National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

This is an annotated edition of the Lankavatara Sutra (Ch., Lengjia abaduoluo baojing; J., Ryoga abatara hokyo), translated by the Central Indian monk Gunabhadra (394-468), during the Chinese Liu Song period (420-479). Also known as the “Lankavatara Sutra in Four Fascicles,” this version was copied and annotated by the Chinese monk Zhiyan (n.d.) of Dajing’ai Temple. The volume was copied in large lettering with ten to eleven characters per line and the annotations were written in smaller characters in two lines. Two fascicles, which are considered part of an original set, can today be found in the collections of Chion-in Temple in Kyoto (Volume 5) and the Nezu Museum in Tokyo (Volume 7). Now missing the first section of its preface, an inscription written by Li Shuchang (1837-97), a Chinese envoy to Japan, dated 1882 (Guangxu 8) appears at the end of the scroll.