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

This text is a compilation of the reading and meaning of characters by Xingtao (891-952) of Huzhou in Zhejiang Province for the first ten volumes of the Monastic Discipline for Buddhist Nuns (Ch., Moho sengchi lu). The text also provides commentary to abstruse characters. The inscription to the right of the opening phrase informs the reader that this volume comes from the collection of sutras belonging to the Chinese Chan (J., Zen) monastery Jinsushan Guanghui Chanyuan in Haiyan County, Zhejiang Province. The paper and the boldfaced characters suggest that the manuscript was copied in China in the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). An entry for our compiler Xingtao appears in volume 25 of the Biography of Eminent Monks from the Song dynasty (Ch., Song gaosengzhuan; J., So kosoden) as a priest of Dashan si Temple in Huiji County. The entry mentions that in spite of his reading many books and studying the sutras and commentaries, Xingtao’s commentary on the reading and meaning of characters is rough. The biographer also adds with indignation that Xingtao compiled an approximately 500-volumed commentary on the reading and meaning of characters that appear in the Buddhist canon, when the commentary on the 100-volumed reading and meaning of characters of the entire Buddhist canon by Huilin had not been transmitted. This text here appears to have come from this larger set of commentaries by Xingtao.