Transcription of Avatamsaka Sutra (The Flower Garland Sutra), Jin Version, in Silver on Indigo Paper, Volume 13

The Daebanggwangbul hwaeomgyeong, often shortened to the Hwaeomgyeong (Avatamsaka Sutra, or Flower Garland Sutra), takes as its basic teaching the idea that the Buddha and sentient beings are not two but one. As the root scripture of the Hwaeom school, it is, together with the Lotus Sutra, one of the scriptures that most profoundly shaped the establishment of Buddhist thought in Korea. This volume is the thirteenth of the sixty-volume Jin version of the Hwaeomgyeong translated by Buddhabhadra of the Eastern Jin dynasty. The text is written in gold and silver powder on dark bluish-black paper, in a form that can be rolled up and stored like a scroll. On the cover, which is decorated with an elaborate floral pattern, the title of the sutra is written in gold, and beneath it, within a circular medallion, is written the character 'jin' (晋), also in gold, indicating that it is the Jin version. A note at the end of the volume records that the abbot Hyangyeo supplemented and completed the writing, from which it is thought to be the work of Master Che-won, who served as abbot of Haeinsa Temple. Woodblocks bearing Che-won's writing preserved at Haeinsa Temple confirm that Hyangyeo was his sobriquet and that he was a monk active during the reign of King Chungsuk of Goryeo. Taking together the publication date of the Haeinsa woodblocks and the format of the scripture, this text is presumed to have been written around 1330.

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