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

This decorative sutra has a beautiful frontispiece with pictorialized characters of the sutra in reed script (J., ashidegaki) hidden within a yamato-e (Japanese painting) in brilliant colors, followed by text that was transcribed alternately onto white, cloud-designed, purple, light indigo, and light brown colored papers. On the frontispiece, the night sky turns to dusk as the morning sun ascends to the mountain ridge shining upon the multiple layers of hills and trees and a refreshing lotus pond. The sutra characters in reed script express three stanzas from a verse at the end of the scroll that reads: "Pure, immaculate light; the blessed sun breaks through the darkness, always shining upon the world."