Folio 20 from a Gandavyuha-sutra (Scripture of the Supreme Array): Sudhana and a parrot (recto); Text (verso) (1000–1100s): Art, History and Details

Folio 20 from a Gandavyuha-sutra (Scripture of the Supreme Array): Sudhana and a parrot (recto); Text (verso) (1000–1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A young male figure, probably the pilgrim Sudhana, sits on a cushion with a bolster and interacts with a parrot, perched on the trunk of a tree. Sudhana's gesture indicates that the bird should not be afraid. Most pages from this dispersed 355-folio manuscript have a single painting only on the recto side.

Object facts

• Title: Folio 20 from a Gandavyuha-sutra (Scripture of the Supreme Array): Sudhana and a parrot (recto); Text (verso)
• Date: 1000–1100s
• Culture: Nepal
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and ink on palm leaf
• Dimensions: Average: 4.2 x 52.4 cm (1 5/8 x 20 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1955.49.1

A detail from the museum

The pages would have been bound into the book by strings running through the two holes in the center of the pages.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.