Lotus Sutra with a Frontispiece (late 1100s): Art, History and Details

Lotus Sutra with a Frontispiece (late 1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The frontispiece of this sutra, a sacred Buddhist scripture, illustrates episodes mentioned in the Buddha’s teaching. The sutra begins with a description of the historic Buddha Shakyamuni’s assembly on Vulture Peak. On the right, the Buddha sits amid members of his congregation: lohans (or arhats), bodhisattvas, gods, and other beings. The narrative proceeds from right to left. Heavenly light emanates from Shakyamuni’s brow to “illuminate the eighteen thousand worlds to the east.” Illustrated immediately below the ray is the sutra’s promise that if anyone carves or paints images of the Buddha “they will achieve the Buddha path.” The female figures in the frontispiece point to another promise made in this popular Mahayana school sutra, namely that female devotees and nuns who read the sutra are promised Buddhahood and salvation.

Object facts

• Title: Lotus Sutra with a Frontispiece
• Date: late 1100s
• Culture: China, Song dynasty (960–1279)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: handscroll; gold ink on indigo sutra paper
• Dimensions: Image: 27.8 x 81 cm (10 15/16 x 31 7/8 in.); Inscription overall: 27.9 x 1044.9 cm (11 x 411 3/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Handscroll
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1970.64

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Ho, Wai-kam, Sherman E. Lee, Laurence Sickman, and Marc F. Wilson. Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: The Collections of the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1980.
• Menzies, Jackie. Buddha: Radiant Awakening. Sydney: Art Gallery NSW, 2001.

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.