Description

The paintings on this page illustrate the text describing the unusual circumstances of the early gestation of Mahavira. He had been conceived in the womb of a Brahman woman of the orthodox Hindu priest class, shown reclining twice on this page. In the upper register, a goat-headed divinity gently takes the golden embryo of Mahavira away in his raised hands. He had been sent by the king of the gods, who mandated that a teacher of the new religion be born of a queen. In the lower register, the divinity brings the queen’s embryo to the Brahman woman in exchange.