Qisha zang 磧砂藏

Qìshā Canon 磧砂藏

A Buddhist canon that was reprinted as a 500-volume photographic reprint in Shànghǎi 上海 in 1935.

Compilation of the original version of this canon was likely begun in the Sòng 宋 Dynasty, in 1216, and completed by 1322, in the Yuán 元 Dynasty.^[1]

In 1929, Zhū Zǐqiáo 朱子橋 discovered a nearly complete edition of this canon in Xī'ān's 西安 Wòlóng 臥龍寺 and Kāiyuán Temples 開元寺. After this discovery he went to Shànghǎi, where, with the help of Dīng Fúbǎo 丁福保, Jiǎng Wéiqiáo 蔣維喬, Lǐ Jīngwěi 李經緯, and others, he established an organization to publish photoprint reproductions of that canon. This group dispatched the monk Fànchéng 範成 to search around Shānxī 山西 to find the rest of the canon. Fànchéng unearthed a Jīn 金 Dynasty edition at Guǎngshèng Temple 廣勝寺 in Zhàochéng County 趙城縣, which was used to fill in the missing pieces of the Sòng canon.

The reprint contains a preface written by Oūyáng Jiàn 歐陽漸.

Erik Hammerstrom

Notes:

1. ↑ 宋元版《磧砂藏》問題的研究(二)

References:

• Yú Língbō 于凌波, ed. Xiàndài Fójiào rénwù cídiǎn 現代佛教人物辭典 (A Dictionary of Modern Buddhist Persons), 2 vols. Taipei: Foguang, 2004. Pp. 1.337b-338a. (Within the entry for Zhū Zǐqiáo 朱子橋)