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:

[...]

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.

*** *** ***

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. 

Envelope lining 7

This is the lining of a fairly large envelope posted in the UK in early 2019. It is a simple pattern of blue lines, in a hexagonal shape.

Joss paper 3: Clothes

Yet another form of joss paper. This particular example was collected in Singapore around 2014. It is a more elaborate version of the paper featured previously 

This particular piece of paper is intended to be burnt as an offering to the deceased. It would then re-materialize on the "Other side"  as a garment. 

It consists of a T-shaped piece of decorated paper, to which a pair of yellow triangles of crepe paper have been attached to either side. (The triangle on the left side was crumpled in the process of scanning). This is a particularly conservative form. Paper makers also make more modern-looking clothes. 

These clothes come in a pack of around 20 pieces. The garments in such a pack come in several different colours of paper-- yellow, red and green in addition to white.  

Paper makers also sell smaller versions of such clothes, intended as offerings for the wandering spirits of those who died in infancy. 

Florist's wrapping paper (3)

Another piece of decorated paper. The author recalls it was used by florists to wrap flowers. This particular pattern seems to be a bric-a-brac of several other patterns.

Incense wrappers (3)

Yet More Chinese Incense wrappers. These examples were collected around 2014. 

財神進寶香

"God-Of-Fortune enters [with] treasures  incense" 

A change from the Buddhist deities previously featured, this particular wrapper depicts the god of Fortune財神 . Symbols of wealth and Power float on clouds by the sides of the title. They are 

(Right hand row) -- A Jue 爵 (Goblet with three legs), a pair of ingots (元寶Yuanbao), a Calabash, a Pair of coins, and a ruyi 如意 scepter. 

The left-hand row contains the same objects, but placed in a different order. 

金旺來

富貴旺來香 

Golden "Pineapple" 

Prosperity and fortune incense

The name of this incense wrapper is a pun-- The chinese for pineapple 黃梨(Huang Li) or 王梨 (Wang Li) is very similar to the phrase 旺來 Wang Lai-- "Prosperity comes". This similarity is even more stark in Hokkien.  So the brand Golden pineapple may be interpreted as " Golden prosperity comes"

In any case, the makers of the incense have taken this to heart-- The label's background is entirely comprised of gold foil, applied by hot stamping.Alas, this brilliant gilt does not show up well on the scan. 

Wrapping paper

This piece of wrapping paper was collected in 2015. It displays a pattern of bees, butterflies, and flowers, arranged in stripes. Such rather garish designs are common in wrapping papers 

Incense wrappers (2)

Here I feature more examples of Chinese incense wrappers. 

平安觀音香

"Peace guanyin incense"

This is a simple plastic wrapper, for holding a small bundle of joss sticks. The seated figure on top is Guanyin, the buddhist goddess of mercy. 

大吉大利名貴雪梨香

Great fortune, Great profit famous snow-pear incense. 

H&M督造

Made by H&M

The pineapple is an auspicious symbol. Its chinese name 黃莉, Huang li  sounds somewhat like the Chinese word for profit 利. 

We are told the incense was made by a company called H&M. The inscription on either side of the pineapple reads " Customers please recognize / The golden pineapple is our trademark" 

2828 

平安檀香

" 2828 Peace Sandalwood incense" 

The seated figure with many arms is the Thousand-armed form of Guanyin. 

Joss paper 2: Clothes

In Singapore, makers of joss paper sell sets of papers, containing all the necessary offerings for a particular spirit or divinity. The following pieces of joss paper come from such a set, intended for worshiping one's ancestors. They represent clothes.

The clothes come in an elegant pattern of key-frets and foliage. They come in red and green, as seen below.

Although these examples are patterned, some examples are plain. Joss paper makers also produce smaller versions of such clothes, intended as an offering to those who died in infancy. 

Chinese Decorated paper 5-- Box

The following pieces of decorated paper covered a box. The box contained a set of fairly mysterious gaming-tiles. The tiles themselves are shown here 

The upper cover of the box. It displays a trellis pattern of chrysanthemums and Lotuses.  Round medallions bear a text in Chinese. Written in the archaic seal-script, it reads 花開富貴 -- "[may] the Flowers open, and prosperity arrive" 

The bottom part of the box displays a fine floral pattern, printed in red. 

Buddhist Prayer-sheet

Continuing with the Buddhist theme, I shall exhibit a Buddhist prayer-sheet.  This sheet is fairly old, dating perhaps from the 1970s-1980s. I found it in Singapore. Buddhist devotees there often sponsor the printing of Buddhist tracts, to gain merit. These tracts are then freely distributed. They are placed on shelves located in public places, for the interested to take home and study. Occasionally, prayer sheets like this one pop up. 

The prayer-sheet is a single piece of paper, printed on one side. What you see here is the top half of the sheet. On the right, we see an image of Guanyin, a Bodhisattva. She is sitting on a lotus, in the midst of what appears to be a pond. A child sits at her feet, and a small bird flies overhead. The caption reads 白衣大士神像 Baiyi Dashi Shen Xiang  "The image of the White-Robed great One". 

On the left of the sheet, is the mantra associated with Baiyi Dashi, written in Chinese characters. 

The bottom half of the sheet is occupied by a large grid of circles, 25 long and 24 wide. The upper half of the sheet explains this curious feature. The mantra is to be changed 12 000  times. There are precisely 600 circles. After saying the mantra twenty times, fill in one circle. When all 600 circles are filled in, you know you have chanted a sufficient number. 

The right-hand text shows a list of dates. Upon these dates vegetarian food is to be consumed. This is often done by those who wish to gain merit from abstaining from slaughter, but for whatever reason cannot be fully vegetarian. The dates mentioned are according to the Chinese Lunar calendar. In addition to these fasts, People often fast on the 1st and 15th days of each month. This is alluded to in the sheet as  The New and Full moon days of each month.

Below I transcribe the contents of the sheet. I have kept the line breaks of the original. Text in round brackets is printed in a smaller typeface. I have added line numbers for ease of reference. Here is the Chinese Baidu article upon this mantra. This is a youtube video of the Mantra being chanted. 

There are several differences in the 2 texts. The baidu article ends line 2 with the words  摩诃萨, Mo he sa, which are absent in this text.  

In line 4 of the prayer sheet, we find the phrase 旦只哆,Dan zhi duo  whilst the text in the Baidu article reads 怛垤哆.dá zhí duō.

Attempting to translate the Mantra itself would be difficult, owing to its esoteric significance. I will instead transliterate it into pinyin as best as I can. If any reader may find errors in my text/interpretation, I will be glad to know of them.

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[Above illustration of Guanyin] 白衣大士神像
Bai yi Dashi Shengxiang

1/ 南無大慈大悲救苦救難廣大靈感
觀世音菩薩   （三稱  三拜）
南無佛  南無法 南無僧 南無救苦救難
觀世音菩薩  旦只哆  庵  伽囉伐哆 伽囉伐哆
5 /伽訶伐哆   囉伽伐哆  囉伽伐哆 娑婆訶  天羅神
地羅神  人離難  難離身   一切災殃化爲塵
南無摩訶般若波羅蜜

（誦二十遍，點一圈：圈滿共一萬三千遍。
10/  印送一千二百張爲一願，所求必應. ）

1/Nan mo da ci da bei jiu ku jiu nan guang da ling gan
guan shi yin pu sa ( Recite thrice, Bowing after each repetition)
Nan mo fo, Nan mo Fa, Nan mo seng, Nan mo jiu ku jiu nan
guan shi yin pu sa.  Dan zhi duo, an,  qie la fa duo  qie la fa duo5/ qie he fa duo, la qie fa duo, la qie fa duo, suo po he, Tian luo shen
Di Luo shen, ren li nan, nan li shen, yi qie zai yang hua wei chen
Nan mo mo he buo re puo luo mi 

(Recite this twenty times, and fill in one circle; Once all circles are filled,[one has recited it] a total of Twelve thousand times.
10/  One thousand Two hundred copies have been printed for free distribution for [ to fufill??]  one wish;  Ask and you shall receive a result.

[in catrouche] 【白衣大士神咒】
1/齋  期

正月初八   二月初七初九十九
三月初三初六十三   四月廿一
五月初三十七   六月十六十八十九廿三
5/ 七月十三  八月十六
九月十九廿三  十月初一
十一月十九  十二月廿五

每逢朔望閏月同前

1/ Vegetarian fasts
8th day of First lunar month                  7th, 9th and 19th of the Second Lunar Month
3rd , 6th and 13th of 3rd lunar month   21st of Fourth lunar month
3rd and 17th of Fifth lunar month         16th, 18th 19th and 23rd of Sixth Lunar month
5/ 30th of Seventh Lunar month               16th of Eighth Lunar Month
19th, 23rd of Ninth Lunar Month         1st of Tenth Lunar Month
19th of Eleventh Lunar month              25th of Twelfth lunar Month

The Full and New moon days [of each month]. [For an] Intercalary month, [proceed] as the previous month.


[After grid of 600 circles]

鐘氏贈
Presented as a gift by Mr. Zhong.

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Unlike most tracts/religious publications I came across, this object performs a far more active role in devotion. In most cases, the prayer-card, etc. is merely a substrate for the religious text, which the devotee must perform by reciting. In this case, the object itself actively participates in the recitation, by being used as a counting-device.

" If this text gets picked up by web crawlers and becomes searchable, and if this is the only form in which it survives, [...] I will feel that my blog entry will have served a useful purpose, if only a small one. And if we had the time and resources to treat the countless pieces of ephemera in our libraries similarly, surely that would be a job worth doing."

(Source: David Helliwell's fascinating blog)

Chinese Incense wrappers

One of the offerings at Chinese temples are sticks of incense, or "Joss Sticks" as they are known in the west. There are a huge variety to choose from. The sticks  come in different lengths and thicknesses They can be  as thin as a straw [ the most common] , to as thick and long as a man's arm [only found at large festivals] . They are also sold in bundles of varying size, each containing a few tens, to massive loads containing  hundreds. There are many brands. Each has its own label.

The incense sticks are typically wrapped in yellow cellophane, with a paper label under the cellophane showing brand information. Such an arrangement, albeit without the incense, is shown here. 

AAAA 正檀香-- AAAA Zheng Tanxiang 

AAAA brand Authentic sandalwood incense. 

The paper label, removed from its cellophane.The female figure is Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of mercy. Below is an inscription in [I think] Vietnamese. I will be glad if any reader will tell me what it means. 

佛緣富貴檀香- Fo Yuan Fugui Tanxiang 

" Fo Yuan" prosperity sandalwood incense 

Fo Yuan, 佛缘 is presumably the brand's name. Fo yuan is a Buddhist term of art, signifying [roughly] the relationship between the practitioner and the Buddha. [ Chinese article on the subject]. 

Again, Guanyin is depicted on the label.  The eight objects floating on clouds below her are the symbols of the Eight immortals of Chinese mythology. They form a border round the name of the incense. 

The horizontal text on the bottom says 香細烟少-- Xiang Xi, Yan Shao. "This incense is slender, and produces little smoke" 

 萬和行/ 觀音香王  Wan He Hang/ Guanyin Xiang Wang 

Wan He company/ Guanyin King of Incense. 

The name Wan He means "Myriad Harmony" in Chinese. Its English name, Wan He Joss paper trading is found on the bottom of the label. Again, Guanyin is depicted on the label.

Four Chinese characters are found in the bottom-right corner. They are 環保健康-- Huanbao Jiankang "Environmentally friendly and Healthy"/ 

Floral paper

A New year, and finally a new post. Here is a fine floral wrapping-paper. For some reason the design incorporates deer. 

Florist's wrapping paper ( 2)

Yet another example of the genre of florist's wrapping paper. Printed on a thin, but glossy paper like the rest, this particular example shows a subtle pattern in black and blue.  The dark colors would form a pleasing contrast to the brilliant bouquets that these papers are intended to protect. 

Floral paper

Two samples from a fairly large sheet of floral paper. This was printed in China, in the 2010s.

What is most curious about the paper, is that the colours seems to have been printed without any regard to the pattern. On closer inspection, it seems that the maker has printed the dark background upside-down with respect to the red roses and blue flowers. The sheet was thus rejected, which would also explain why it was found wrapping a ream of other, higher quality papers. 

Florist's Wrapping paper

This specimen was found wrapping a bunch of flowers that were purchased in a Singaporean market.

 It is printed on a thin, glossy paper. It displays a pattern of (American) footballs, and the words "TOUCH DOWN". For whatever reason the phrase is printed in mirror image. 

Cupcake holder (3)

The patterns of cupcake holders possess a certain charm. Here is another. It is a simple design of floral sprays, printed in red and green. 

Cupcake holder (2)

Here is another cupcake holder. This particular sample is decorated with a pattern of roses. The brown marks are the remnants of the sweet treat it once contained.

Cupcake holder

Cupcakes and other such dainites are usually served in small paper cups, which are often decorated. This particular example ( which has been flattened out) is decorated with a pattern of red and white hearts. Other examples are decorated in a pattern of small floral sprays, often in two colours.



 

Envelope lining 3

This example of an envelope lining is somewhat different from the previous examples; Its pattern does not appear to be composed of wiggly lines, but rather of a form of repeat pattern:

Another unusual thing is that the paper appears to be printed from letterpress ( i.e from a process analogous to using a stamp) , as opposed to lithography or offset ( as in the previous envelopes). We may see below the characteristic blobby effect of letterpress, known as "ink squash" ( particularly evident towards the bottom ends of the shapes)

Wrapping paper

The following sheet of wrapping paper is somewhat of an oddity. It is printed on an extremely thin stock ( roughly 10 lb. paper), resembling a form of calendared tissue paper, a odd choice for a wrapping paper.

Another oddity is the design. The above example is the only example of wrapping paper that I have seen that does not depict something like flowers or puppies, but rather is an abstract design. It is hard to say what the maker was intending this paper to represent ( perhaps marble?), or if it was intended to resemble anything at all.

If anything can be said of this paper, it is printed. However, in the dark areas of the paper, we find a curious pattern:

How this pattern came to be I have no idea.