Avatamsaka Sutra (The Flower Garland Sutra), Zhou Version, the First Tripitaka Koreana Edition, Volumes 2 and 75

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. These are volumes 2 and 75 of the eighty-volume Zhou version translated by Shikshananda of Tang. They are woodblock prints on mulberry paper, the sheets joined as scrolls; volume 2 is 28.7 cm high and 46.5 cm wide, volume 75 29.8 cm high and 46.1 cm wide. No characters are missing from the text and none differ in content, but many abbreviated forms are used compared with the books printed by the Tripitaka Directorate, the office set up in 1236, the twenty-third year of King Gojong, to make the Tripitaka. The characters 敬 and 竟 each lack a stroke, which suggests they were cut from a Song Chinese edition: these characters are the name of the grandfather of the Song founder, shortened by a stroke to avoid the name. With no printing record their exact date is unknown, but they belong to the early Goryeo Tripitaka and seem to have been printed around the twelfth century.

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Where it is

Region

Gwanak-gu, Seoul

Designation

National Treasure · 국보