 M. Courant, Bibliographie Coreenne (Paris, 1895-1901). I have provided translations of Courant'stext.

2 T. Clear), The Flower Ornament Sutra (Boulderand London, 1984), Chapter 25, Ten Dedi-cations, pp. 530-693: quotation from p. 681.

3 F. H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Netof Indra (University Park and London, 1977),pp. 22-3.

4 J. Fontein, The Pilgrimage of Stidhana (TheHague and Paris, 1967).

5 M. de iMallman, Introduction a Piconographie duTantrisme Bouddhique (Paris, 1975).

6 T. H. Tsien, Paper and Printing, Science andCivilisation tn China 5:3 (Cambridge, 1985), pp.227-31.

7 'Hanjr by Venerable Young Dam, Koreana,vii/i (Seoul, 1993), pp. 8-13; this issue ofKoreana is dedicated to Korean paper manu-facture and arts and crafts.

8 Qjanziwen (The Thousand Character Classic).Many editions of this widely used work survive.British Library, 15229.0.13 is an example of acomposite volume containting six editions of thework, each in a distinctive caUigraphic style.

9 Youngsook Pak, 'Illuminated Buddhist Manu-scripts in Korea', Oriental Art, iii/4 (1987-8),

PP- 357-73-10 Sang-guk Pak, Sagj'ong (Seoul, 1990), pp. 72fF.;

Yi Tong-)u, Koryo Purhma (Seoul, 1981), pi.57-68; Art from Late Koryo to Early ChosonDynasty (Chonju, 1996), pi. 7-13.

11 Sang-guk Pak, op. cit., pp. 76-89; Yi Tong-ju,Koryo Purhwa, pp. 254-6; J. Meech-Pekarik andP. Pal, Buddhist Book Illuminations (New York,1988), pp. 261-8.

12 For examples offered for sale in the art market,see Christie's sale, Korean Works of Art, NewYork, 22 April 1992, lot 80, and 26 April 1995,lot 56.

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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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