The aim of this paper is to provide information on the Beihuajing 悲華経(Taishō Vol. 3, No. 157) scrolls in the Shōgozō Repository, which has been under the jurisdiction of The Office of the Shōsōin Treasure House (Imperial Household Agency, Japan).// The Beihuajing, translated by DharmakSema 曇無讖 in the early 5th century from the Sanskrit text Karuṇāpuṇḍarika, had circulated widely in the Heian and Kamakura periods in Japan. The Buddhists in those periods paid much attention, especially to Śākyamuni Buddha's 500 Vows contained in the Beihuajing. They also held in high regard the Shijiarulaiwubaidayuan 釈迦如来五百大願, which is an enlarged arranged version of the 500 Vows of the Beihuajing.// In the section of the 500 Vows in Beihuajing of the Shōgozō scrolls, we find that the numbers of the vows are written in red scripts on the right side margin of almost each line. The followings points have become clear when we compared these red scripts with the two complete manuscripts of the Shijiarulai-wubaidayuan, which are preserved at Kōzanji Temple in Kyoto and another related text, Shijiarulai-shi 釈迦如来釈, kept at the Tōdaiji Temple Library in Nara.// Firstly, the numbers of the vows written in red scripts in the Beihuajing of the Shōgozōscrolls correspond to the order of vows in the Shijiarulai-wubaidayuan. So we can deduce that the scribe who wrote the red scripts referred to one of the manuscripts of Shijiarulai-wubaidayuan.// Secondly, there are, however, some discrepancies between the numbers of the vows in red scripts found in the Shōgozō scrolls and those in the manuscripts of Shijiarulai-wubaidayuan, which are preserved in Kōzanji Temple. The scribe who wrote the red scripts must have consulted a manuscript of Shijiarulai-wubaidayuan, in which the vows are differently numbered. We can safely assume that there were several versions of Shijiarulai-wubaidayuan during that era.// Thirdly, some of Śākyamuni Buddha's 500 vows are cited with the numbers found in Shijiarulai-shi. We, thus, find that there is a close and interesting relation with regard to the numbers of the vows in red scripts between those of the Shōgozō scrolls and of Shijiarulai-shi.
