One single-page & one double-page woodcut. [2], 3, 2, 4, 51 folding leaves. Woodblock-printed. One kwŏn in one volume. Small folio (334 x 220 mm.), orig. patterned semi-stiff wrappers (with handwritten title as usual), new stitching. [Chuwangsan, Korea]: Taejŏnsa Temple, 1685.

Early and rare Korean woodblock edition of the Lotus Sutra, with the Preface by Daoxuan 道宣 (596-667) and line commentaries by Jiehuan 戒環 (fl. 1127) a Song-dynasty Chan monk. The woodblocks were carved in 1685 at the Taejŏnsa Temple, said to have been first constructed in the 7th century; it was destroyed during the Imjin War (1592) and subsequently... More

Two double-page woodcuts. Woodblock-printed. 62 folding leaves (plus one leaf, 32, in duplicate). Large 8vo (317 x 213 mm.), orig. semi-stiff wrappers, new stitching. Yongjan-sa Temple: 1635.

A very rare and early illustrated Korean edition of the Lotus Sutra, published in 1635. The woodblock of the final page with the imprint appears to have slid during printing and the text is unclear (but the date is clear). We believe it says that it was printed by Yongjan-sa 龍藏寺 temple, which would mean that the place of publication is today’s Jindo County in South Chŏlla province, South Korea. We... More

23-33 characters per column; 6 columns per page. Text-block height: 230 mm. Eight vols. (190 x 8600; 10,000; 9300; 8200; 8900; 8600; 8000; 7000 mm.). Tall narrow 8vo, orig. semi-stiff dark blue boards (minor rubbing), orig. block-printed mica-dusted title labels on upper covers, each entitled “Shinpan Myohorengekyo” [“new [carved] boards for the Myohorengekyo”] & volume number. [Japan]: early to mid-Edo?

A very rare — apparently unrecorded — edition of the complete Lotus Sutra, handsomely carved throughout in hiragana, allowing those unskilled in reading kanji to study the text. The vast majority of sutra printed in early Japan were carved in... More

17 characters per column; 25 columns per sheet, 21.5 joined sheets. Scroll (275 x 10,740 mm.), outer front endpaper with nature motifs (quite faded), inner endpaper with dense patterns of applied squares of silver. Columns of text vertically ruled in gold (kinkai) throughout, borders on top & bottom decorated with densely applied cut squares of gold & silver, wooden core roller. Japan: mid- to late Kamakura era (ca. 1250-1333).

A luxuriously produced kasuga-ban edition of Vol. VI of the Lotus Sutra, originally translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva and completed in 406 CE. The Lotus Sutra is the most influential of... More