East Asia Library special collections featured in new Cantor exhibit
Several items from the East Asia Library's special collections are currently being displayed at the Cantor Arts Center as part of a new exhibition, entitled The Buddha's Word @ Stanford.
This exhibition, which was organized by the Cantor Arts Center in collaboration with faculty from Stanford's Department of Religious Studies, highlights the importance of writing and manuscript culture within the Buddhist religion as it spread across Asia. Showcasing a wide variety of materials from the collections of the Cantor Arts Center and Stanford Libraries, the exhibition features materials from India, China, Tibet, Japan, and Sri Lanka. In addition to Buddhist texts themselves, the exhibit also features other objects used in the production and storage of these texts, such as styluses, boxes, and other containers, as well as several unique images that incorporate text in unique and unusual ways.
Materials from the East Asia Library include several Chinese manuscripts of Buddhist scriptures, Japanese ritual texts such as kōshiki manuscripts, and Japanese mandala images. Click on the links below for more information on these materials:
- Mahāyāna-Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra 大乘入楞伽經 (1908 CE)
- Facsimile manuscript of the Diamond Sutra 金剛般若波羅蜜經 (868)
- Huitu anshideng zhujie 繪圖暗室燈註解 (1937)
- Sangoku shichikōsōden zue 三國七高僧傅圖會 (1860)
- Daikanjō Kōmyō jirin mandara 大灌頂光明字輪曼荼羅 (18th century)
- Minobusan Kuonji sanjūrokusei Nitchō Shōnin mandara 身延山久遠寺三十六世日潮上人曼荼羅 (1743)
- Heart Sutra in calligraphy by Sakuma Shōzan 佐久間象山 (19th century)
- Nihan kōshiki 涅槃講式 (late 19th century)
- Yakushi kōshiki 藥師講式 (1304 CE)
- Daihannya hossoku 大般若法則 (19th century)
- Futsū shingonzō 普通眞言蔵 (17th century)
