WANLI, EMPEROR OF THE MING, patron.

Yu zhi yao shi tan ke yi 御製藥師壇科儀 [Imperially Commissioned Ritual for the Altar of the Medicine Buddha].

Two & one-half woodcut illus. 44 sheets, each folded into multiple pages. Oblong small 8vo (89 x 288 mm.), orig. stiff boards in concertina format (one board loose). Beijing: Fanjing chang 番經廠, 1617 (date of colophon); woodblocks carved in 1599.

One of three surviving copies of a Tibetan-Chinese bilingual liturgy of Bhaiṣajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, printed under Ming imperial patronage at the Tibetan scripture workshop (Ch. fanjing chang 番經廠). Tibetan books printed in pre-1644 Beijing are very rare and precious; this is the only copy we have encountered. Our copy has the well-known 廣運之寶 seal on the frontispiece, representing Ming royal provenance.

Many of the early-Ming emperors were devout followers of Tibetan Buddhism and sponsored large-scale sutra printing projects, including the first printed edition of the Tibetan Kanjur canon, completed in 1411 under the patronage of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402-24). This veneration declined during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521-64), who favored Daoism and dissolved many longstanding Buddhist institutions in the capital. It was after his rule, in 1572, that the court reestablished the Tibetan scripture workshop, in part to secure the alliance of the Altan Khan (1508-82) of the Tümed Mongols, a powerful patron of the Gelug sect.

Despite its name, the Tibetan scripture workshop seems to have printed few Buddhist texts, with the notable exception of a new, 1605 edition of the Kanjur. Falling under the jurisdiction of the Directorate of Ceremonials (Ch. Silijian 司禮監), the workshop’s main responsibility was to officiate routine Buddhist rituals within the palace complex. As the court was hesitant to admit Tibetan Buddhist monks into the inner palace, these rituals were led instead by trained eunuchs and courtesans, some of whom lived and practiced as nuns within the workshop (陳楠, “法渊寺與明代番經廠雜考,” 中國藏學 2006.2, pp. 138-43).

According to the Preface in our copy, this bilingual ritual of the 12 vows of the Medicine Buddha was prepared in Wanli 27 (1599) by the palace eunuch Zheng Li 鄭利, master of rituals at the Tibetan scripture workshop. The Tsinghua University Library, currently exhibiting one of the two other surviving copies, describes the book as follows (in trans.):

“First edition, published in 1599 by the scripture workshops of the Directorate of Ceremonials in the inner palace. Only surviving copy [sic]. It begins with a frontispiece in three pages, followed by the preface of Zheng Li explaining the conditions around the translation and publication of the text, which is valuable for understanding the functions of the Ming scripture workshops. The text consists of prayers for incense offering, light offering, and purification, followed by the twelve vows of the Medicine Buddha and the dedication of merit...The page is wide and large, the layout is generous, the characters are large as coins, the engraving is exquisite, and the paper is of high quality. These are typical of the ‘palace workshop’ editions. To accommodate the bilingual text, the Chinese text is written horizontally from left to right, making it an exemplar of early horizontally written Chinese texts. The binding also differs from the traditional Chinese sutra binding. To accommodate the horizontal text, the tuipeng 推篷 or ‘push-awning’ binding is used instead. It is a rare example of a Ming-era book in the ‘push-awning’ binding.”–“万卷琳琅——馆藏子部善本特展,” accessed Oct. 3, 2026.

A provisional comparison of the Chinese and Tibetan texts shows that, with the exception of a few short passages, neither is a direct translation of the other, and the bilingual text likely formed an integrated liturgy conducted with a mixture of languages, including Sanskrit mantras in Tibetan transliteration. This linguistic hybridity is echoed by the unusual choice of a vertical concertina binding, which ingeniously brings together the layout and reading practices of the Tibetan pecha with a Chinese binding traditionally associated with Buddhist scriptures.

As mentioned above, ours is one of three surviving copies. While the exact state of completeness and condition of the Tsinghua University copy is unclear, a comparison with the copy digitized by the Berlin State Library (Pander C 18) shows that its frontispiece, with the colophon (dated Wanli dingsi, 1617, when 120 copies were printed) and royal seal, fully present in our copy, is damaged and mostly lacking in the Berlin copy. The front board of the Berlin copy has the bilingual title Mi ‘khrugs pa’i ‘cho ga dang po bzhugs sto | A chu fo tan chang jing 阿閦佛壇塲經, but its relation to the text is unclear. The comparison also shows the final part of the illustration at the end of our copy to be damaged and incomplete. Our copy nevertheless contains a short final inscription, “shang g.yi kyen tha’i kyen zin gon dbang shing tshin k+ci yin tsog,” which appears to transcribe an unidentified Chinese phrase and is lacking in the Berlin copy. The Berlin copy was evacuated to Silesia during the World War II and then taken to Krakow when that region became part of Poland. It remains in Krakow.

We believe that our book comes from the collection of Japanese sinologist Kanda Nobuo 神田信夫 (1921-2003).

As mentioned, Tibetan books published in Ming-era Beijing are extremely rare; we find no other example in WorldCat. The Tibetan scripture workshop was dissolved during the Ming-Qing transition, and the region later became home to the famous Songzhusi 嵩祝寺 temple complex, the center of Tibetan publishing in Qing Beijing.

Fine copy; some tears in the margins, with no loss of text, and some marginal dampstaining, as well as the aforementioned loss of half an illustration at the end. One board is loose. Preserved in a modern hantao.