Unlike the later folding book to the left, the first Japanese versions of the Kannon Chapter are handscrolls; this lively example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art may be the earliest to survive. Colorful images—such as this illustration of the Diamond Mountain episode—are interspersed with the text. As with the Prajnaparamita Sutra, producing such a lavish work would garner enormous merit. The vignette shown here illustrates a passage from the Lotus Sutra: “Suppose you are pursued by evil men who wish to throw you down from a diamond mountain. Think on the power of the Perceiver of Sounds and they cannot harm a hair of you!”