The Guanyin Sutra at Dunhuang as Seen Through the British Library Collection

Mélodie Doumy’s presentation titled ‘The Guanyin Sutra at Dunhuang as Seen Through the British Library Collection’. This presentation was given on 16 December 2022 at the British Library conference 'The Lotus Sutra: The teachings, transmission and material culture of a sacred Buddhist text'. Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, The Universal Gate of Bodhisattva Guanyin, is entirely devoted to Avalokitesvara or Guanyin. It details, through a series of episodes, how the deity assumes thirty-three different incarnations to succour people facing challenging life situations and to bring them to spiritual salvation. Due to its popularity, this chapter was often singled out for copying and came to be regarded as an independent text known as the Guanyin Sutra. This talk provided an overview of the manuscripts of the Guanyin Sutra from Dunhuang in the Stein collection. It looked at their relative representation within the Library’s holdings compared to other chapters of the Lotus Sutra. It also explored several of their material characteristics, including formats, as well as some of the colophons that can be found on the scrolls, so as to understand what could have been the potential use and significance of the text for the people who wrote or commissioned it. Organised to celebrate the successful close of the Lotus Sutra Project (2017 – 2022), the conference brought together an international group of scholars and the Project team to present on the impact of the Lotus Sutra as a critical Buddhist text. The conference investigated the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, the Lotus Sutra as represented at Dunhuang, and the methodology and results of the Lotus Sutra Project, which has now conserved, digitised and published nearly 800 Lotus Sutra manuscripts in the British Library’s collections.