The , or the "One Million Pagodas and Dharani Prayers", are a series of

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

prayers or spells that were printed on paper and then rolled up and housed in wooden cases that resemble miniature pagodas in both appearance and meaning. Although woodblock-printed books from Chinese

temples were seen in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

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 existent 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 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 agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

, 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, threading and turning, with tools that are applied to the ...

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 Nanto Shichi Daiji, Seven Great Temples, located in Ikaruga, Nara, Ikaruga, Nara Prefecture, Japan. Built shortly after Buddhism was introduced to Japan, it is also one of the oldest Buddh ...

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 Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...

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 over 100 libraries Libraries of the University of Cambridge, within the university. The library is a major scholarly resource for me ...

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 dona ...

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

Manufacture

Historical context

References

Further reading

External links