.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
More than half of the frontispiece composition is given over to a raised platform where the Buddha preaches to monks, surrounded by a host of bodhisattvas, heavenly kings and disciples. To the left are scenes from the third of the eight volumes of the Lotus Sutra, containing chapters 5 through 7. Each chapter features a parable outlining expedients for attaining enlightenment. At the far left, for example, a rainstorm emanating from a flaming dragon pours down upon a large mansion enclosed by a fence. This illustrates Chapter 5, "The Simile of Herbs":
Suppose a large cloud rose in the sky
And covered everything on the earth.
The cloud was so merciful
That it was about to send a rain.
Lightning flashed,
And thunder crashed in the distance,
Causing people to rejoice.
(Translation by Senchu Murano, The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, Tokyo, 1974, p. 99.)
Illustrating Chapter 6, "Assurance of Future Buddhahood," are the disciples shown teaching at the center. At the upper left is the great magic city from Chapter 7, the "Parable of a Magic City," that devotees of the Lotus Sutra are urged to enter.
Buddhism in the Goryeo period (918-1392) was patronized by the royal family, who commissioned the transcription of ornamental luxury versions of sutra texts. The official bureau for sutra transcription, mentioned in the History of Korea (History of Goryeo), mentions a sutra transcribed in gold on indigo in 1006 for the dowager queen mother. In 1185, an entire Tripitaka (the compendium of Buddhist scriptures) in over 5000 scrolls was written in gold ink with prayers invoking the safety and prosperity of the kingdom. They were stored in sutra boxes ornamented with mother-of-pearl inlay, red lacquer and gold.
In the thirteenth century, a Mongol princess was married to the Korean king, initiating a long period of intermarriage and direct contact between the two nations. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Chinese dowager empress and the Goryeo queen were involved in numerous joint sutra projects with an emphasis on those aimed at personal salvation, redemption of deceased family members and long life.
The Royal Scriptorium, a new government-sponsored workshop for the transcription of gold- and silver-letter Tripitaka, was founded at the residence of a high-ranking official in Korea in the third month of 1281, the month the Yuan empress died. A gold-letter Tripitaka in 1289 may have been sponsored by her daughter, the Goryeo queen. At least four thirteenth-century Tripitaka in silver characters on indigo paper, commissioned by the Korean royal family, have survived. In addition, many private projects were sponsored by wealthy members of the aristocracy and clergy; the Lotus Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra in folding-book format were favored for these smaller dedications.
Goryeo painted sutra texts show the influence of both Song and Yuan printed models. The iconography of the frontispiece draws on Yuan printed sutra texts, while the antecedents for the general composition, border frame and rather insistent linear technique can be found in Song sutra texts. Goryeo sutra texts have several distinctive characteristics. The paper is heavier and more durable than that of China or Japan and feels stiff to the touch. The example here is in gold ink on white paper but there are versions in gold on deep blue, brown, purple or salmon-pink paper.
Frontispiece paintings are typically spread over the first four leaves of a folded book. The title is written prominently at the right edge of the frontispiece as well as at the center of the outer front cover, and a succession of three-pronged vajra forms the border encircling the illustration. Gold pigment gleams with a fine metallic sheen, evidence of laborious polishing with ivory or buffalo horn.
A uniquely Korean tendency is to fill virtually the entire surface with intricate small-scale patterns, leaving only faces, hands and halos untouched by the almost mannered exuberance of densely spaced dots, swirls and striations. Drapery seems to dematerialize into a maze of coiled springs.
Goryeo sutra copyists, patronized by the highest levels of society in their own country, were equally esteemed at the Chinese court. In the late thirteenth century, the Yuan emperor invited one hundred Korean monks to spend a year at a temple in the capital at Datong transcribing a Tripitaka in gold.
For what may be another volume from the same sutra, but in fragmentary condition, in gold on white paper, dated to the Goryeo period, 14th century, in the Moriya collection in the Kyoto National Museum, see Koshakyo The Sacred Letters of Early Sutra Copies: Special Exhibition Celebrating Fifty Years Since the Donation of the Moriya Collection, Kyoto, 2004, pl. 26. For other Korean sutras, see Pratapaditya Pal and Julia Meech-Pekarik, Buddhist Book Illuminations, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, New Delhi, 1988.
Suppose a large cloud rose in the sky
And covered everything on the earth.
The cloud was so merciful
That it was about to send a rain.
Lightning flashed,
And thunder crashed in the distance,
Causing people to rejoice.
(Translation by Senchu Murano, The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law, Tokyo, 1974, p. 99.)
Illustrating Chapter 6, "Assurance of Future Buddhahood," are the disciples shown teaching at the center. At the upper left is the great magic city from Chapter 7, the "Parable of a Magic City," that devotees of the Lotus Sutra are urged to enter.
Buddhism in the Goryeo period (918-1392) was patronized by the royal family, who commissioned the transcription of ornamental luxury versions of sutra texts. The official bureau for sutra transcription, mentioned in the History of Korea (History of Goryeo), mentions a sutra transcribed in gold on indigo in 1006 for the dowager queen mother. In 1185, an entire Tripitaka (the compendium of Buddhist scriptures) in over 5000 scrolls was written in gold ink with prayers invoking the safety and prosperity of the kingdom. They were stored in sutra boxes ornamented with mother-of-pearl inlay, red lacquer and gold.
In the thirteenth century, a Mongol princess was married to the Korean king, initiating a long period of intermarriage and direct contact between the two nations. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Chinese dowager empress and the Goryeo queen were involved in numerous joint sutra projects with an emphasis on those aimed at personal salvation, redemption of deceased family members and long life.
The Royal Scriptorium, a new government-sponsored workshop for the transcription of gold- and silver-letter Tripitaka, was founded at the residence of a high-ranking official in Korea in the third month of 1281, the month the Yuan empress died. A gold-letter Tripitaka in 1289 may have been sponsored by her daughter, the Goryeo queen. At least four thirteenth-century Tripitaka in silver characters on indigo paper, commissioned by the Korean royal family, have survived. In addition, many private projects were sponsored by wealthy members of the aristocracy and clergy; the Lotus Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra in folding-book format were favored for these smaller dedications.
Goryeo painted sutra texts show the influence of both Song and Yuan printed models. The iconography of the frontispiece draws on Yuan printed sutra texts, while the antecedents for the general composition, border frame and rather insistent linear technique can be found in Song sutra texts. Goryeo sutra texts have several distinctive characteristics. The paper is heavier and more durable than that of China or Japan and feels stiff to the touch. The example here is in gold ink on white paper but there are versions in gold on deep blue, brown, purple or salmon-pink paper.
Frontispiece paintings are typically spread over the first four leaves of a folded book. The title is written prominently at the right edge of the frontispiece as well as at the center of the outer front cover, and a succession of three-pronged vajra forms the border encircling the illustration. Gold pigment gleams with a fine metallic sheen, evidence of laborious polishing with ivory or buffalo horn.
A uniquely Korean tendency is to fill virtually the entire surface with intricate small-scale patterns, leaving only faces, hands and halos untouched by the almost mannered exuberance of densely spaced dots, swirls and striations. Drapery seems to dematerialize into a maze of coiled springs.
Goryeo sutra copyists, patronized by the highest levels of society in their own country, were equally esteemed at the Chinese court. In the late thirteenth century, the Yuan emperor invited one hundred Korean monks to spend a year at a temple in the capital at Datong transcribing a Tripitaka in gold.
For what may be another volume from the same sutra, but in fragmentary condition, in gold on white paper, dated to the Goryeo period, 14th century, in the Moriya collection in the Kyoto National Museum, see Koshakyo The Sacred Letters of Early Sutra Copies: Special Exhibition Celebrating Fifty Years Since the Donation of the Moriya Collection, Kyoto, 2004, pl. 26. For other Korean sutras, see Pratapaditya Pal and Julia Meech-Pekarik, Buddhist Book Illuminations, New York, Paris, Hong Kong, New Delhi, 1988.