"The Former Deeds of Bodhisattva Medicine King," Chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra (Hokekyō)

Unknown artist

Late Heian period, c. 1150

Handscroll fragment mounted as a hanging scroll; ink on dyed paper decorated with ink, color, silver pigment, scattered gold- and silver-leaf, and cut-gold ruled lines

Arthur M. Sackler Museum

A fragment of a handscroll features vertical columns of black Japanese calligraphy on a background of dyed paper with scattered gold and silver leaf. Decorative borders frame the top and bottom. Of the numerous sutras (Buddhist texts) brought to Japan, the Lotus Sutra (Japanese: Myōhō-renge-kyō; Sanskrit: Saddharma-pundarika sutra) became the most popular and influential. Revered above all others for the salvation it promised to all who recited, recopied, or even ruminated upon it, the Lotus Sutra became a focus of worship for generations of pious Japanese Buddhists. Reading from top to bottom and right to left, this hanging scroll displays a section of the twenty-third chapter of the sutra, which was originally mounted in the horizontal handscroll format. The extant text lists the disease-curing blessings promised to all w