National Museum of KoreaYongsan-gu
Breaking the Seal of a Thousand Years: Buddhist Manuscripts from Dunhuang in the National Museum of Korea
Four Buddhist manuscripts from Dunhuang's Library Cave, bought by the Yi Royal Family Museum, shown with the results of the museum's 2025 research report. Central Asia Gallery.
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The oldest scroll here still carries its sponsor's prayer: in 593, under the Sui dynasty, a lay Buddhist paid for this Treatise on the Great Wisdom to be copied out by hand. It is one of four sutras the Yi Royal Family Museum bought in 1913, now shown together for the first time with a fifth from Seoul National University's Kyujanggak Institute.
All five came out of Cave 17 at Dunhuang, the "Library Cave", sealed in the 11th century with some 60,000 documents and found by accident in 1900. Beside the scrolls is a near-life-size rebuild of the cave, inside and out, made with the Dunhuang Academy. On the Sutra of the Heroic March you can count the scribe's 24 corrections across 5,470 characters.
It's in the Central Asia Gallery on the third floor of the free permanent galleries. The Kyujanggak scroll is the original only until 22 November, then a replica. The museum stays open until 9pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Look for
The Treatise on the Great Wisdom, chapter 12
Look for the dedication from 593 naming the lay Buddhist who commissioned it, in soft-stroked regular script on paper about 0.1 mm thick, dyed yellow.
The Sutra of the Heroic March, chapter 5
A complete 8th to 9th-century scroll of 5,470 characters with 24 spots where the scribe went back and fixed the copy; only Beijing and London hold other complete ones.
Two copies of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra
Chapter 136, copied under Tibetan rule in Dunhuang, hangs with the Kyujanggak's Tang-era chapter 50, so you can compare two hands of the same sutra.
The Sutra of the Names of the Buddhas
Three fragments that no longer join up, left from a scroll once about 13 metres long, made for chanting Buddhas' names to wash away sins.
The Library Cave rebuild
A near-life-size reconstruction of Cave 17, inside and out, the chamber where some 60,000 documents lay sealed until 1900.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want a big show: this is five scrolls and a cave reconstruction in one permanent gallery.
Also at National Museum of Korea
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Image credits
5
- FROM 1926 TO INFINITYCourtesy of National Hangeul Museum
- Sol LeWitt: Open StructureCourtesy of Amorepacific Museum of Art (APMA)
- National Museum of KoreaJinah78 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- War Memorial of KoreaAdbar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Amorepacific Museum of Art (APMA)kallerna / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0