A BUDDHIST MANUSCRIPT WITH THE SEVENTH CHAPTER OF THE LOTUS SUTRA
Korea, Goryeo dynasty style

The folding manuscript consists of sixteen sheets (each 24,9 x 9,9 cm) with an indigo background. While the back shows no decoration - with the exception of the two sheets that act as frontispiece and final, both decorated with a floral arabesque, the first with a rectangular cartouche with the title of the text -, the recto is finely highlighted with gold. The two pages at the ends both present two standing bodhisattva. On the right, on five sheets - introduced again by the title - a scene set on a terrace with the Buddha surrounded by deities; in the adjacent space other divinities and figures in different attitudes, between architectures arranged near a stream of water. The text with the characters arranged in vertical rows.

24,9 x 158,4 cm

Provenance: private collection.

The Lotus Sutra (sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra; chinese: 妙法 蓮華 經, Miaofa Lianhua jing; korean: 묘법 연화경, Myobeop Yeonhwa gyeong) is the most popular sutra of the Mahayana Buddhism, widespread throughout Asia and recited by a multitude of faithful in order to achieve salvation.
The Lotus Sutra consists of twenty-eight paragraphs. The seventh, transcribed in the manuscript discussed here, reports the 'Parable of the Ghost Town', in which it tells of a group of people in search of a great treasure, a story to which the illuminated image in this manuscript also refers. Tired of the journey through the desert, the pilgrims are about to give up when their wise guide creates a ghost town so that they can rest and thus resume their journey. The parable therefore urges to consider the city - the nirvana of the holy arhats - as an illusory and temporary well-being, as opposed to the treasure - the Enlightenment - which is lasting although more demanding to achieve.

The production of Buddhist manuscripts (sagyong) is one of the most admired forms of art in Korea, appreciated since ancient times also in China, Japan and Mongolia, countries in which numerous examples of these illustrated texts are still preserved.
During the Goryeo period (918-1392), this devotional practice reached its artistic peak, with the production of numerous examples made for many patrons. To meet the great demand, the Royal Office for Sutras (Sagyongwon) was therefore established in the twelfth century, in which monks and professional calligraphers dedicated themselves to the production of manuscripts similar to the one presented here.
Usually, the manuscripts were made using a very precious paper obtained from the inner bark of the mulberry tree, then dyed in indigo, a background against which the calligraphic text and images (pyonsang) in gold or silver stood out. The opening and closing of the manuscript are usually decorated with arabesques of the flowers called posang tangcho.

The Metropolitan Museum in New York owns a similar manuscript with the Lotus Sutra (volume II), dated around 1340 (inv. 1994.207).