Prajnaparamita flanked by two female figures, folio 1 (verso), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra) (Sunday, September 14, 1119 (ye

Prajnaparamita flanked by two female figures, folio 1 (verso), 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)) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In the center of the first folio, the personification of the texts found within the manuscript is shown as a crowned four-armed goddess holding a rosary, palm leaf, and giving a mudra, or symbolic hand gesture, indicating that she is in the process of teaching. The haloed Prajnaparamita’s golden skin tone and accoutrements showcase the image’s self-reflexive relationship to the light-colored palm leaf that was used to make this book. The text on this leaf is not the Perfection of Wisdom itself, but rather a preamble of praises to the goddess known as the Prajnaparamita-stotra of Rahula. These hymns would have continued onto folio 2 of the manuscript, which was unfortunately lost before the volume was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Object facts

• Title: Prajnaparamita flanked by two female figures, folio 1 (verso), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra)
• Date: Sunday, September 14, 1119 (year 239 of the Newar Samvat in the month of Ashvina)
• Culture: Eastern India, Bihar, Vikramashila Monastery. Painting: Nepal, Kathmandu
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on palm leaf
• Dimensions: Leaf: 5.4 x 54.3 cm (2 1/8 x 21 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Nepalese Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1938.301.1.b

A detail from the museum

Although barely visible now, delicate diaphanous scarves are draped around the arms of all three figures.

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.
• O’Mara, Reed. “‘On Golden Tablets’: The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Manuscript as a Self-Referential Icon.” Religions 11, no. 274 (2020): 1-19.

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.