farfel_n06_064_433

- Kaisho (standard) script - the horizontal + vertical brush
strokes are of similar width; dots + hooks are evident
+ the flaring diagonals priminent in clerical script
are less pronounced. These sophisticated strokes are
compressed into a square compositions to form each
character. They are tightly spaced from top to bottom
in each colume, but an open space is left between
columns.
- Most sutras were written in the established form of 17
characters per line. The form of writing was alwasy the
formal script (Raisho) A wide variety of papers were used.
Records at the Shosoin list more than 232 kinds (based
on place of production, color + ingredients) but in the
vast majority of cases only 2 were employed: kokuski
made of mulbery + mashi made of hemp.
These papers wer often dyed yellow with the bark of
the medicinal kihade tree to ward off insects
- Employ the Chinese ideographic alphabet imported with
Buddhism into Japan, which had no previously existing
writing writing system.
- It is remarkable that the wole collection of the
Buddhist canon which becaem larger + larger in the
course of time was preserved in MSS only from the
introduction of Buddhism into China in AD 67 till
AD 972.
- Nara period - 712-793.
552 AD - Buddhism introduced into Japan
566 BC - birth of Buddha
Prajnaparmita - Sutra of the 2nd turning.
1st turning shared by all Buddhist schools - 2nd +
3rd followed only in Mahayana
Vulture peak, India - where Buddha taught the
Sutra of Perfect Wisdom.
794 - Capital moved to Heian. (modern Kyoto)