The Sacred Buddhist Book Culture in the Han-jin Period

Abstract

The development of Chinese Buddhism in the initial stage of the Han dynasty was mainly established by the translation and composition of scriptures. This was also the period in which the art of Chinese calligraphy had reached its apogee, and there were a great many calligraphers working in a wide variety of styles. But with so many styles of scripts to choose from, how did Buddhist monk translators decide which was most appropriate for sacred Buddhist writing? In the early twentieth century, many religious and secular manuscripts were discovered in Dunhuang and Turfan which constituted a significant boon to the study of the development of Buddhism and Chinese calligraphy. Yet, to date the Buddhist manuscripts have only been studied by a small number of scholars, and a systematic analysis of their calligraphy has yet to be carried out. In this paper, I will focus on the study of these manuscripts from three perspectives: (1) Examine the calligraphic styles of dated Buddhist manuscripts with inscribed stone inscriptions from the 3rd to 6th century. It can be seen clearly the three main phases evolution of Buddhist sacred writing from the clerical script to standard script. (2) Of particular note is that some manuscripts of the Sixteen Kingdoms period written by foreign monks or professional scribes who specialized in writing bilingual or multi-language scripts. Furthermore, under the influence of state sponsorship, a solid foundation was laid by the establishment of an organized Buddhist texts translation bureau. (3) Before the invention of printing technology, the ancient books, or Buddhist texts, were all dependent on scribes for copying. This practice was eventually superseded by the introduction of woodblock printing, and today the entire Chinese Buddhist canon is available in a digital form readable on any computer. Thus, many may wonder whether the manual copying of scriptures still has any role to play in the contemporary Buddhist practices. After presenting some of Master Shengyen’s thoughts on the subject, I also explore how the simple practice of copying Buddhist sutras can be applied as meditation discipline.