The , or the "One Million Pagodas and

Dharani Dharanis ( IAST: ), also known as ''Parittas'', are Buddhist chants, mnemonic codes, incantations, or recitations, usually the mantras consisting of Sanskrit or Pali phrases. Believed to be protective and with powers to generate merit for the B ...

Prayers", are a series of

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

prayers or spells that were printed on paper and then rolled up and housed in wooden cases that resemble miniature

pagodas A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...

in both appearance and meaning. Although woodblock-printed books from Chinese

temples were seen in Japan as early as the 8th century, the ''Hyakumantō Darani'' are the earliest surviving examples of printing in Japan and, alongside the Korean Dharani Sutra, are considered to be some of the world's oldest extant printed matter.

Manufacture

The production of the ''Hyakumantō Darani'' was a huge undertaking. In the year of her resumption of the throne, 764, the

Empress Shōtoku An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

commissioned the one million small wooden pagodas (), each containing a small piece of paper (typically 6 x 45 cm) printed with a Buddhist text, the ''Vimalasuddhaprabhasa mahadharani sutra'' (). It is thought they were printed in

Nara The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It ...

, where the facilities, craftsmen and skills existed to undertake such large scale production. Marks on the bases of the wooden pagodas indicate that they were worked on

lathes A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to cr ...

and studies of these have identified that more than 100 different lathes were used in their production. More than 45,000 pagodas and 3,962 printed dharani survive in the

Hōryū-ji is a Buddhist temple that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples, in Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture, Japan. Its full name is , or Learning Temple of the Flourishing Law, the complex serving as both a seminary and monastery. The temple was ...

temple near Nara, but globally fewer than 50,000 pagodas are known to still exist. Their creation was completed around 770, and they were distributed to temples around the country.

Historical context

There are various theories around Shōtoku's motives for commissioning the ''Hyakumantō Darani''. One is that of remorse and thanksgiving for the suppression of the Emi Rebellion of 764, and another is as an assertion of power and control over resources, but the act could equally serve both political and devotional aims. Either it was felt that printing as a technology had served its ritual purpose through the creation of the ''Hyakumantō Darani'', or simply that the cost of this mass production proved prohibitive, but printing technology did not become widespread until the tenth century and the production, and distribution of books continued to rely heavily on hand-copying manuscripts.

References

External links

The First Printed Text in the World, Standing Tall and Isolated in Eighth-century Japan: Hyakumanto Darani by Robert G. Sewell
*
Hyakumantō darani (FG.870.1-4)
A Pagoda and four darani in the collections of

Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of the over 100 libraries within the university. The Library is a major scholarly resource for the members of the University of Cambri ...

and digitised in full, complete with a 3D model of the Pagoda, in

Cambridge Digital Library The Cambridge Digital Library is a project operated by the Cambridge University Library designed to make items from the unique and distinctive collections of Cambridge University Library available online. The project was initially funded by a donat ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hyakumanto Darani Woodcuts World Digital Library exhibits Buddhist mantras Buddhism in the Nara period

Manufacture

Historical context

References

Further reading

External links