Japan: Edo period.

A rare surviving woodblock for the printing of the Lotus Sutra in the scroll format. One of the chapter headings tells us that it bears the text for several chapters (kan) of this important Buddhist text. The number “19” or “1 9” has been carved into the obverse left handle; “39” or “3 9” has been carved into the reverse handle.

The Lotus Sutra is the most venerated of all sutra and “was highly influential in East Asia, inspiring both a range of devotional practices as well as the creation of new Buddhist schools that had... More