Title
20th-century high-quality photo-facsimile of The Diamond Sūtra (金剛般若波羅蜜經).
Coverage
Beijing:
Publisher
National Library of China Press,
Date
n.d.
Subject
Gift of Xia Wei and Soren Edgren. The original surviving scroll is in the British Library.
Description
A copy of The Diamond Sūtra was discovered in 1900 in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China. The text’s Sanskrit title, Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, is more accurately translated as the “Diamond-Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra” or “The Perfection of Wisdom that Cuts Like a Diamond/Thunderbolt.” The printing of this Chinese translation was commissioned in 868 CE. The block-printed scroll is the earliest known printed book with a dated colophon—and it stretches more than 17 feet long.
Source
From the collection of Rare Book School