Buddhist Manuscript Cultures

Buddhist Manuscript Cultures explores how religious and cultural practices in premodern Asia were shaped by literary and artistic traditions as well as by Buddhist material culture. This study of Buddhist texts focuses on the significance of their material forms rather than their doctrinal contents, and examines how and why they were made. Collectively, the book offers cross-cultural and comparative insights into the transmission of Buddhist knowledge and the use of texts and images as ritual objects in the artistic and aesthetic traditions of Buddhist cultures. Drawing on case studies from India, Gandhara, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Mongolia, China and Nepal, the chapters included investigate the range of interests and values associated with producing and using written texts, and the roles manuscripts and images play in the transmission of Buddhist texts and in fostering devotion among Buddhist communities. Contributions are by reputed scholars in Buddhist Studies and represent diverse disciplinary approaches from religious studies, art history, anthropology, and history. This book will be of interest to scholars and students working in these fields.

Script and writing were among the most important inventions in human history, and until the invention of printing, the handwritten book was the primary medium of literary and cultural transmission. Although the study of manuscripts is already quite advanced for many regions of the world, no unified discipline of ‘manuscript studies’ has yet evolved which is capable of treating handwritten books from East Asia, India and the Islamic world equally alongside the European manuscript tradition. This book, which aims to begin the interdisciplinary dialogue needed to arrive at a truly systematic and comparative approach to manuscript cultures worldwide, brings together papers by leading researchers concerned with material, philological and cultural aspects of different manuscript traditions.

“Dunhuang Manuscript Culture” explores the world of Chinese manuscripts from ninth-tenth century Dunhuang, an oasis city along the network of pre-modern routes known today collectively as the Silk Roads. The manuscripts have been discovered in 1900 in a sealed-off side-chamber of a Buddhist cave temple, where they had lain undisturbed for for almost nine hundred years. The discovery comprised tens of thousands of texts, written in over twenty different languages and scripts, including Chinese, Tibetan, Old Uighur, Khotanese, Sogdian and Sanskrit. This study centres around four groups of manuscripts from the mid-ninth to the late tenth centuries, a period when the region was an independent kingdom ruled by local families. The central argument is that the manuscripts attest to the unique cultural diversity of the region during this period, exhibiting—alongside obvious Chinese elements—the heavy influence of Central Asian cultures. As a result, it was much less ‘Chinese’ than commonly portrayed in modern scholarship. The book makes a contribution to the study of cultural and linguistic interaction along the Silk Roads.

This collection of essays explores the history of the book in pre-modern South Asia looking at the production, circulation, fruition and preservation of manuscripts in different areas and across time. Edited by the team of the Cambridge-based Sanskrit Manuscripts Project and including contributions of the researchers who collaborated with it, it covers a wide range of topics related to South Asian manuscript culture: from the material dimension (palaeography, layout, decoration) and the complicated interactions of manuscripts with printing in late medieval Tibet and in modern Tamil Nadu, to reading, writing, editing and educational practices, from manuscripts as sources for the study of religious, literary and intellectual traditions, to the creation of collections in medieval India and Cambodia (one major centre of the so-called Sanskrit cosmopolis), and the formation of the Cambridge collections in the colonial period. The contributions reflect the variety of idioms, literary genres, religious movements, and social actors (intellectuals, scribes, patrons) of ancient South Asia, as well as the variety of approaches, interests and specialisms of the authors, and their impassionate engagement with manuscripts.

Buddhist Manuscript Cultures explores how religious and cultural practices in premodern Asia were shaped by literary and artistic traditions as well as by Buddhist material culture. This study of Buddhist texts focuses on the significance of their material forms rather than their doctrinal contents, and examines how and why they were made. Contributions are by reputed scholars in Buddhist Studies and represent diverse disciplinary approaches from religious studies, art history, anthropology, and history.

This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries of the Hexi corridor, as part of his pilgrimage from Wutaishan to India. The manuscript has been created as a composite object from three separate documents, with Chinese and Tibetan texts on them. Included is a series of Tibetan letters of introduction addressed to the heads of monasteries along the route, functioning as a passport when passing through the region. The manuscript dates to the late 960s, coinciding with the large pilgrimage movement during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song recorded in transmitted sources. Therefore, it is very likely that this is a unique contemporary testimony of the movement, of which our pilgrim was also part. Complementing extant historical sources, the manuscript provides evidence for the high degree of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in Western China during this period.

This book explores trans-cultural and cross-border transmission and transformation of Esoteric Buddhism in East Asia, focusing on its manuscript culture and the transborder transmission of Esoteric Buddhist texts. In East Asia, Esoteric Buddhism’s influences can be seen across all levels of society: not only in that it achieved a recognizable sectarian identity, but also because elements of esoteric teachings were absorbed by other religious schools, influencing their philosophical tenets and everyday practices. The influence was not confined to the religious sphere: scholars have been paying more and more attention to the significance of Tang Esoteric Buddhism in relation to material culture and the dissemination of Esoteric Buddhist technologies in South, Central, and East Asia. No matter how one looks at a maṇḍala—an integral feature of esoteric practice—or the uncannily expressive statues of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas or Yidam that come in all shapes and sizes, or the murals that depict the variegated, mysterious themes of the esoteric tradition, one can always recognise the profound connection between art and Esoteric Buddhism. Esoteric Iifluences also abound in East Asian literature across different genres, displaying its unique characters both in poetry and prose. Likewise, in architecture, one can readily make out the enigmatic, colorful and distinctive elements characteristic of the esoteric tradition. Monks initiated into the esoteric lineages not only brought Buddhist classics and practices to China but also advanced knowledge in astronomy, calendarial calculations and mathematical theories. The chapters in this volume focus on two major aspects of textual Esoteric Buddhism—its manuscript culture and transborder transmission. This book will be beneficial to advanced students and researchers interested in Religious Studies, History and Buddhist studies. It was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions.

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