Eleven Volumes of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (late 1100s): Art, History and Details

Eleven Volumes of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (late 1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

These scrolls are part of the 600-volume Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. The sacred text addresses the perfection of wisdom and the nonsubstantiality of all phenomena, or the emptiness of all things. It takes the form of Shakyamuni Buddha’s preaching at four locations. These scrolls are from the Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Lines, which occupies the first 400 volumes. At one time, religious clergy kept them in a lacquered wood repository on view nearby. They are now too fragile to open and we will conserve them over time.

Object facts

• Title: Eleven Volumes of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra
• Date: late 1100s
• Culture: Japan, Heian period (794–1185)
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: Eleven handscrolls; ink and gold on dyed paper
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1969.130.2

Collection credit

Anonymous Gift

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.