The manuscript was preserved in Hōryū-ji since 609 AD. The manuscript itself dates from the first half of the 6th century[1].

Original caption:

"Facsimile of the two palm-leaves of Horiuzi, sent to Prof. Max Müller in 1880. Catal. of Japanese books and mss. in the Bodleian Library, No. 45."

The manuscript begins with the Heart Sūtra. From page 2, line 2 we find the Uṣnīṣavijaya Dhāraṇī. The last line is a complete Sanskrit syllabary in Siddhaṃ script - preceded by the word siddhaṃ and ending with llaṃ kṣa. Each texts begins with the auspiscious mark called yigmo in Tibetan, which is sometimes erroneously interpreted as oṃ.

The text of the Heart Sūtra on this ms. is extremely corrupt. It contains numerous errors and omissions (visargas and anusvāras, syllables, words, and one whole phrase) and one repetition of part of a phrase. The writing is poor and difficult to read in places. `This ms. is cited as a source by Dr Edward Conze in his critical edition of the Heart Sutra as J^a. Note that instead of namo bhagavatyai prajñāpāramitāyai, this text opens with the salutation: namas sarvajñāya.