Vajrabhadrani Sutra

One Scroll, National Treasure since 1951

Vajrabhadrani Sutra (金剛場陀羅尼経, Kongojo Darani Kyo) is an Asuka-period copied sutra held in Kyoto Prefecture, designated a National Treasure on 9 June 1951. The quantity is one scroll, the designation number 00036, and the owner the state through the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Nothing is designated as an appendage.

The field for designation as an Important Cultural Property is blank, so the scroll went to National Treasure without that earlier step. Both the era field and the Western-year field give 686, so the year is fixed.

The commentary reads: a work of the Asuka period. This is the sixteenth one-sentence commentary among the properties covered here. It is the second property owned by the state, after the Saigyo scrolls.

The Note Ends with And So Forth

The field for supplementary notes carries the wording of the colophon.

It reads: colophon, fifth month of the year of the fire dog, a lay association in the district of Shiki in the province of Kawachi, and so forth.

The closing words repay attention. The colophon does not stop there. The phrase marks that the rest has been left out.

With the sword signed by Moromitsu, the title ended with the rest illegible, and a related property used squares for characters that could not be read. Both mark failure to read.

And so forth is different. It means the text can be read but has not been copied out in full. Unreadable, or omitted: the way a record is written keeps the two apart.

The Cyclical Year Converted to 686

The colophon dates the work by the sexagenary cycle: the year of the fire dog.

That combination comes round every sixty years, so by itself it does not fix a Western year.

Yet the Agency enters 686 in both the era field and the Western-year field. Together with the assignment to the Asuka period, which year of the fire dog is meant has been settled.

With the Taima Mandara Engi, the work itself was dated only to the Kamakura period with no year, and only the appended document of 1793 carried one. Here the year of the work is fixed.

The means of fixing it lies in the colophon. The field for supplementary notes shows the ground for the era field.

Two Databases Give Different Categories

The category is worth a note as well.

The national database gives the category as calligraphy and books. Cultural Heritage Online displays it as other.

For one property, two databases show different categories. This article follows the national database, whose fields are the more detailed, and treats the work as calligraphy and books.

The Thirty-Cho Booklet is likewise displayed as other on Cultural Heritage Online. Category may be recorded at different levels of detail depending on which system displays it.

Accounts elsewhere describe this as the oldest surviving copied sutra in Japan. The Agency's record contains no comparison with other copied sutras, and this article does not make that claim.

Consulting It

The state owns the scroll through the Agency, and the prefecture of location is Kyoto. It is not kept on permanent display.

Work on paper is vulnerable to light, so periods on view are limited.

Being a single scroll, the whole of it can be seen when shown, though a long scroll may be opened only in part.

It may appear in special exhibitions at museums, so watch for notice of a showing.