Seven Leaves from a Manuscript of the Gandavyuha-sutra (Scripture of the Supreme Array) (1000s-1100s): Art, History and Details

Seven Leaves from a Manuscript of the Gandavyuha-sutra (Scripture of the Supreme Array) (1000s-1100s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

These pages come from a long horizontal book of 355 palm leaves, now dispersed among many collections. Featuring the pilgrim Sudhana on his quest to reach enlightenment, the text was especially influential in the spread of Buddhism to East Asia. These leaves are from the sole surviving illustrated manuscript of this text in its original language of Sanskrit.

Object facts

• Title: Seven Leaves from a Manuscript of the Gandavyuha-sutra (Scripture of the Supreme Array)
• Date: 1000s-1100s
• Culture: Nepal
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on palm leaves
• Dimensions: Overall: 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

A detail from the museum

Russian artist Svyatoslav Roerich (1904–1993) collected 144 pages of this manuscript in India.

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.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.