Canonical sutra scroll printed in the early 13th century

Xuan Zhuang (transl.). Daihannya-kyo [Mahaprajnaparamita sutra]. Vol. 19.

€ 35.000,00

A complete volume of the Karoku edition: a beautiful survival of early thirteenth-century monastic block-printing from Nara, with Choben's colophon at the end of the volume.

Published in no fewer than 600 volumes in total, Xuanzang’s Chinese translation from Sanskrit of the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra is among the foundational scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism. The present scroll is distinguished by an inscription dated Koan 8 (1285), naming its owner as Tachibana Otome.

The Daihannya stood at the centre of medieval Japanese ritual culture: copied, printed, and recited for merit, protection, and institutional prestige, it was among the principal vehicles through which Buddhist textual authority circulated within temple society. The present fascicle belongs to the Karoku edition, the great Nara monastic printing enterprise of the early Kamakura period, whose bold impressions became defining witnesses to the transmission of the canon in medieval Japan.

The inscription anchors the scroll in a lived history of ownership and devotional use, while the engraving note at the end preserves direct evidence for its production. Survivals of early Kamakura printed sutras remain scarce on the market, especially when retaining such explicit traces of medieval reception and later collection history.