The Buddha Scroll

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 small—buddhas, bodhisattvas, arhats, devas, and historical figures; as well as over 2,000 images of other kinds—animals, 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.