The Lotus Sutra Undertaking: Conserving and Digitising 800 Manuscripts within the British Library

2023-04-18 01:02:37

The Worldwide Dunhuang Undertaking (IDP) is happy to announce that after 5 years, the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Conservation and Digitisation Project efficiently concluded in December 2022. Generously sponsored by the Bei Shan Tang Basis, the Undertaking aimed to publish on-line 793 manuscript copies of the Lotus Sutra from Dunhuang at the moment within the Stein assortment on the British Library. This has resulted in over 374,000 cm of conserved materials and practically 17,000 new photos for the IDP website.

Picture of Or.8210/S.6791, conserved and digitised by the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Conservation and Digitisation Undertaking.

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most influential scriptures in Mahayana Buddhism, and is thought to contain the Buddha’s final teaching, complete and sufficient for salvation. The Stein collection incorporates over 1000 copies of the Lotus Sutra in Chinese language, which have been acquired by Sir Marc Aurel Stein in 1907 and 1914, when he visited the so-called ‘Library Cave’ (Cave 17) on the Mogao Caves close to Dunhuang, within the present-day Gansu Province in China.

Earlier than and after conservation images of Lotus Sutra Scroll Or.8210/S.3796, certainly one of 793 manuscripts conserved by means of the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Undertaking.

Solely a small portion of those had been beforehand digitised, and the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Undertaking was organised to make photos of the remaining manuscripts accessible on-line. Because of the sustained efforts of the Undertaking staff since 2017, 790 scrolls and three booklets have been stabilised and conserved to allow digitisation, and photographed to provide high-resolution photos that at the moment are freely accessible to the general public on the IDP website.

Picture of Or.8210/S.155, a Chinese language Lotus Sutra scroll with Tibetan divination texts on the again. Conserved and digitised as a part of the Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Conservation and Digitisation Undertaking.

Through the thousands of new images online, the Project has significantly increased global access to these important materials. In an effort to document the methodology of the Project, team members have published several articles, such as Digitisation Officer Francisco Perez-Garcia’s The Lotus Sutra Manuscripts Digitisation Project: the collaborative work between the Heritage Made Digital team and the International Dunhuang Project team (printed within the Library’s Digital Scholarship weblog, 14 March 2022). Extra concerning the digitisation efforts of the challenge may be discovered within the article How to Digitise Scrolls: A Step-by-Step Guide from the Lotus Sutra Project by Senior Imaging Technician Jon Nicholls (printed within the Library’s Asia and Africa weblog, 2 August 2021).

Picture of Or.8210/S.3579, that includes a custom-made core developed by conservators on the Undertaking.

All through the Undertaking, the Conservation staff additionally undertook vital analysis on preservation strategies and modern storage options, shared by way of printed articles like Conserving paper: reflections on cultures of conservation in Europe and East Asia by Paulina Kralka (printed in The Journal of the Institute of Conservation, 24 Might 2022) and Lotus Sutra Project: Storage Solutions by Paulina Kralka and Marya Muzart (printed within the Library’s Assortment Care weblog, 07 December 2020 and the IFLA Journal, 21 July 2021).

We want to specific our monumental gratitude for the efforts of the Undertaking staff, together with Tan Wang-Ward, Marie Kaladgew, Marya Muzart, Paulina Kralka, Tania Estrada-Valadez, Vania Assis, Jon Nicholls, Ambrose Hickman, Isabelle Reynolds-Logue, Giancarlo Carozza, and numerous others who’ve contributed all through the lifetime of the Undertaking.

Picture of a panel dialogue on the Lotus Sutra Convention within the Foyle Suite of the British Library. (Left to proper: Dr Eric Tzu-Yin CHUNG, Dr Paul Harrison, Dr Stephen F Teiser, Ven. Miao Duo, Roxanna Pang, Dr Luisa Elena Mengoni.)

To rejoice the shut of the Undertaking, the IDP hosted a convention on the British Library on 15 – 16 December 2022. The convention, titled ‘The Lotus Sutra: the Teachings, Transmission and Materials Tradition of a Sacred Buddhist Textual content’, included a keynote speech from Dr Stephen F Teiser and displays from different specialists, along with a panel of the Undertaking staff discussing their outcomes and methodology.

The complete programme of the convention is right here: Download IDP Lotus Sutra Conference Programme

The lectures have been recorded and at the moment are accessible on the IDP YouTube channel:
• Opening Ceremony of the Lotus Sutra Conference (15 – 16 December 2022)

Panel 1: Teachings of the Lotus Sutra
Chaired by: Luisa Elena Mengoni
• Keynote presentation: ‘The Lotus Sutra: Creating Buddhist Scripture’ by Dr Stephen F Teiser (15 December 2022)
• ‘When Being Original No Longer Matters: Reflections on the Sanskrit Text of the Lotus Sutra and its Uses’ by Dr Paul Harrison (15 December 2022)
• ‘Lotus Sutra: Applying the Teachings in an Everyday Life‘ by the Venerable Miao Duo 妙多法師 and Roxanna Pang (15 December 2022)
• ‘Deciphering the Exhibition of The Arts of the Lotus Sutra at the National Palace Museum‘ by Dr Eric Tzu-yin Chung 鍾子寅 (15 December 2022)
• Panel 1 Dialogue: Teachings of the Lotus Sutra

Panel 2: The Lotus Sutra at Dunhuang
Chaired by: Sam van Schaik
• ‘Universal Gate of Salvation: Guanyin at Dunhuang’ by Dr Roderick Whitfield (16 December 2022)
• ‘Dividing and Structuring the Lotus Sutra in Manuscript Form’ by Dr Costantino Moretti (16 December 2022)
• ‘At the Intersection of Image, Text and Ritual: The Lotus Sutra in Mogao Murals’ by Dr Neil Schmid (16 December 2022)
• ‘Pieces of a Puzzle: Fragments of Chinese Manuscript with the Lotus Sutra‘ by Dr Imre Galambos (16 December 2022)
• ‘The Guanyin Sutra at Dunhuang as Seen Through the British Library Collection’ by Mélodie Doumy (16 December 2022)
• Panel 2 Dialogue: The Lotus Sutra at Dunhuang