Reexamining the Sinosphere: Transmissions and Transformations in ...

Dharani Scrolls in the Tenth Century

The most intriguing archaeological finds attesting to the large-scale mass production of Buddhist frontispieces remain the numerous printed dharani scrolls unearthed from the ruins of the Thunder Peak Pagoda near West Lake, Hangzhou. There were more than one thousand copies of these dharani scrolls discovered in situ, but most of them had rotted.¹ Based on the extant specimens, there are at least four genuine versions of blocks used in reproducing these dharani scrolls.² The frontispieces at the Harvard Art Museums (figure 4) and the National Palace Museum in Taipei represent two specimens printed from two different blocks.³ The use of multiple blocks suggests original production in large quantities. At the beginning of each scroll is a colophon that reads, “The Great General of the Army under Heaven, King of Wu-Yue, Qian Chu 錢俶, has made eighty-four thousand copies of this sutra and interred them in the brick pagoda at Xiguan 西關 as eternal offerings. Recorded in the eighth month of the yihai 乙亥 year [975 CE].” It is likely that the number eighty-four thousand does not represent the actual number of prints; rather, it seems to be a symbolic reference to a famous story about King Ashoka.

The dharani scrolls discovered in the Thunder Peak Pagoda were not the only mass-produced dharani frontispieces commissioned by King Qian Chu. Prior to 975, the king commissioned two other versions of printed dharani scrolls dated 956 and 965 respectively, each bearing a distinctive frontispiece design different from that of the Thunder Peak Pagoda version.⁴ For example, the 956 version shows additional hilly landscape in the distance not seen in other versions. In both the 956 and 965 versions, the architectural motifs appear commonly on the upper-left corner of the picture plane, unlike the 975 version, which depicts the architectural motif at the lower-left corner. In addition, the curtain designs adorning the upper border of the 975 version are missing in both the 956 and 965 versions. Given the aforementioned differences, both the 956 and 965 versions bear a similar dedicatory prayer at the beginning