Buddhist Manuscript (c. 1700): Art, History and Details

Buddhist Manuscript (c. 1700) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Palm leaf material is still used for manuscripts in Sri Lanka. The palm leaves are prepared first by boiling them, drying them in the sun, and then rubbing them with oils. Scribes then use a metal stylus to incise the text. Then charcoal powder is wiped across the pages, filling in only the inscribed lines.

Object facts

• Title: Buddhist Manuscript
• Date: c. 1700
• Culture: Sri Lanka
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: Covers: Gum tempera on wood; pages: charcoal on palm leaves
• Dimensions: Overall: 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Ceylonese Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1949.227

A detail from the museum

The text is written in Sinhalese script.

Collection credit

Educational Purchase Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.