Help identifying/reading a 1987 Chinese calligraphy scroll — Buddhist monk’s signature & seals?
Hoping someone here can help me read and identify this Chinese calligraphy hanging scroll I picked up at an estate sale.
What I’ve worked out so far:
• It’s an original hand-brushed ink work on paper (not a print) — you can see flying-white dry-brush texture and ink soaked into the paper fibers.
• Traditional hanging-scroll format, roughly 72 x 18 inches overall.
• Composition is one large dominant character with a four-character phrase beside it, then a signature column.
• The date inscription appears to read 丁卯年, which I take to be 1987.
• The signature looks like a Buddhist monk’s — a dharma name beginning with 海 (Hai-…), associated with a temple named 佛…寺.
• Three hand-stamped vermilion seals: two name/studio seals by the signature (one intaglio/white-character, one relief/red-character) and a leading/mood seal (引首章) up near the big character.
What I’d love help with:
1. Reading the large character and the four-character phrase — what does it say?
2. The monk’s full dharma name (the second character after 海) and the temple name.
3. Reading the three seals.
4. Whether this calligrapher is known/collected, and any rough sense of value.
Photos attached: full scroll, signature column close-up, the two name seals, the leading seal, and a macro of the brushwork. Happy to add more shots or measurements. Thanks so much!
Posted Jun 6, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC