Text of the Perfection of Wisdom (Mahāprajñāpāramitā) Sūtra (c. 700s-800s): Art, History and Details

Text of the Perfection of Wisdom (Mahāprajñāpāramitā) Sūtra (c. 700s-800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This precious text fragment is one of the earliest calligraphies in the collection. The text is copied from the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra (also called the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (Chinese: 摩訶般若波羅蜜多經; Móhā Bōrĕ Bōluómìduō jing). The passage is part of a collection of sacred Buddhist texts written in India around 100 BC to AD 600 that were translated in the 700s by the Chinese monk Xuanzang. The paragraph is written in regular script style (kaishu) with deep black characters on brown aged paper that may have originally been dyed yellow. Mahāyāna Buddhism teaches that faithfully copying sutra texts is a good deed that helps one accumulate merit and the Buddha’s blessings—a way to gain rebirth in the Western Paradise.

Object facts

• Title: Text of the Perfection of Wisdom (Mahāprajñāpāramitā) Sūtra
• Date: c. 700s-800s
• Culture: China, Tang dynasty (618-907)
• Type: Bound Volume
• Technique: Album leaf, ink on dyed paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 26.2 x 9 cm (10 5/16 x 3 9/16 in.)
• Collection: China - Tang Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1933.454

Collection credit

Edward L. Whittemore Fund

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.