Protecting the Dharma through Calligraphy in Tang China: A Study of the Ji Wang shengjiao xu ????? The Preface to the Buddhist Scriptures Engraved on . (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series)

This is a study of the earliest and finest collated inscription in the history of Chinese calligraphy, the Ji Wang shengjiao xu 集王聖教序 (Preface to the Sacred Teaching Scriptures Translated by Xuanzang in Wang Xizhi’s Collated Characters), which was erected on January 1, 673. The stele records the two texts written by the Tang emperors Taizong (599–649) and Gaozong (628–683) in honor of the monk Xuanzang (d. 664) and the Buddhist scripture Xin jing (Heart Sutra), collated in the semi-cursive characters of the great master of Chinese calligraphy, Wang Xizhi (303–361). It is thus a Buddhist inscription that combines Buddhist authority, political power, and artistic charm in one single monument. The present book reconstructs the multifaceted context in which the stele was devised, aiming at highlighting the specific role calligraphy played in the propagation and protection of Buddhism in medieval China.

Pietro De Laurentis was born in southern Italy and studied Sinology at the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” where he received his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies in 2007. He was trained in Chinese philology and Chinese calligraphy, theoretical and practical, in Hangzhou, Tianjin, and Shanghai. From 2010 to 2016 he was Research Fellow at the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” where he taught Literary Chinese and Modern Chinese. He is currently chair professor at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.