Gaeunsa Mokjoamitayeoraejwasang Reliquary Documents, Seoul

Basic information

Designation

Treasure No.1650

Category

Books & Records

Era

9~13세기

Designated year

2010

Location

종로구, 서울특별시— 서울 종로구 우정국로 55, 불교중앙박물관 (견지동,광교빌딩)

Coordinates

37.573657, 126.983198

Two types of Buddhist scriptures were found inside the Wooden Seated Amitabha Buddha of Gaeunsa Temple in Seoul: hand-copied and woodblock printed ones. Both of them are in hand-copied sutra-style character forms and organized like a hand-copied sutra, and the printed sutras include a good number of sutras that are entirely distinct from others thus far discovered. The headings of documents in the style of a hand-copied sutra are identical in type to the headings in Sui and Tang-dynasty and Silla hand-copied sutras, and most of them contain twenty-six lines of seventeen characters on each sheet. The printed sutras are all one of a kind documents, unlike any others so far discovered, except the one with sheets containing twenty-four lines of seventeen characters. This set of Buddhist texts is, therefore, of inestimable value. Most of them are sections of Avatamsaka Sutra (The Flower Garland Sutra), hand-copied or printed between the 9th and 13th centuries, including all of the three major editions; namely, the Jin version (60 volumes), Zhou version (80 volumes) and Zhenyuan version (40 volumes). These early Buddhist texts, in a very rare style, are also high valuable for bibliographic and calligraphy research, the study of historical editions of the Avatamsaka Sutra and the understanding of the history of medieval Korean Buddhism.

Location