Leifeng Pagoda: Frontispiece of the Casket Seal Dharani Sutra

CHINA, Zhejiang, Hangzhou; Northern Song dynasty

This manuscript was found in 1924 within the hollow core of a brick at the top of Leifeng Pagoda. The sutra was printed from a woodblock in 975 of the Northern Song dynasty. The text is comprised of 271 lines of ten characters each. An inscription on the frontispiece states that King Qian Chu (reigned 947–978), the last ruler of the Wuyue Kingdom, oversaw the construction of the pagoda and commissioned 84,000 copies of this sutra to be enshrined within it. According to the Casket Seal Dharani Sutra, enshrining a dharani in a pagoda brings great merit and divine protection.
Hanging draperies are depicted at the top of the frontispiece. Below, a small pagoda rests on a lotus pedestal. The Buddha and two disciples, portrayed with nimbuses, sit on the right behind an altar. A figure kneels before the altar with palms joined in reverence. There is a house on the left, and at the bottom of the image, the Buddha and a disciple stand before a mound of earth with their palms joined, depicting a scene described in the sutra. The simply carved image is printed with black ink, and the seal of Ye Gongchuo is stamped on the manuscript.