@@@By analyzing the scriptural catalogues (jinglu) compiled at various
times in the course of Chinese history it is possible to understand how
gBuddhismh, as a collection of teaching and ideas, was being conceived
in the Chinese setting. The analysis of these lists of texts, then, has
first of all immediate consequences for the definition of the Buddhist
tradition in China. However, scriptural catalogues were not put together
out of bibliographic curiosity, nor were they only products of abstract
speculation on textual genres. On the contrary, they were quite often also
aimed at the correct production of a material object: the orthodox set
of scriptures that a monastery had to possess as a token of the transmission
of the teachings, and as one of the sacred implements that, together with
icons of many sorts, consituted important gphysicalh elements of the monastery
itself. This paper will provide an analysis of the scriptural catalogues
from this perspective, drawing from the existing scholarship on the subject
and collecting the relevant evidence from the primary sources available
to us. In this way, a reconstruction of this object will be attempted with
the aim of complementing recent studies on the material culture of Chinese
Buddhism.
@@@The historical timelimit for this attempt will be the medieval period,
when the canonical collection was still transmitted in manuscript form.
Fan Guangchang, the scholar who made the major contribution to the study
of these problems, called it "the age of manuscripts" to stress
the difference in the physical support of the Buddhist canon in this phase.
In fact, from this age starts a path that eventually led to the much expanded
collection that we know today, until the last canon fixation in 19th and
20th century Japan along lines established in period spanning from the
6th to the 10th century AD.
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