A KOREAN BUDDHIST ILLUMINATED
MANUSCRIPT
BETH McKILLOP
the selection of manuscripts for loan to the 'Arts of Korea' Gallery which
opened in the British Museum in July 1997, a richly decorated Korean Buddhist sutra
copied in gold pigment around 1390 was identified, conserved and prepared for display.
The manuscript seems to have received little attention since it was acquired by the
Department of Printed Books of the British Museum in 1884, as part of a collection of
important Japanese, Chinese and Korean editions amassed in Japan by the bibliophile
Sir Ernest Satow (i 843-1929). It may be surmised that the volume moved to Japan from
Korea between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps like so many Korean
inventions, treasures and skills, leaving Korea in the course of the Hideyoshi invasions
of the 1590s. The pioneering French bibliographer Maurice Courant described it in the
introduction to Bibliographie Coreenne (1895-1901):
DURING
I must not omit to mention two ancient manuscripts which are not well-made copies but works
of art; one, dated 1446 is in the Varat Collection... the other is in the British Museum; these are
a volume of the Mahavaipulya purnabbuddha sutra prasannartha sutra (no 2634, II) and a volume
of the Buddhavatamsaka mahavailpulya sutra (no 2635, V); these two manuscripts are in the form
of a concertina, on a very thick paper, both with covers painted dark blue; the characters
beautifully written, and the paintings quite perfect, are executed in gold.
Of the second sutra, Courant wrote:
The British Museum, I5io3.e.t4. possesses a fragment of an edition of this work; it is a tall,
narrow volume of the height of a tall octavo, set out as a concertina, 58 leaves; it is hand-written
in golden letters; two leaves of illustration executed in the same fashion are at the head of the text;
blue cover with golden designs.'
This article attempts to place the volume in its historical context and to point out some
of the distinguishing features of Korean manuscript copies of Buddhist scriptures.
I. KORYO, A KINGDOM DEVOTED TO THE BUDDHIST FAITH
The kingdom of Koryo succeeded Silla in governing the Korean peninsula, when Wang
Kon £ ^ (d. A.D. 943) seized power in 918. Already during the United Silla period, from
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668 to 918, the Buddhist faith had taken firm hold over Korean society at all levels
Devout believers attended services and processions at the imposing temples and
monastic communities which flourished across the length and breadth of the country.
First in the eleventh century, and again between 1237 and 1251, the entire corpus of
Buddhist scriptures, the Trtpitaka, was carefully copied, carved on blocks and printed
as an act of devotion, and to beseech Buddha's protection against successive northern
attackers who threatened the survival of the state. Religious communities accumulated
great wealth, and commissioned ceremonial furniture such as bronze bells to be
positioned in temple courtyards and halls; fine green-glazed ceramics for use during
ceremonies, and wooden chests covered with lacquer and inlaid with burnished motherof-pearl to contain the holy scriptures. As well as large devotional paintings of Buddhist
deities such as Maitreya and Avalokites'vara, finely painted in glowing mineral colours on
silk to hang in temple halls, artists also produced small-scale images of the preaching
Buddha, surrounded by angels and disciples. These scenes, known in Korean -A.^ pyonsang
^1^@ or transformation images, preceded the text of copies of scriptures, such as the
Lotus, Diamond and Garland Sutras. In common with sculpture and ceramics, these
paintings are devotional in inspiration, and were produced by craftsmen at the behest of
royal and noble sponsors wishing to gather merit through the production of a portrait of
a deity or copy of a holy scripture. Because pyonsang paintings have normally been
conserved in temple libraries, guarded by monk librarians, a good number have survived
until the present day, providing one of the most valuable sources of information about
the painter's art in mediaeval Korea.
II. THE TEXT OF THE AVATAMSAKA
SUTRA
The British Library volume forms part of an important Buddhist scripture, the
Buddhdvatamsaka-mahdvaipidya Sutra., usually known as the Avatarnsaka (Garland., or
Flower Ornament) Sutra (T 279 in the Taisho numbering). The Avatanisaka Sutra is one
of the major texts of the Huayan (Korean Hwaom ^Wt) school, a syncretist branch of
Buddhism that flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-917). Huayan
Buddhism continues until the present day to attract millions of followers, particularly in
East Asia. The volume is a section from the translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra into
Chinese made by a Khotanese monk, Siksananda, between A.D. 695 and 699. This
translation is sometimes called the 'Tang' or 'new' translation, to distinguish it from the
earlier, shorter translation by Buddhabhadra made between A.D. 418 and 421.
Siksananda's translation is in eighty chapters, compared to Buddhabhadra's sixty,
principally because the longer version contains records of more Assemblies and Audience
Places - these are sermons delivered by the Buddha to gatherings of monks and
bodhisattvas, and are the narrative framework around which the philosophical and
devotional teaching of the text is structured. The British Library volume is number 32;
it forms part of chapter 25.
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Chapter 25 is devoted to the 'Ten Dedications' (in Korean sip hoehyang -VM'k ), and
describes the acts of bodhisattvas as they bestow merits on other beings in order to bring
about universal enlightenment. The Ten Dedications is one of the longest and most
important chapters of the Avatarnsaka Sutra. Its description of the merging of individual
bodhisattvas with the enlightenment of all beings refers to one of the central strands of
Huayan: the bodhisattva's quest for the enlightenment of all beings pursued through
fifty-three stages and countless kalpas.
Each of the Ten Dedications has a particular character: the tenth is the 'boundless
dedication equal to the cosmos'. The following extract from Cleary's translation^ gives
a flavour of the text with its lush imagery and repetitive similes:
Great etilightening beings also dedicate the roots of goodness cultivated by giving of teaching to
the aspirarion to purify all buddha-lands and adorn them with inexpressibly many
embellishments, each buddha-land as vast as the cosmos, purely good, without obstructions, with
pure light, the Buddhas manifesting the attainment of true awakening therein, the pure realms
in one buddha-land able to reveal all buddha-lands, and as of one buddha-land, so of all buddhalands, each of those lands adorned with arrays of pure exquisite treasures, as measureless as the
cosmos - countless thrones of pure jewels spread with precious robes, countless jewelled curtains
and jewelled nets draping, countless precious canopies with all kinds of jewels reflecting each
other, countless jewel clouds raining jewels, countless jewel flowers all around, completely pure,
countless pure arrays of balustrades made of jewels, countless jewel chimes always emitting the
subtle tones of the Buddhas circulating throughout the cosmos, countless jewel lotuses of various
jewel colours blooming with glorious radiance, countless jew^el trees arrayed in rows all around,
with flowers and fruits of innumerable jewels, countless jewel palaces with innumerable
enlightening beings living in them, countless jewel mansions, spacious, magnificent, long and
wide, far and near, countless jewel ramparts with exquisite jewel ornaments, countless jewel gates
hung all around with strings of beautiful jewels, countless jewel windows with pure arrays of
inconceivable numbers of jewels, and countless jewel palms, shaped like crescent moons, made of
clusters of jewels - all of these embellished with myriad jewels, spotlessly pure, inconceivable, all
produced by the roots of goodness of the enlightened, replete with adornments of countless
treasuries of jewels.
We shall note below that this passage is vividly conjured up in the landscape and
assembly scene which precedes the text of the British Library volume.
Francis Cook has written of the Avatarnsaka Sutra as follows:
Reading this mammoth work is, to put it mildly, an unforgettable experience[...]everything is
done on a gargantuan scale. If one simile is good, ten are always much better. The reader is
staggered by the loving description of scenery, down to the number of leaves on the trees with
their configuration and coloring; with the descriptions of perfumed trees and golden lotuses,
singing birds, clouds that emit wonderful odors and sounds, varieties of clothing and jewels, the
long lists of names of Bodhisattvas and Sravakas assembled to hear the teaching, more numerous
than all the sands in a million Ganges Rivers, and so on for page after page. Moreover, the sutra
is a vehicle for [...] the doctrine of the infinitely repeated intercausality and identity of all
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phenomena. There is a great amount of drama and color in the Avatatnsaka, but it is all there
to serve the overriding concern of Buddhism, to show man what he must do to become free, and
what freedom is.^
It is interesting to note as an aside that the final chapter of the Avatamsaka, the
Gandavyuha or 'Flower Collection' Stltra, existed as an independent text in Sanskrit
before its incorporation into the Chinese translation of the Avatamsaka. It concerns the
wanderings of a young hero, Sudhana, whose quest for all-pervading knowledge has been
compared to the Pilgrim's Progress in the Christian tradition. The protagonist travels
over India to visit fifty-three sages, before his final encounter with the bodhisattva
Samantabhadra. Sudhana's journeys form the subject matter for illustrated books and
scrolls in China and Japan and inspired the famous stone carvings at Borobudur,
Indonesia.* The Avatanjsaka Sutra was copied out and printed many times in Korea. Its
evocation of the blessings and joy awaiting those who recognize and embrace the
Buddha^s teachings exerted a strong influence on believers.
I I I . THE BRITISH LIBRARY VOLUME
The text is preceded by an exquisite, delicately painted frontispiece, depicting a
preaching scene (fig. i). The Buddha sits on a platform high above a pavement with
balustrades, facing out towards an audience of bodhisattvas and monks. Beside him is a
cintdmani or flaming jewel, representing the universal satisfaction of desires. Three
pieces of rock, each placed in a lotus bowl, are nearby, and emit rays of brilliant light.
The entire right section of the painting is dominated by areas of fine undulating lines,
giving the image a shimmering surface which enhances the brilliance of the golden
pigment. The gowns of all the figures, the flaming nimbus that surrounds the seated
Buddha and the light that emanates from the rocks and jewels are all composed of curved
lines. The Buddha's superior status is conveyed by his position and by the fiame-shaped
outline of the double aureole which is behind him. Lesser figures by contrast have
rounded-outline aureoles, of which only the lower part is decorated with repeated wavy
lines. Bodhisattvas, occupying a middle position, sit cross-legged upon lotus-flowershaped pedestals, framed by flaming aureoles composed of an upper plain oval set over
a lower section filled with curving thin lines.
In the upper section of the left of the composition, a bodhisattva raises his arm beside
a sphere divided into nine sections, which appears to flow into the aureole of the seated
bodhisattva, possibly representing the nine previous dedications recounted in earlier
chapters. The Buddha's hands form the gesture bodhyagrf, right hand clasping the
upraised index finger of the left.^ The hands of the listening disciples are raised in the
anjali position, with joined palms denoting respectful listening.
The listening assembly is shown as if floating on a cushion of stylized clouds. A
mountain landscape covered with trees stretches into the distance. The pavement and
platform on which the teaching Buddha and listening disciples are disposed has six jewel-
Fig. I. Frontispiece illustration to volume 32 of the Garland Sutra., gold pigment on white
mulberry paper. Painting dimensions 44x21.5 cm. BL, Or. 7377
adorned pillars at its lower level. The image is a single scene, covering four folds. It is
enclosed in a border of vajra thunderbolts and cakra spheres, representing the force of
truth which is like a thunderbolt, and the wheel of law whose spokes in multiples of eight
allude to the eight-fold path of self-conquest.
The full-length panel at the far right tells the reader that this is the pyonsang
(transformed image, a depiction of a preaching Buddha with assembly and selected
narrative themes, a type of religious painting found in hand-copied and printed sutras
from China, Korea and Japan) for the 32nd volume of the Avatartuaka Sutra, which
describes the Tenth of the Ten Dedications that constitute Chapter 25. The short
captions in the second and fourth sections of the painting name the 'Bodhisattvas and
Vajra-messengers of the Buddha-Lord' and the 'Boundless dedication equal to the
cosmos'.
The page is positioned to produce a seven-centimetre upper margin above, and
a margin of 4.5 cm. below the text block which measures 21 cm. This page layout is
unique to Korean books, and distinguishes them from Chinese and Japanese books.
162
Fig. 2. The Perfection of Wisdom {Astasahasrikd Prajndparamitd Sutra in Satiskrit). India (Bihar),
c. 1145. BL, Or. 6902, ff. i63v
Although Buddhist texts were copied in Chinese characters in all three countries,
Chinese and Japanese books usually have equal top and bottom margins. Another
distinguishing feature is the positioning of the illustrative matter. In Japanese Buddhist
sutras this usually follows the text, while in Korean and Chinese texts the illustration
precedes the text. The concertina-folded format of the volume refers to the Indian
origins of the text. Of the numerous materials used in the manufacture of books in south
and south-east Asia, palm leaves of narrow rectangular shape have long been closely
associated with Buddhist scriptures, and so the narrow rectangular shape of folded-page
scriptures in Korea and China recalled the subcontinental origin of the holy text copied
on their pages (fig. 2). The first paper manuscripts of Buddhist texts made in Central
Asia were also in this format. Buddhist scriptures had reached East Asia via the
communities of Central Asia, where they were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. It
should be noted however that manuscript Buddhist texts were also regularly copied on
sheets of paper that were joined to form a scroll (printed Korean Buddhist texts are
usually found as either folded or thread-bound volumes).**
Following the frontispiece is the text, beginning with title and translation information.
Each of the fifty-eight pages or folds of text consists of six columns of seventeen
characters. A border composed of a thin inner and broad outer gold band marks the
extent of the text block. Each column of characters is divided from its neighbours by
a thin gold line (Plate VIII). The copying has been done with meticulous care and
attention, in the formal style of calligraphy known as regular script (in Korean kaew f^# )
but the scribe was not faultless: corrections to individual characters are apparent on folios
r5r (sol U), 22r (p'a m), 24V (pop fe) and 25r {chol ^ ), following the foliation scheme
applied to the manuscript in 1909 when its pressmark was corrected to Or.7377,
163
presumably in recognition that it had earlier been miscatalogued as a printed book.
Handwritten Korean sutras of the Koryo period were sometimes pohshed or burnished
with buftalo horn or ivory to impart a sheen, but it is uncertain that the technique was
applied in this case, although the bright surface of the characters is unimpaired, even
after some 500 years. On the other hand, the volume has suffered some deterioration over
the years. Paste staining is visible at the join of sheets 25V and 26r and water stains
discolour the margins near the beginning and end of the fascicle. Worm damage can be
seen in various places including the back cover near the edges, and on the far right panel
of the frontispiece. Both covers have been damaged by friction during handling. The
paper on which the manuscript is written appears to have been well sized and dried using
a method still practised by skilled papermakers in South Korea today, which requires
laborious brushing of the nearly-dry paper followed by pounding to smooth the surface.^
Only the covers are made of a paper which has not been sized and burnished to the
same degree of stiff shininess as the text pages. Coloured using the vegetable dye indigo,
these are adorned in the conventional style for Korean Buddhist sutras in folding volume
format of the thirteenth to early fifteenth centuries. Four large floral medallions, of the
type known as precious visages (in Korean posang ^ t l ), often found on Chinese and
Korean Buddhist objects, have been overlaid with a rectangular panel bearing the title
of the sutra along with a reference (in the form of a character from the Thousand
Character Classic,^ the character chu il , number ioi in the series) to the box number
in which the volume should be stored.^ The corpus of Buddhist scriptures amounted to
thousands of volumes, and lacquered chests inlaid with mother-of-pearl were made to
store and protect them. The Thousand Character Classic was also used to number these
chests.
The title panel sits on a lotus pedestal and at its head is a cap in the shape of a
flowerhead (Plate VIII). From each bloom a short chain of golden spheres trails outwards
into the area of the cover which is painted with silver pigment to form a curving cloud or
plant motif composed of thick outlines filled with closely-spaced fine lines. At the edge
of the page, a frame of broad and thin gold lines encloses the four medallions, and in its
turn contains a repeating scroll device.
The Tenth Dedication volume was part of a set produced for a royal or noble patron.
Not only the covers and frontispiece, but also the entire text were executed in gold
pigment. It was a special, luxurious production, carefully checked by the scribe and an
overseer, as can be seen from the seals placed carefully over the joins to each sheet (on
the blank side of the paper) and from the proof-reader's notes lightly copied on the
reverse of the first sheet (fig. 3). The volume has been tentatively dated to the late
fourteenth century, by analogy with other surviving examples of golden sutras copied on
undyed paper (in Korean, paekchi kumni^U.^Jf^). It is uncertain if the volume was
produced just before or just after the fall of Koryo in 1392.^^ It is probable that the last
of the eighty chapters bore a dedicatory colophon recording the names of those who
sponsored the copying of the holy text and mentioning the circumstances or the names
of those for whose benefit it was done. Because the volume has been separated from its
164
-h
••
•
M.'%
^J>
. • ^ .
X
t
Fig. J. Checker's notes from the reverse of the overlap of sheets one and two of Or.7377, shown
in three sections. In the original these fortn a single column.
companions, we can only guess about the circumstances that led to the pious act of
copying out the holy words of the Garland Sutra.
V. HAND-COPIED BUDDHIST SUTRAS IN KOREA
The practice of copying out sutras in gold flourished in the Koryo period; most surviving
examples date from the fourteenth century. A government-sponsored Sutra Scriptorium
is mentioned in the official history, the Koryosa, for 1181, and later was divided into
separate Silver and Gold Letter Scriptoria. The production of de-luxe copies of the
entire Tripitaka and of particularly popular scriptures such as the Lotus and Avatanisaka
Sutras was achieved on the basis of widely available texts, since the woodblocks for the
printed Tripitaka had been carved between 1236 and 1251. During the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, when Korea was part of the Mongol empire, the royal family
became elosely linked by marriage to the Mongol rulers of China. Numerous sutra
copying projects were undertaken during this period, sponsored by royal and noble
patrons seeking redemption and salvation.^^
Some tens of Korean sutra manuscripts survive in collections in Korea, Japan,
Western Europe and the United States. In most of these, indigo-dyed paper was used not
only on the cover, but throughout the volume (in Korean, kamchi
kumni'^^^W.)}^
The contrast between the brilliant shining gold or silver pigment and the deep blue-black
indigo of the paper produced a particularly opulent effect, well suited to the tastes of the
sophisticated royal and aristocratic patrons who had the texts copied.^^
In 1396, General Yi Song-gye, after overthrowing Koryo and establishing himself as
the first Choson king, Taejo, set up his capital in the vicinity of Seoul, far to the south
of the Koryo capital. King Taejo continued to extend royal protection to the Buddhist
community as well as sponsoring sutra copying, and so until the mid-fifteenth century,
scribes continued to copy Buddhist sutras in gold at royal behest for special occasions.
It was in the last years of Koryo and early decades of Choson that a number of sutras
was copied using gold pigment on plain paper, perhaps reflecting a preference for more
austere colours in the manufacture of decorative and devotional artefacts. In some cases,
only the frontispiece was painted in gold, to be followed by text written in black ink.
Of the gold- and silver-copied Koryo sutras that survive in public and private
collections throughout the world, the British Library's copy of the Tenth Dedication is
one of a mere handful written entirely in gold on fine quality stiff white paper. With the
Amitdbha Sutra of 1341, formerly in the Victoria and Albert Museum and now in the
British Museum,^"^ it is one of only two Koryo sutras in United Kingdom public
collections. This article is written in the hope that a wider audience than hitherto will
recognize Korean Buddhist illuminated manuscripts and their place in the corpus of East
Asian Buddhist literature.
1 M. Courant, Bibliographie Coreenne (Paris, 18951901). I have provided translations of Courant's
text.
2 T. Clear), The Flower Ornament Sutra (Boulder
and London, 1984), Chapter 25, Ten Dedications, pp. 530-693: quotation from p. 681.
3 F. H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net
of Indra (University Park and London, 1977),
pp. 22-3.
4 J. Fontein, The Pilgrimage of Stidhana (The
Hague and Paris, 1967).
5 M. de iMallman, Introduction a Piconographie du
Tantrisme Bouddhique (Paris, 1975).
6 T. H. Tsien, Paper and Printing, Science and
Civilisation tn China 5:3 (Cambridge, 1985), pp.
227-31.
7 'Hanjr by Venerable Young Dam, Koreana,
vii/i (Seoul, 1993), pp. 8-13; this issue of
Koreana is dedicated to Korean paper manufacture and arts and crafts.
8 Qjanziwen (The Thousand Character Classic).
Many editions of this widely used work survive.
British Library, 15229.0.13 is an example of a
composite volume containting six editions of the
work, each in a distinctive caUigraphic style.
9 Youngsook Pak, 'Illuminated Buddhist Manuscripts in Korea', Oriental Art, iii/4 (1987-8),
PP- 357-7310 Sang-guk Pak, Sagj'ong (Seoul, 1990), pp. 72fF.;
Yi Tong-)u, Koryo Purhma (Seoul, 1981), pi.
57-68; Art from Late Koryo to Early Choson
Dynasty (Chonju, 1996), pi. 7-13.
11 Sang-guk Pak, op. cit., pp. 76-89; Yi Tong-ju,
Koryo Purhwa, pp. 254-6; J. Meech-Pekarik and
P. Pal, Buddhist Book Illuminations (New York,
1988), pp. 261-8.
12 For examples offered for sale in the art market,
see Christie's sale, Korean Works of Art, New
York, 22 April 1992, lot 80, and 26 April 1995,
lot 56.
166
13 Youngsook Pak, art. cit., p. 359, and Kim and
Kim Lee, Arts of Korea (Tokyo, 1974), p. 262.
14 This manuscript was described by Youngsook
167
Pak, 'Object of the Month: Illuminated Manuscript of the Amitabha Sutra', Orientations (Dec.
1982), pp. 44-8.