Xian jie qian fo hao ("One Thousand Buddhas from the Bhadrakalpa Sutra").

[Likely Beijing: no stated publisher,, 1774]. One polity, many languages First edition of this unusual quintilingual work exhibiting the artistic skill of Chinese woodblock carvers. Compiled by the personal Buddhist tutor to the Qianlong emperor – China's Louis XIV – it lists slightly over 1,000 buddhas destined to appear in the present Buddhist aeon. We have traced just three institutional copies. Print was a vital vehicle for spreading Buddhist thought throughout the multicultural Qing empire. This compilation, based on the Bhadrakalpa Sutra, served as an invaluable scholarly and devotional reference for practising and aspiring Buddhists, as well as for those charged with producing religious commentaries. It begins with Kakusandha, an esteemed buddha of antiquity, and lists four names per page, with the five different languages (Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Sanskrit phoneticized in Tibetan) arranged vertically. The compilation process was led by the senior court figure Changkya Rölpé Dorjé (1717–1786), Qianlong's principal Buddhist advisor, who also oversaw the translation of the Tibetan Buddhist canon into Mongolian and Manchu. The Bhadrakalpa Sutra is a key text in Mahayana Buddhism. Without it, the names of many buddhas would otherwise have been lost. The text was first translated into Chinese by Dharmaraska (c.233–310), one of the most significant scholarly influences on the growth of Buddhism in East Asia. China's Qing emperors presided over an ethnically heterogeneous empire which continued to expand in the early 18th century with the conquest of Tibet in 1720. Buddhism enjoyed significant state support; for example, Qianlong (1735–1796) commissioned paintings depicting him in the form of a Buddhist in an advanced stage of enlightenment. Provenance: several ownership seals of Taijun Inokuchi (1922–2018), a leading Japanese scholar of Buddhism at Kyoto's Ryukoku University, with his manuscript cataloguing notes on a sheet of personalized notepaper affixed to the lower flap of the folding case. In 1989, he published a preliminary catalogue of the famous manuscripts unearthed by Paul Pelliot at Dunhuang (now housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) which have revolutionized scholarly understanding of Buddhism. Volume I contains in-text numerical annotations in red pencil most likely by Inokuchi. This copy then passed to a private collector in the UK. Copies can be found in the Library of Congress, Harvard, and the Austrian National Library. Two volumes, quarto (270 x 200 mm). Original brown paper wrappers, recently renewed xianzhuang stitching, front covers with original quadrilingual xylographic title labels. Housed in 19th-century custom blue cloth folding case, bone toggles. Wrappers with some chips and nicks as well as a few small closed tears, one sometime repaired by pasting vol. II front wrapper to first blank at head, moderate foxing and browning internally. A very good copy in the like case.