The extraordinary visual impact of blood writings, their almost living, physical presence, offers us a vastly different experience of textual material than does other writing. Nowhere else in the world, except in East Asia, can we find manuscripts written in blood. While various materials have been used in the production of manuscripts, the unique artifact of “blood writing”, an East Asian practice of both Buddhist and secular circles, stands out as truly extraordinary. In an age when audio-visual information is produced and consumed on a mass basis, the hand-copied manuscript is a thing of the distant past. When we view these documents, when we experience their material presence and, at the same time, understand their extraordinary mode of production, we have a unique opportunity to appreciate the socioreligious significance of such texts in the premodern world of East Asia. However, Buddhist “blood writing” challenges these received notions of how meaning is communicated blood writings are far more than carriers of a message. We typically think of written text as a means to an end, an expression of ideas and knowledge that privilege the written word as the carrier of message, something to be read and understood. It also examines the extraordinary uses of blood in premodern times and how people have negotiated socioreligious relationships in their production of blood writings, which were seen as a product of meticulous, controlled ritual practice, an act of asceticism par excellence. This paper explores blood written texts, particularly Buddhist scriptures, as unique artifacts of sanctity.
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