Preaching Amitabha with Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, folio 186 (verso), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra) (Sunday, September

Preaching Amitabha with Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, folio 186 (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:

The red Buddha Amitabha is seated under a tree on a throne in the middle of the upper page; two geese—his animal emblems—perch at the top on either side. A white and red bodhisattva are on either side. This manuscript, consisting of 188 double-sided folios, was calligraphed by a scribe at a monastery in northeastern India, commissioned by a monk from Nepal. Judging from the style of the paintings, they are the work of Nepalese artists.

Object facts

• Title: Preaching Amitabha with Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri, folio 186 (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: 5.5 x 54.6 cm (2 3/16 x 21 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Nepalese Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1938.301.186.b

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pal, Pratapaditya. The Arts of Nepal, Part II: Painting. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978.
• Hollis, Howard. "A Nepalese Manuscript." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 3 (March 1939): 31-33
• 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.