Avatamsaka Sutra (The Flower Garland Sutra), Zhou Version, the First Tripitaka Koreana Edition, Volume 13

The Great Expansive Buddha Flower Garland Sutra, the Avatamsaka Sutra, is known for short as the Hwaeomgyeong. The fundamental scripture of the Hwaeom school, whose central teaching is that the Buddha and sentient beings are not two but one, it is one of the sutras that, with the Lotus Sutra, did most to shape Korean Buddhist thought. This is volume 13 of the eighty-volume Zhou version translated by Shikshananda of Tang, one volume of the first Tripitaka Koreana, carved under King Hyeonjong of Goryeo (r. 1011–1031) in the hope that the power of the Buddha would repel the Khitan invasions. It is a woodblock print on mulberry paper, kept rolled as a scroll: 24 sheets 28.5 cm high and 46.3 cm wide joined together. The first Tripitaka differs in several ways from the later Haeinsa Tripitaka (the second carving, or Tripitaka Koreana). Its cutting is precise, but its characters per line differ from Haeinsa's, it has no printing records, and taboo avoidances (omitting a stroke of, or replacing, characters in the names of past kings, out of reverence) and abbreviated characters appear here and there. It usually numbers its sheets with the character jang (丈) or pok (幅), where the Haeinsa edition uses jang (張) throughout. This volume too has 14 characters to the line, against Haeinsa's 17, and omits the last stroke of 竟. Its printing and paper suggest that, like volumes 1, 29, 74 and 75 of the first-edition Zhou version (national treasures), it was printed between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the first Tripitaka was made.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

National Treasure · 국보