The Buddha Scroll

About this book

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 smallbuddhas bodhisattvas arhats devas and historical figures; as well as over 2 000 images of other kindsanimals 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.