Pre-Gutenberg Chinese printing and silk weaving: two sets of consecutive volumes of the Garland Sutra in original brocade bindings

[Garland Sutra]. Tripitaka - Dafangguang Fo Huayan Jing.

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Two extremely early Chinese block-printed suites of the Garland Sutra, beautifully preserved in their original, museum-quality medieval brocade bindings: an outstanding and near-unique example of Buddhist culture and the Chinese art of silk weaving as well as printing in the earliest decades of the 15th century.

A major Buddhist scripture, the Garland Sutra represents an enormous mid-Mahayana religious text first translated into Chinese in its entirety in the early fifth century CE. This specimen is probably one of the oldest published sutras from the Beizang, or Northern Tripitaka scripture canon, a palace publication initiated by the Yongle Emperor, Chengzu of Ming, as early as 1407, five years after the removal of the Ming capital from Nanjing in the south to Beijing in the north. While the so-called Beizang, comprising altogether 6361 juan (books) stored in 636 cases, was not completed until 1440, during the Zhengtong period (1436-49), the present sets still date entirely from the Yongle period.

This sutra displays the typical features of the Beizang, including large, well-formed characters in the Zhao Mengfu style, a fine frontispiece illustration of Buddha "preaching the law", white cotton paper of the finest quality, and linguistic explanations at the end. Each set of five volumes constitutes a complete section, with a frontispiece and an illustration of Weituotian (the guardian deity) placed at the beginning and the end. As common, the frontispiece is followed by the grand representation of a stone stele containing an auspicious inscription. Volume 1 of this sutra contains a preface written by Emperor Yongle in 1412, which marks the initial date of this production. These volumes were all written and commissioned in 1419 by Fuxian, who was probably a religious figure of high status.

In an attempt to surpass the compilation of the Nanzang, or Southern Tripitaka, published in Nanjing in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the best artisans and materials were employed in the production of the Beizang. The present sets retain the glorious original covers and chitsu cases covered in multi-coloured brocade in various designs. This type of brocade displays colourful woofs on plain background, and thus is called "weijin" (woof brocade). Such fine examples of weijin are extremely rare today: this set, with impeccable provenance, constitutes the only pre-Gutenberg printed Sutra in the original silk bindings seen on a western market for many decades.