DIAMOND SUTRA, TAIWANESE.

Jin gang jing zhu jiang 金剛經註講 [Explaining the Diamond Sutra].

Woodblock-printed. Two half-page woodcut illus. of the Buddha & Skanda/Weituo. [3], 80 folding leaves. 8vo, old paper wrappers, old stitching. Taiwan fucheng 台灣府城: Dehua tang 德化堂, 1856.

An unusual edition of the Diamond Sutra, reprinted in 1856 from the now lost 1688 first edition. Taiwanese woodblock-printed books that predate the administrative expansion of the 1870s and the Japanese invasion in 1895 are very rare: we find only a handful of such titles in WorldCat. This title, in particular, has only one copy listed, held at the National Central Library in Taiwan (OCLC accession no. 1478321371).

According to the colophon in our copy, when the great Qing admiral Shi Lang 施琅 (1621-96) was summoned back to the northern capital after his successful conquest of Taiwan in 1688, he commissioned the printing of this sutra in hope that the merit thus generated would guarantee a safe voyage. The engraving and impression were entrusted to his friend Zou Songfeng 鄒松峰, and based on Shi Lang’s manuscript copy of a Jiangxi Dabei temple edition of the sutra, which he borrowed from the monk Shunqiu 顺求.

The colophon states that the woodblocks are kept at the Dehua tang 德化堂 in the prefectural capital, which is the oldest community temple of the syncretic Longhua 龍華 sect on the island. The 42 woodblocks from which our copy was printed are still kept there today, in the city of Tainan. The only woodblocks that are lost are those used to print the bicolor title page, which in our edition has the title in blue and the decorative surroundings in red. The additional colophon on f. 73v gives the date Xiangfeng bingchen (1856), which Yang Yung-chih 楊永智, in his survey of early modern Taiwanese publishing, hypothesizes to be when these woodblocks were carved, based on the 1688 first edition. Yang’s study shows that the Dehua tang published a dozen or so Buddhist and folk religion texts between 1835 and 1898, including this title.

This edition of the Diamond Sutra, likely intended for ritual incantation rather than private reading on account of its opening prayers and mantras, is rather eclectic. The 80 folding leaves are printed with woodblocks lacking the customary frames around the edges, and the commentary is printed with smaller characters that are a third, rather than the usual half, of the width of the main text. Also striking are the pronunciation guides printed next to obscure characters and characters with “Buddhist readings,” ensuring their correct incantation by a semi-literate reader. For example, the characters nanwu 南無 which, reflecting the Sanskrit namo/namas/namaḥ, must be pronounced counterintuitively as namo in the Chinese Buddhist context, are helpfully glossed with the characters namo 納謨. It appears also that the extensive commentary — not only of the Diamond Sutra but also of the Heart Sutra that follows — were original compositions that do not coincide with any canonical commentary within the Taishō Tripiṭaka. The comprehensive and somewhat colloquial style of the commentary leads us to suspect that it likewise anticipated a semi-literate audience.

It is clear that much remains to be researched regarding the peculiar format, content, and edition history of Explaining the Diamond Sutra, especially given the important place it occupies in the early history of printing in Taiwan.

Very good condition, with some minor staining (mostly marginal) and foxing. Preserved in a hantao.

❧ 楊永智, 明清時期臺南出版史 (台灣學生書局, 2007), pp. 328-31.