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Amitabha Dharani Sutra - frontispiece with illustration

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Amitabha Dharani Sutra - frontispiece with illustration

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Title	Amitabha Dharani Sutra - frontispiece with illustration
Description	On the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation, Charles R. Bennett ('07) gifted this woodblock-printed, illustrated Buddhist text to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Dating to the year 975, the Amitabha Sutra is probably the earliest printed object in the college's collection. Consider that the world's earliest dated printed book is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra of 868 (now in the British Library) and that the Gutenberg Bible hails from the mid-1400s. Mr. Bennett, who lived and worked in China for two decades after graduating, remarked that the sutra was recovered from a brick of a pagoda in the city of Hangzhou. Indeed , on September 25, 1924, the famous Leifeng ("Thunder Peak") Pagoda collapsed. Erected by a regional king, the Leifeng Pagoda stood on the southern bank of the scenic West Lake for nearly a millenium. In 2000-01, a team of excavators revealed an underground chamber filled with gilt silver and bronze sculptures along with artifacts of stone and jade. In addition, the excavation confirmed the presence of bricks with cylindrical cavities that once held printed sutras. Bowdoin's sutra, not quite 3 inches high but almost seven feet long, is currently mounted as a handscroll. Its condition attests to its age, but as we may still distinguish from right to left a dedication, an illustration, and a sutra text. The dedication tells us that the king, Wang Qianchu, commissioned 84,000 copies of this sutra to be placed in the pagoda in the 8th month of the year 975. The illustration shows two distinct moments. At right a worshipper kneels at an altar table placed before a holy triad comprised of a seated Buddhist deity and a pair of monks. At left, the deity appears to a beseeching worshipper. Radiant jewels hang from above, fragrant flowers rain down, and a splendid stupa is placed at the center, giving the scene a sacred air. Following the illustration, the text records a story of how Buddha once restored a crumbling pagoda. It seems likely that by placing many copies of this sutra in Leifeng Pagoda, the king could ensure the building's continued existence. From text drafted for a Bowdoin College Museum of Art newsletter by De-nin D. Lee. The entire scroll measures approximately 3" x 7'. Woodblock-printed, illustrated Buddhist text. To view the text that accompanies this illustration, click on related records below.
Country	China
Historical Period	China - Song Dynasty 960 - 1279
Date of Content	975 CE
IDEAS Topic	Arts Arts-Calligraphy Arts-Prints Religions-Buddhism
Related Record	soclaa000487, soclaa000488
Language	Chinese
Work of Art, Original Location	Recovered from a brick of a pagoda in the city of Hangzhou.
Work of Art, Present Location	Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Type	still image
Format	image/jpeg
Extent	3753 w x 376 h, 72 ppi
Date Photographed/Recorded	7/23/2007
Permissions	Materials may be used for educational, non-commercial purposes only. Acknowledgement to be given to the ASIANetwork-Luce Asian Art in the Undergraduate Curriculum Project and to the college from whose collection the work comes. The individual college retains copyright to the work.
IDEAS Collection	ASIANetwork-Luce Asian Art in the Undergraduate Curriculum Project
Institution Name	Bowdoin College
IDEAS Identifier	soclaa000489
Collection Editor	Kucera, Karil
Image preparator	Sonnichsen, Amy

Amitabha Dharani Sutra - frontispiece with illustration

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