동아시아 불교 서사문화와 통일신라 사경

Abstract

Chinese Buddhist manuscript culture seems to maintain distinct stylistic features, which does not parallel to mainstream calligraphic movement. Calligraphic style of Buddhist manuscript in China was dominated by clerical script(隸書) from the end of East Han Dynasty to Southern and Northern dynasty period. However, the usage of regular script(楷書) becomes widespread in Sui and Tang dynasty. In other word, Buddhist manuscript culture was developed in its idiosyncratic atmosphere in which the ways for connecting strokes as well as stretching strokes was developed through repetitive practices. Unified Silla dynasty appears to accept Sui and Tang dynasty’s calligraphic style, but it is hard to say that Unified Silla dynasty Buddhist manuscript calligraphy also follows to the mainstream movement. Some Unified Silla dynasty’s Buddhist manuscripts and documents accommodated dual traditions: Sui and Tang dynasty manuscript elements and previous dynasty’s ones. In the early stage of Buddhism evangelization in China, it was required to produce many manuscripts to spread Buddhist doctrines. To deal with such demands, Buddhist scribes had to maintain a certain degree of maturity, by which they could write down text as fast as possible. In order to optimize brush strokes for every character, Buddhist scribes made initial strokes finer lines and tried not to extend the last strokes to the embellishment level, by which a Buddhist scribe had to pay the extra attention to render round shape of last strokes. Therefore, when we compare Buddhist manuscript’s calligraphic style with ordinary literati’s calligraphic style in those days, the former displays distinct features. A link among strokes becomes more definite, and the number of strokes in characters tends to be simplified and minimized. As a result, the overall appearance of Buddhist manuscript characters tended to embrace semi-cursive and cursive style of writing and then was developed to the stage, in which Buddhist scribes rendered variant characters. These characters are only shown in Buddhist manuscripts. We have noticed the various means were devised in Buddhist manuscript culture. However, the fundamental elements, characters to complete the contents of various texts, do not follow the development of such means but succeed the initial period’s calligraphic style.