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Two dhāraṇī prints in the Stein Collection at the British Museum1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2014

Gergely Hidas
Gergely Hidas*
Affiliation:
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This paper examines two tenth-century woodblock prints from Dunhuang acquired by Sir Aurel Stein. They are registered under the numbers Ch.00151 and Ch.00152 at the British Museum. The first, Ch.00151, is dedicated to Avalokiteśvara and the second, Ch.00152, to Amitābha, both with magical formulas written in Siddham characters in square or circular fashion around the central image of the respective deity. Editions, translations and identifications of the texts are presented along with a study of the Chinese inscriptions on the side of the xylographs. It is shown that these two objects were apparently produced to serve as amulets.

Keywords

MantraDhāraṇīSpellAmuletDunhuangSir Aurel SteinBritish MuseumAvalokiteśvaraAmitābha
Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 105 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2014 

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Dr Michael Willis for calling my attention to these two xylographs and Dr Gábor Kósa for reading and interpreting the Chinese inscriptions. Many thanks to Dr Péter-Dániel Szántó, Gerd Mevissen, Professor Gudrun Bühnemann, Professor Harunaga Isaacson and Rolf W. Giebel for their comments. This research was funded by a grant from the European Union, co-financed by the European Social Fund (TAMOP 4.2.1/B-09/1/KMR-2010-0003). I thank the János Szerb Foundation, Budapest for its support.

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