SMC 43

The result of the authors’ painstaking documentation of over 1,500 Tibetan copies of the Sutra of Limitless Life from Dunhuang, now kept in the British Library’s Stein Collection, this book provides a detailed study of the sutra copies, how they were produced for the Tibetan emperor in ninth-century Dunhuang, and how they were conserved in twentieth-century England. It explores the lives of Dunhuang’s multi-ethnic scribes, editors, and administrators and reveals how their practices changed in a short period of time during the 820s. In addition, the book surveys the significant differences across the multiple Tibetan and Chinese versions of the Sutra of Limitless Life (Tib. Tshe dpag du myed pa’i mdo; Ch. Wuliangshou zongyao jing; Skt. Aparimitāyuḥ sūtra) circulating in Dunhuang at this time, and introduces a previously unknown Tibetan version. Through working with such a large cross section of the Stein Collection, and by coming to terms with one of the single largest groups of Dunhuang manuscripts, the book provides new insights into how these manuscripts were documented and conserved, on their way from Dunhuang through Khotan to London and at the British Museum, India Office Library, and British Library..

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FrontmatterI

ContentsVII

AcknowledgementsXI

ConventionsXIII

Introduction1

PART ONE: THE SUTRA COPIES, THEIR PRODUCTION, AND CONSERVATION

Introduction25

1 Conserving Limitless Life27

2 Transmitting Limitless Life82

3 Producing Limitless Life129

Conclusions to Part One208

PART TWO: THE SUTRA COPIES AND OUR DOCUMENTATION

Introduction215

4 Documenting Limitless Life217

5 Correcting Limitless Life322

Appendix One: Transliterations of Sample Copies of the TIbetan A1 and C5 Versions of the Sutra of Limitless Life363

Appendix Two: Concordance of Tibetan Limitless Life Copies by Pressmarks376

List of Figures384

Abbreviations388

References389

Index399