Buddhist sutras for copying.

Chinese Buddhists, copying Buddhist texts and images is an act of merit. A Chinese source, enumerates the various [meta]physical benefits of doing so:

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Such an injunction does not specify the mode of reproduction. The above text is inserted into printed editions of Buddhist works. However, it seems the act of copying the Sutras by hand is gaining popularity. Publishers of Buddhist books have thus published editions to facilitate this act of devotion.  They are called "手抄本" -- Edition [for] manuscript 

The Left-hand page above is the start of Infinite Life Sutra You will notice the text is printed in grey ink, but the frames and borders are printed in black. The devotee is supposed to fill in the characters with a black or blue pen, thereby copying the sutra, and in doing so gaining good Karma.  

Below is the previous two pages of the book, which shows the process. Two lines on the right are filled in, the rest are yet to be completed by the devotee.

Note: The texts on these two pages are not the Infinite Life Sutra proper, but two short invocations, 

"Praise for the incense burner" and "Praise for the Lotus Pool". These are often found before buddhist texts...

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These sutras reveal rather curious features of the written word in Chinese religion. In a certain sense, the Devotee's participation in the text is redundant--The text of the sutras as printed is not illegible, and can be read as-is.  However, because the letters are grey, the book is implicitly incomplete. By filling in the letters, the devotee completes the text by making its characters more manifest. This is a more interactive experience.

 The text becomes a platform for, and an aid to performance of piety. Meetings with persons educated in the traditional Chinese way also speak of the virtues of copying, as an aid to memorization-- another plus point.

In Sutras especially, aids would be appreciated. Sutras contain many obscure and complex Chinese characters. Persons with ordinary penmanship skills might be intimidated by unaided copying. They may write it inelegantly, or forget how to do so entirely. The copyist also risks errors -- The book is 140 pages long. Such errors would surely generate bad karma, defeating the end of the believer. Better the security of a printed guide, and the merit of a manuscript act.

In some cases, the devotee's handiwork is an end to itself. The Chinese subtitle to this book is the 手抄本 Shou Chao ben-- Taken literally, it is "edition for copying".  However, these three characters in another context imply a Manuscript-- a text produced individually. Such texts have a layer of verisimilitude that a printed edition would lack, something the devotees would doubtless appreciate. That the edition is printed in Traditional Chinese Characters, adding another layer of uniqueness.

Likewise,  Chinese websites sell pieces of colored paper with the characters of the Sutra printed in pale ink. The devotee is intended to fill them in with gold ink. The resulting productions are extremely pleasing.

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These sutras have a rather unusual role. As of mid-2019, the sales of Buddhist books seem to have been banned on major Chinese online retailers like Taobao. Previously Sutras, both Taoist and Buddhist could be procured with great ease on that website-- even the products of the celebrated Jinling Buddhist Press in Nanjing. However, by June of 2019, all these were gone. Instead, the only Sutras available were ones that were printed like the one you see above-- with the characters printed out in gray ink. Evidently these were not religious books, but rather devotional aids-- which were still permitted to be sold. But only time will tell when this loophole would close again.