Pure Light Dharani Sutra

The Great Dharani Sutra
A replica of the Great Dharani Sutra
Hangul	무구정광대다라니경
Hanja	無垢淨光大陀羅尼經
Revised Romanization	Mugujeonggwang Daedaranigyeong
McCune–Reischauer	Mugujŏnggwang Taedaranigyŏng

The Great Dharani Sutra (Hangul: 무구정광대다라니경) is a copy of the Uṣṇīṣa Vijaya Dhāraṇī Sūtra, a scripture of Mahayana Buddhism, which is considered to be the oldest printed text in the world.

The Great Dharani Sutra was discovered in October 1966 while repairing Seokgatap (the three-storied pagoda) in Bulguksa. Joseph Needham assumed it was made between 684 and 704, but since the Dhāraṇī Sūtra was translated into Chinese from Sanskrit in 704, and Bulguksa was built in 751, it is assumed that it was built between the two periods, and is generally considered to be the oldest woodblock print in the world. The text contains Chinese characters of Empress Wu which were used only when the Tang Dynasty of China was ruling, so it is acknowledged to have been printed before Seokgatap was repaired. Pan Jixing argued that the Great Dharani Sutra was in made in Luoyang, the capital of the Tang dynasty. It is currently designated as National Treasure No. 126-6.

In 1966, a bundle of paper known as the "ink sheet (墨書紙片)" was found. This document was preserved in 1988–89, and in 1997–98 it was separated into 110 pages. It was interpreted in 2005 and 2007, and caused a controversy over the production age of the The Great Dharani Sutra.

One reason for building a tower is to encircle the sari. The sari is largely divided into the sinsari (the remains of the Buddha) and the bubsari (the scripture). The scripture which was largely prevalent in the Unified Silla period is the "Mugujeonggwang Daedaranigyeong (無垢淨光大陀羅尼經)" translated from China in 704. This scripture states that when building or repairing a tower, it is necessary to use 99 or 77 bundles of darani to put it in a small mud-tower and seal it in, which extends the life span and extinguishes all sins. In 706, the royal family of Shilla implemented the contents of this scripture in the memorial service for the king of the fleet, and in the sari locker to enter into the tower of Hwangbok for the temporal king. In other words, it depicts 99 small towers on the surface of the sari enclosure to bless the sari. After the 9th century, the expression of these small towers was established as a sari locker method that encircles 99 or 77 small towers containing Darani and spreads to the whole area of Unified Silla.