XPost: alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan, alt.zen   
   From: peter@dharma.dyndns.info   
      
   Buddhism's Diamond Sutra: The Extraordinary Discovery Of The World's   
   Oldest Book   
      
   By   
   Joyce Morgan   
      
   Ask people to name the world's oldest printed book and the common reply   
   is Gutenberg's Bible. Few venture that the answer is a revered Buddhist   
   text called the Diamond Sutra, printed in 868 A.D. Or that by the time   
   Gutenberg got ink on his fingers nearly 600 years later -- and his   
   revolutionary technology helped usher in the Enlightenment -- this copy   
   of the Diamond Sutra had been hidden for several centuries in a sacred   
   cave on the edge of the Gobi Desert and would remain there for several more.   
      
   Its discovery is the result of a series of accidents and its   
   significance realized belatedly. The book unwittingly came to light when   
   a Chinese monk clearing sand from a Buddhist meditation cave in 1900   
   noticed a crack in a wall. It suggested the outline of a doorway.   
   Plastered over and painted, the entrance had been deliberately concealed.   
      
   The monk, Abbot Wang Yuanlu, broke in and discovered a small chamber,   
   about nine feet square and full from floor to ceiling with scrolls. They   
   had been hidden and perfectly preserved in the dark, dry grotto for   
   1,000 years. Although he didn't know it, among the nearly 60,000 scrolls   
   was the Diamond Sutra of 868 A.D., a woodblock printed scroll, more than   
   16 feet long, complete and dated, with an instruction that it be given   
   away for free.   
      
   Ironically, this enduring scroll, with its illustrated frontispiece   
   depicting the Buddha teaching his disciples, is about impermanence. The   
   Diamond Sutra, for centuries a revered and popular scripture, distils   
   Buddhism's central belief: that all is change.   
      
   Unable to interest authorities in his find, Abbot Wang was ordered to   
   seal the chamber. But rumor of the discovery had reached the nearby   
   oasis when Hungarian-British explorer Aurel Stein arrived in 1907.   
      
   Stein had heard of the Caves of Thousand Buddhas, a network of 500   
   sacred painted caves hand-carved into a cliff just outside Dunhuang in   
   remote Gansu province. They were a reason he embarked on a dangerous and   
   secret expedition that saw him travel overland from India, through   
   Pakistan and Afghanistan and into western China.   
      
   He wanted to follow the route by which Buddhism migrated from its   
   birthplace in the Himalayan foothills and into China. It traveled along   
   the Silk Road, the ancient trade route that conveyed not just goods but   
   ideas. And none was more influential than Buddhism.   
      
   Stein wanted to follow the footsteps of his "patron saint," a   
   seventh-century Buddhist monk named Xuanzang, who made an epic journey   
   from China to India and back in search of Buddhist scrolls. Over   
   centuries, his exploits have morphed into myth, including in the cult   
   television series "Monkey." But Xuanzang penned a true account of his   
   journey, one scholars still consult, and which Stein carried in his   
   saddle bags.   
      
   When he went in search of the caves' guardian, Stein learned that Wang   
   too revered the ancient Chinese pilgrim. Nonetheless, the abbot was   
   reluctant to open the cave to Stein. But he did allow Stein a furtive   
   look at a few scrolls overnight. Stein's Chinese translator realized   
   that some were versions of Buddhist texts translated by the   
   scholar-pilgrim Xuanzang.   
      
   It was an astonishing -- and convenient -- coincidence. Surely from   
   beyond the grave Xuanzang wanted the cave opened to a disciple from   
   distant India? Stein dropped the "quasi divine hint." Within hours,   
   Stein stood within the cave in astonishment. "Heaped up in layers, but   
   without any order, there appeared in the dim light of the priest's   
   little lamp a solid mass of manuscript bundles rising to a height of   
   nearly ten feet," he later wrote.   
      
   Most of the scrolls were Chinese Buddhists texts, but there were also   
   Tibetan Buddhist documents. Others were Nestorian and Manichaean texts,   
   and there was even a fragment in Hebrew. The range of documents suggest   
   that this Silk Road oasis was once a great cultural and religious   
   crossroads.   
      
   Stein had little idea of what was in the 5,000 scrolls he bought from   
   Wang for £130. He had no time to examine the documents properly, nor did   
   he understand Chinese. And Stein's Chinese translator knew little about   
   Buddhism. The fact that the Diamond Sutra was somewhere among the many   
   bundles was simply an accident.   
      
   Stein, born 150 years ago this year, took the Diamond Sutra and the   
   other scrolls to India and on to London, where they are now in the   
   British Library. But the significance of the Diamond Sutra of 868 A.D.   
   took years to sink in. When the usually meticulous Stein first referred   
   to it in his book about his expedition, published 1911, he recorded its   
   date wrong. Stein's great rival, Frenchman Paul Pelliot, appears to have   
   spotted its significance when he studied the scroll a few years later.   
   The Diamond Sutra was displayed in the British Library at one stage near   
   a Gutenberg Bible -- with the latter labeled as the world's earliest   
   printed book.   
      
   The Diamond Sutra, now recognized as one of the world's great literary   
   jewels, has recently undergone conservation. Too fragile to go on   
   permanent display, it can be viewed online in greater detail than   
   peering through a dark display case would allow. And there it can be   
   viewed for free -- just as initially intended.   
      
   4 Secrets of the Diamond Sutra   
      
        The Diamond Sutra distills Buddhism's central message that   
   everything changes. It describes our fleeting world as a bubble in a stream.   
        Jack Kerouac was so influenced by the Diamond Sutra that he studied   
   it daily for years and attempted his own rendition.   
        Brevity is one reason for the Diamond Sutra's popularity. It can be   
   recited in 40 minutes.   
        The Diamond Sutra of 868 A.D. is printed on paper, a material   
   unknown in the West for another couple centuries.   
      
   http://tinyurl.com/8jssjf4   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)