| Chapter 2: | The Circulation of Hangzhou Buddhist Frontispieces in the Sinosphere and Beyond |
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of the frontispiece specifying that the king mass produced eighty-four thousand copies, comparable to the Thunder Peak Pagoda scrolls.5
The legacy of Buddhist illustrated printing under Wu Yue rule went well beyond its kingdom and exerted its impact on the Buddhist visual cultures in neighboring Korea and Japan. This is evident in a Koryŏ dharani frontispiece dated 1007 and commissioned by the Korean monk Hongch’ŏl 弘哲 (ca. early eleventh century) from Ch’ongjisa 摠持寺, a leading temple of Esoteric Buddhism located in Mt. Sŏnggŏ 聖居山 near the capital of the Koryŏ Kingdom (Kaegyŏng) and frequented by royal visits.6 The 1007 frontispiece design was a faithful copy of the Wu Yue version dated 956. Echoing Qian Chu’s 956 colophon, its colophon states that the dharani imprints would be “widely deposited into Buddhist pagodas as sacred offerings” (pu’an fouta zhong gongyang 普安佛塔中供養).
Northern Song Lotus Sutra Frontispieces
To date, frontispiece woodcuts adorning the printed Lotus Sutra are among the most popular printed illustrations showcased in Buddhist books produced in the Song 宋 (960–1279) period. The great demand in reproducing the Lotus Sutra reflects the popularity of its teachings and pertinent rituals. Buddhist rituals promoting the veneration of the Lotus Sutra include the Lotus Samadhi or Repentance (Fahua sanmei chanyi 法華三昧懺儀, T. 1941), a Buddhist confession ritual widespread among the Tiantai Buddhists and especially promoted by the Song monk Zunshi 遵式 (964–1032) in the Tianzhu Monastery 天竺寺 in Hangzhou.7 Its ritual space designates the Lotus Sutra as the sole object placed for the altar, devoid of iconic images, relics, or any other sutras. While the sole object required for the ritual space of the Lotus Repentance is the sutra itself, the Repentance evokes the devotees’ active visualization of the gods evoked in the sutra.