Page from a Manuscript of the Prajñapana Sutra (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
Produced nearly a century after the nearby manuscript, this text’s illustrations are comparatively more opulent, while also having lost some of the earlier work’s fluidity and playfulness. The use of more costly materials would have meant more spiritual merit for the text’s sponsor, who would have donated the book to a monastic community. Its illustrations shimmer with gold—also used for the ornamental lozenges that recall functional string-holes of an earlier era—and rich lapis blue has overtaken the popularity of earlier red grounds. Presented here in 167 folios, the Prajnapana Sutra is the fourth and longest of the twelve Upanga Agamas, a division of the Jain Shvetambara sect’s canonical literature. One of the twenty-four Jinas, the enlightened beings at the center of Jain religious teaching, sits on an elaborate throne, flanked by two adoring monks or donors. Jainism’s ashtamangala, or eight auspicious symbols, punctuate the illumination’s top and bottom registers.
Gift of Terence McInerney in honor of Dr. Joseph M. Dye, III
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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