The Zhu Niepan jing 注涅槃経in Hida Shūzan’s Collection

Abstract

Hida Shūzan飛田周山 （1877-1945） was a modern Japanese painter and a student of Okakura Tenshin 岡倉天心 （1862-1913）. Like Okakura, Hida also had an aesthetic eye and had a valuable collection of old Japanese manuscripts. The oldest in the collection are from the Nara period.

In an art magazine called Zokei Geijutu 造形芸術 published in 1940, Hida introduced his collection with photographs and commentary. The collection includes the Zhu Niepan jing 註涅槃経, but unfortunately there is no information about its author.

In this article, I examine the characteristics from the photograph of the Zhu Niepan jing in Hida’s collection, and reach the conclusion that there is a good possibility that this belongs to the series of the Tang prefectural govenor Wei Shen韋諗 （early 8th c.） copied in the Nara Tempyō period.