Reexamining the Sinosphere: Transmissions and Transformations in ...

The Japanese monk Jōjin 成尋 (1011–1081), who left a travel diary, San Tendai Godaisan ki 參天台五台山記, recording his journey to China in 1072–1073, also commented on the efficacy of the Lotus Sutra.⁸ Citing the rain-praying miracle of Tang-dynasty Master Yun 雲法師 from the Guangzhai Monastery 光宅寺, Jōjin recounted the efficacy of Master Yun’s recitation of the episode of the “parable of the medicinal herbs” 藥草喻品 in evoking rain.⁹ Among the Buddhist texts Jōjin acquired in China was the seven-chapter Fahua chiyan riji 法華持驗日記七卷,¹⁰ possibly a collection of miracles achieved by reciting the Lotus Sutra, similar to the Hongzan fahua zhuan 弘贊法華傳 by Monk Huixiang 惠詳. As Jōjin recorded, chanting the Lotus Sutra was performed in many temples in Song China. Specific ritual spaces constructed within the Tiantai monasteries were said to bear such names as the “Fahua halls” or “Fahua altars” evoking the Lotus Sutra.¹¹ Material products of the Lotus Sutra also caught Jōjin’s eyes. These include the “Lotus Sutra Mandala Painting,” “a manuscript copy of the Lotus Sutra in the Empress’s palace,” “Seven-chapter Lotus Sutra manuscript copied in golden pigment and deposited in gilt gold sutra box,” and “a stone stele of the Lotus Sutra.”¹²

In 1968, Buddhist archaeology conducted in a Northern Song 北宋 (960–1127) pagoda in Shenxian, Shandong, brought to light an incomplete set of the illustrated Lotus Sutra scrolls printed by some of the earliest documented commercial publishers—the Qian Family 錢家 and the Yan Family 晏家—active in Hangzhou in the 1060s. Additional documentation sheds light on the people involved in the printing process. Inscriptions recorded the names Gou 垢 (the 1060 set), Nian 念 (the 1063 set), and Yegui 葉桂 (the 1069 set) as carvers, and “Wang Suiliang from Langxie” 琅邪王遂良 (the 1060, 1063, and 1068 sets) and Zhang Yuexian 張月仙 (the 1069 set) as copyists of the texts. Buddhist scholars and eminent monks appointed by the government in Kaifeng and Hangzhou collated the sutras printed by these families.¹³

Stylistically, the frontispieces printed by the Qian and Yan Families are highly similar in terms of the decorative, fringed-and-tasseled-curtains