ACKERMANAt a glance
History, context & interpretation
The text and its story
A teaching on non-attachment and seeing through appearances. A woodblock-printed scroll dated 868 CE was found in the Library Cave at Dunhuang and is now in the British Library.
Traditional attribution
A dialogue between the Buddha and his disciple Subhuti.
Historical scholarship
A Mahayana Perfection of Wisdom text; the Dunhuang copy was commissioned by a man named Wang Jie.
Context and curiosity
It was printed nearly 600 years before Gutenberg's Bible.
Chronology and transmission
This text belongs to Buddhism (India; Tang China). The catalogue gives its approximate dating as composed c. 2nd–5th century CE; printed 868 CE and original language or script as Sanskrit; Chinese. The dated manuscript witnesses and traditional claims may not refer to the same historical event.
Sources and further reading
Historical descriptions are educational summaries. Religious traditions, scholarly interpretations and unverified claims are distinguished where possible; imagery may be illustrative rather than an artifact photograph.
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