ABSTRACT
Various renditions of the Yongle Northern Canon, a court-sanctioned Buddhist canon sponsored by rulers in the Ming and Qing, are preserved in such places as the Yangxian Museum in Shaanxi Province, the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, and Yunju Temple (雲居寺) in Beijing. This paper examines the donors who sponsored the printing of these Yongle Northern Canon editions in three parts: (1) an introduction to the Yongle Northern Canon and the discrepancies among its numerous versions; (2) a consideration of the canon’s donors; as well as (3) an investigation of the zoushi paizi 奏事牌子 and their involvement in the dissemination of the canon.
