Collection Online as of September 27, 2023

Bottom cover, from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra)

Sunday, September 14, 1119 (year 239 of the Newar Samvat in the month of Ashvina)

Part of a set. See all set records

Eastern India, Bihar, Vikramashila Monastery. Painting: Nepal, Kathmandu

Gum tempera, paper, and colors on wood

Overall: 6.5 x 57 x 1.5 cm (2 9/16 x 22 7/16 x 9/16 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1938.301.189.b

Location

237 Himalayan

Fun Fact

Wooden covers helped to protect the fragile palm-leaf pages and keep the leaves compact.

Description

Palm-leaf manuscripts in the pothi format are recognizable by their long and horizontal shapes. In contrast to Western-style books that require one to turn the pages left-to-right or right-to-left, pothi are read by flipping the pages with a vertical motion. The palm-leaf pages would have been bound together by a cord attached to a peg that was run through the two binding holes on the top and bottom covers. The spot for the peg is still visible on the left side of this cover. When not in use, the manuscript would have been wrapped in ribbons and textiles that protected it from dust, moisture, and pests.

Provenance

?–1938

(Heeramaneck Galleries, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1938–

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Lee, Sherman E. Buddhist Art. Detroit Institute of Arts, Twenty-Fourth Loan Exhibition, October, 1942. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1942. Mentioned: cat. no. 24, p. 24; Reproduced: cat. no. 24, p. 47

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned: cat. no. 754 archive.org

Marcus, Margaret F. “Sculptures from Bihar and Bengal.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 54, no. 8, 1967, pp. 240–262. Mentioned: p. 253, fig. 11; Reproduced: p. 252 www.jstor.org

Exhibition history

Buddhist Art. Detroit Institute of Arts, Twenty-Fourth Loan Exhibition, October, 1942. Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (October 1942).

Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).