An Illustrated Version of the Book of Vimalakirti and Its Academic Value

The Western Xia Buddhist scriptures of the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region “The Verse of Vimalakirti” (abbreviated as the “Wei Jing”) was unearthed at Hemudong, Wuwei, Gansu in May 1987. Mr. Sun Shouling of the Wuwei City Museum, after researching and publishing many articles, thought that it was a copy of the Xixia clay type (1). The publication of Sun Wen has aroused the attention of the academic community. Some scholars such as Mr. Shi Jinbo affirmed (2) in related theory; some scholars like Mr. Su Bai thought that “this is indeed a printed version of the movable type, but whether it is mud The type of movable type is currently difficult to determine." (3) In March 1998, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the National Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee organized experts in Beijing to conduct an appraisal, affirming that it was Xixia Pictography, but whether it was a muddy type, “cannot obtain consensus” and proposed “ Still need further study" (4). The author believes that despite this, the "King Sutra" here is not a Buddhist scripture of a general sense. Since it is a living copy and gives it special value, Mr. Sun has made a major contribution to this; especially commendable is Mr. Sun. Did not stop here, but repeated trials, not too difficult, in the cooking stove, firing more than 3,000 characters of mud type, and print copies (figure 10), further proof of muddy type. Given that there are still different views in the academic community as to whether or not it is a type of muddy characters, this article, apart from mainly introducing the research results of Mr. Sun, also interspersed some of his own views and outlined their academic values. Please ask Fang to ask for advice. 1. The Remnant of the Hidden Cave and the Discovery of the Wei Jing The Hsiungnu Cave is located in the Tangshan Village, Xinhua Township, southwest of Wuwei. Mr. Su Bai visited the area and elaborated on the status of the Hemudong and its long history. He said that the "Hiamu-dong" was a little modified by the cliff body. The cave was built before the cave. The sanctuary was rebuilt in recent years. According to the right side of the palace, it was established in the first year of the Qing Dynasty (1726). In recent years, it was rebuilt using the Qing Dynasty's original site.” Because of the unearth of the Xixia relics, it was known that “this early Qing Dynasty also followed the earlier old foundation.” As shown in Figure 1, “the left side of the back wall of the sanctum is the opening of the Haimao Cave. The hole is long and narrow, and the original Lama’s tower is built. Four columns are in a row. The four towers are all broken. Thangka has been wound on the second tara column. Frame, the third tower is the A tower in the schematic diagram, which is the better preserved in the four-residue tower.... Between the third and fourth towers, the rectangle ground trough is drilled on the ground of the right wall, and the small towers are piled up inside. Many, that is the "Yuan Shi Shi Zao Chuan" wrote: "wipe the people, to mud as a small floating but also. "Hia mother hole on the right side of the back of a small hole, must be crouching and enter, because the dark is not. ......Hidden hole is not seen in the literature, but its name is old and legendary, and there is evidence that there is no error. The important deity of the Geju school of Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan literature is recorded from the second half of the 12th century, Xixia. The royal family is closely related to Geju. "We can see that it has experienced a long history and has a long historical background." (5) In May 1987, when the people in the area cleared the earth and stone in the back of the temple during construction, A group of Xixia artifacts, such as the Xixia scriptures, documents, and Thangkas, were discovered and kept in the cave. When it was further cleared up in 1989, it was discovered that the Western Xia Buddhist scriptures were the most precious of these. According to Mr. Sun’s research, this book is a collection of the “Keeping the Scriptures” and has been folded. It has a total of 54 pages, a book length of 28, and a width of 12 centimeters. There are upper and lower columns, and the column distance is 21.5 to 23 centimeters; 7 lines per page. Each line of 17 words, including more than 6400 words (Figure 2). “The remaining three volumes and four volumes, that is, the eighth volume of the incense product, the tenth; the ninth volume of the bodhisattva, the eleventh, see the Arboretum of the twelfth; the tenth volume of the method of the provision of the thirteenth. In addition to the loss of the rear part of the (Thirteenth) product, the remaining three products are intact and the order of the pages is not disordered." (6) II. The "Wei Jing" is a printed version of the late Xixia printed version of the Western Xia Buddhist scriptures. There are also printed copies of the Yuan Dynasty, which seem to be the first problem to be solved. Mr. Sun believes that: 1. There are "deeds of the Xixia Ganding (1224), Ganding Jubilee (1225), and Ganding Jubilee (1226), together with the "Wei Jing". "2. The title of the "The Classics of the Wei Jing" is written by Xixia Renzong, "Tong Tian Xian Dao, Yao Wu Xuan Wen, God seeks Wisdom and Yu Gong". 3. There are no artifacts after the Xi Xia, and the earliest was considered as "Xia Xia." Renzong "," no later than Xixia Ganding years "(7). The author believes that Mr. Sun’s views are justified. There are always few cultural relics dating from the archaeological period. Most of the artifacts are based on the coexistence of cultural relics. The above archaeological data is sufficient to prove that it is a Xixia time. According to relevant data, there are 26 kinds of existing Xixia Indians, including the Buddhist scriptures, in which there are 19 kinds of Renzong period, accounting for about 73%. The latest is the period of the Zong period of the Qing Dynasty, and there is no case After the (8); and "Wei Jing" has another title of Renzong, it seems to be set for the period of Renzong (1140 ~ 1193) India is also no exception. 3. The "Wei Jing" is a type of movable type ink. Mr. Sun has made great efforts in the appraisal of the "Wei Jing". He searched verbatim, carefully found every point of difference, and tried to make a reasonable explanation. In his article, To list more than a dozen reasons, to prove that "The Book of Wei Jing" is a type of movable type, especially muddy type. It should be said that it is still relatively easy to prove that it is a movable type, because there are obvious differences between carved and movable type. For example, in the typeface, the engraving is done by one person, the font size is the same, the strokes are uniform in thickness, the inscriptions are made at one go and the front and rear characters are imposing. Consistent; while the movable type is composed of many people's characters, the level of engraving is different, and there are differences in the use of pens, resulting in the formation of different sizes of characters and strokes. In the ink, the engraving is relatively smooth, and the ink appears to be more symmetrical; the flatness of the movable type is difficult to compare with the engraving, resulting in different shades of ink. Some words are slightly tilted and form a half depth. In the layout, the carved words are straight and neat, and the lines of the lines are clear; the movable characters are sometimes not in the column lines, and the lines are not perfectly straight. The characteristics of movable characters mentioned above are all clearly reflected in the "Wei Jing". Although they are expressed in different ways, they have been discussed in Sun Wenzhong and are accepted by the academic community. 4. The "Vai Jing" is the focus of muddy movable printing. The problem is how to prove it is muddy type. The famous printing history expert, Mr. Zhang Xiumin, who had spent a lifetime in the Beitin Good Headquarters, said in a discussion about the type of living type: “As for the differences between mud characters, wood characters, and copper characters, the difference is between a few micrometers and more. It is not easy."(9) shows the difficulty of distinguishing between several kinds of movable type prints. Because of this, it is difficult because there are too few printed copies of movable type, and in particular, there is no confirmed type of Chinese movable type in the Song and Yuan Dynasties (10). Thus, there is no law to be found in early movable type prints. However, even so, as long as careful observation and careful study, you can always find some special phenomena that are not available in other types of printed script, and make a scientific explanation, or it can prove what it is printed. This is what Mr. Sun is doing. He discovered a lot of strange phenomena in the Wei Jing and made fruitful explorations. He believes that these are the basis for the identification of Wei Jing as a muddy type. According to Mr. Sun’s argument. Can sum up the following three points: First, the pen is not straight. The so-called pen writing is not straight, it refers to some words cross the strokes across the vertical and horizontal, the extension is not enough continuity, not straight, and some of them still form a section at the pen (Figure 3). The reason why this is so is that when the lettering is written on the mud, the intersection of the strokes cannot be cut through. “If a knife is broken, the mud is injured, the strokes are separated, and then the fire is dehydrated, the font shrinks and cracks, and it is out of shape and cannot be used.” (11 ). The shape of mouth, half mouth, triangle, etc. in the glyph structure can only be engraved with one knife and one knife, causing these structures to be deformed and pens to be knotted. The extended strokes after the pens are not straight. Second, the "breathing" strokes. The so-called "eye-popping" strokes refer to the small white spots that can be seen with the naked eye in some of the thicker strokes, namely "eyes" (Figure 4). This is because the mud is not well formed. Mr. Sun said, “The poorer the shale quality is, the more airy it is.” If it is a water-based printing material, it is more of an air eye (12). Third, deformation strokes. The so-called deformation strokes mean that some strokes are deformed into sheets (Figure 5). Mr. Sun believes that this is because the temperature during the ceramicization process is too high due to the glaze formed on the clay characters. This is different from the common “smearing phenomenon, where the latter is blurred but the strokes are not deformed” (13). The author believes that the above phenomenon is absolutely impossible to achieve, whether it is on engraving, wood type or copper type. Its formation is related to mud characters, lettering, and the pottery process. Through the explanation of the above-mentioned phenomenon, it is shown that the "Wei Jing" is a printed version of the mud script, which I think is convincing. There have been people who talked about the sharpness of wooden movable type and muddy characters, which are used as the basis for distinguishing muddy characters and wooden movable characters. Mr. Sun's example in Figure 6 shows that the wooden movable type is sharp and sharp, and there are also sharp and sharp characters in the movable type. In fact, this is also correct. 5. The history of the difference between Wuweiben and late-phase mudbooks was found in the Northern Song Dynasty. But in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, muddy movable characters were invented. However, the Chinese version of the muddy movable type in Song and Yuan Dynasties has not yet been discovered. The situation of early muddy type in our country is difficult to know. During the Qing Daoguang and Xianfeng years, Mr. Qi Jinsheng of Qixian County of Anhui Province, according to the record of Bisheng Zaishu in the "Mengxi Bi Tan", he used his life to create muddy characters, and used his printing "The Initial Edition of Mud Test and Printing" and "Water East". There are many works such as the "Chan's Genealogy"; their works and mud characters have been transmitted to the present (Figure 7). The academic community generally believes that the discovery of Yan's muddy characters proves the reliability of Shen Kuo’s record of Bi Sheng’s invention of muddy characters; and his muddy characters were used by Professor Zhang Binglun from Anhui University of Science and Technology as one of China's ancient scientific and technological achievements. Canada, United States Exhibition (14). In the seventies and eighties of the 20th century, Mr. Zhang Binglun and Mr. Liu Yun, after researching and fully affirming the use of gilts and gilts, made repeated experiments and produced their own characters and used their analog typesetting and printing (Figure 8). The author notices that neither the Yan nor the Zhang's muddy characters are shaped and qualitatively similar to those of the horn. The Zhang's creation is even more "a shape that is very regular. Except for raw materials, fonts and strokes are no different from lead characters." (15) The stamps of Chang's and Zhang's, although there are also poor combinations of the four corners of the columns, the lines are sometimes intermittent, and the ink is also uneven, but overall it is neat, well-proportioned, and typographic. neat. I had the privilege of being at the China Print Museum in Beijing, listening to Zhang’s introduction, and witnessing Zhang’s muddy characters, which was consistent with the above situation. What needs to be explored here is Wuxi Xixia muddy characters, which are not exactly the same as those of Yan and Zhang. In addition to the above-mentioned characteristics, Wuwei mud characters also include “some fonts are long, some are flat, some are square, and some are skewed”; the spacing of words is wide, narrow, and narrow; The phenomenon of lack of head, lack of tail, and uneven edges (Figure 9) caused by many pens and so on. These are the words that are not found in the letters of Zhang Shi and Zhang Shi, and they are also what the other characters in the Ming dynasty did not have. The differences between Wu Xi Xia Ben and Zhang and Zhang Di's mud characters are the difference between the early and late stages, the difference between the start-up period and the mature period, and it is also a reflection of different times. We know that the printing of mud type printing involves the processes of selecting materials, making mud, engraving, burning characters, placing (putting words according to certain laws), picking characters, typesetting, printing, binding, etc., as well as ink and paper. The quality and level of printing techniques etc. Some of the above-mentioned phenomena in the "Wei Jing" are problems with materials selection, mud making, lettering, and burning. Some of them are typographical problems. Some are ink, paper, and printing problems. These problems are so many that the "Wei Jing" is not full-text, ink is uneven, rough layout, printing is not fine, which may be early muddy characters in the mud making, typesetting and printing aspects are not mature enough, not complete, nor standardized reflect. The "Wei Jing" is a sample of the early version of the clay script. It embodies the features of the early printing script. In the current case of the Song, Yuan, and Han characters, it is particularly precious. Its discovery and research results are of great significance to our study of the early mud type printing and movable type printing techniques. VI. The Academic Value of the "Wei Jing" The study of the Western Wei Dynasty Buddhist scripture "Vai Jing" involves many subjects such as Xixia Studies, Buddhism, Philology, Book History, Archaeology, Ancient Paper Studies, Editions, and History of Printing. The study of disciplines undoubtedly has its corresponding value. Here we only talk about its academic value from the perspective of revision studies and printing history. 1. It is the earliest physical version of the original printed version of the mud. Since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, there have been many important discoveries in the printed matter of the Tang and Song dynasties in China. In the aspect of engraving, such as the "Diamond Sutra of Dunhuang", the Khitan of the County of Liaoning