Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Buddhist Scroll

Buddhist Scroll

1612
Block print scroll with lacquered wooden covers and silk curtains
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
SAFE/X74/1

The scroll is a block print, comprising 20 folios of 26 lines to a page. Folio 1 is printed on one side only, and has thunderbolt decorations in the margins. The two lacquered wooden covers each have an elaborate coloured painting in the Hindu style with four figures, one possibly depicting Buddha, in a recess covered by three-fold silk coloured curtains. This version of the sutra is described and translated in The Diamond Sutra by Nicholas Poppe, which was published in 1971.

Sutra is a short text or aphorism, or a collection of aphorisms, in the form of a manual, or more broadly a text in Hinduism or Buddhism, prepared for memorising. Literally, it means a thread or line that holds things together, and is derived from the same root verb as the word ‘suture’. Like many Buddhist sutras, the Diamond Sutra begins with the phrase ‘Thus have I heard’.

Seeing wisdom

One of the most revered texts of Mahayana Buddhism, the Diamond Sutra is a brief but highly distilled and enigmatic text. It is often said that it takes considerable time and many re-readings for its meaning to be revealed.

In the sutra, the Buddha has finished his daily walk with the monks to gather offerings of food, and he sits down to rest. Elder Subhuti comes to him and asks a question, and what follows is a dialogue regarding the nature of perception. The Buddha often uses paradoxical phrases such as ‘What is called the highest teaching is not the highest teaching?’ The Buddha is generally thought to be trying to help Subhuti to unlearn his preconceived, limited notions of the nature of reality and enlightenment. Emphasising that all forms, thoughts and conceptions are ultimately and illusion, he teaches that true enlightenment cannot be grasped through them, and they must be set aside.

The earliest known Sanskrit title for the sutra is the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, which may be translated roughly as the ‘Diamond-cutting Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra’, meaning the diamond that cuts through illusion, ignorance and delusion.