The Buddha Scroll

What appears at first to be a small, attractively bound book folds out accordion-fashion to become a one-of-a-kind art reproduction: a striking, 36-foot-long Qing dynasty scroll. A replica of a work originally created in eighteenth-century China, the scroll includes more than 600 portraits large and small--buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats, devas, and historical figures; as well as over 2,000 images of other kinds--animals, flowers, Buddhist symbols, buildings, and landscapes. The scroll demonstrates, too, the rich plurality of Buddhist sects that existed in China at that time, including images and symbols from the Zen, Hua-yen, Tiantai, Pure Land, and Tantric schools. The scroll is introduced by Thomas Cleary, the renowned translator and authority on Buddhist texts.… (more)