Producing Buddhist Sutras in Ninth-Century Tibet : The ‘Sutra of Limitless Life’ and its Dunhuang Copies Kept at the British Library / Lewis Doney, Brandon Dotson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dotson, Brandon, Author.

Doney, Lewis, Author.

Contributor:

Universität Hamburg, Funder.

Series:

Studies in Manuscript Cultures Series

Studies in Manuscript Cultures , 2365-9696 ; 43

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XII, 408 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, [2024]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The result of the authors’ painstaking documentation of over 1,500 Tibetan copies of the Sutra of Limitless Life from Dunhuang, now kept in the British Library’s Stein Collection, this book provides a detailed study of the sutra copies, how they were produced for the Tibetan emperor in ninth-century Dunhuang, and how they were conserved in twentieth-century England. It explores the lives of Dunhuang’s multi-ethnic scribes, editors, and administrators and reveals how their practices changed in a short period of time during the 820s. In addition, the book surveys the significant differences across the multiple Tibetan and Chinese versions of the Sutra of Limitless Life (Tib. Tshe dpag du myed pa’i mdo; Ch. Wuliangshou zongyao jing; Skt. Aparimitāyuḥ sūtra) circulating in Dunhuang at this time, and introduces a previously unknown Tibetan version. Through working with such a large cross section of the Stein Collection, and by coming to terms with one of the single largest groups of Dunhuang manuscripts, the book provides new insights into how these manuscripts were documented and conserved, on their way from Dunhuang through Khotan to London and at the British Museum, India Office Library, and British Library.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Conventions

Introduction

Part One: The Sutra Copies, their Production, and Conservation

1 Conserving Limitless Life

2 Transmitting Limitless Life

3 Producing Limitless Life

Conclusions to Part One

Part Two: The Sutra Copies and our Documentation

4 Documenting Limitless Life

5 Correcting Limitless Life

Appendix One: Transliterations of Sample Copies of the Tibetan A1 and C5 Versions of the Sutra of Limitless Life

Appendix Two: Concordance of Tibetan Limitless Life Copies by Pressmarks

List of Figures

Abbreviations

References

Index

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 16. Dec 2024)

ISBN:

9783111569550

3111569551

OCLC:

1479751553