Dated fascicle from the Goryeo Tripitaka

[Goryeo Tripitaka]. Juqu, Jingsheng. Zhi chan bing miyao fa - juan shang [Secret Essential Methods for Curing Meditation Sickness. First Fascicle].

€ 60,000.00

A complete dated fascicle from the Goryeo Tripitaka. The "Zhi chan bing miyao fa" is a Mahayana-inflected sutra that details the methods for meditators to cure physical and mental illnesses when practicing meditation in a secluded place. An apocryphal Chinese Buddhist sutra, it was written in the fifth century "in the form of Indian Buddhist sutras translated into Chinese but in actuality composed or substantially compiled in China" (Greene, xi) and attributed to the scholar Juqu Jingsheng.

The present fascicle retains its traditional accordion structure and persimmon-dyed paper covers with the title and case designation stamped in gold at the centre, preserving the austere elegance characteristic of Korean canonical printing in folded format. It belongs to the monumental second carving of the Goryeo Tripitaka, the Korean Buddhist canon, undertaken after the destruction of the earlier edition and executed under royal patronage during the reign of Goryeo King Gojong. The colophon places this impression in the thirty-first regnal year, corresponding to 1244.

More than a mere canonical witness, this piece documents the material discipline of one of East Asia's defining printing enterprises. The re-engraving of the Goryeo Tripitaka, carved between 1237 and 1248, became the textual foundation for later Buddhist scholarship and remains one of the most authoritative survivals of pre-modern woodblock printing.