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Folio from an Ashtasahashirika Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) manuscript showing a Boon-bestowing Bodhisattva. India (West Bengal) or Bangladesh. Pala period, early 12th century. Opaque watercolor on palm-leaf; 2 3/4 x 16 1/2 in. (7 x 41.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2001 (2001.445 l).
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Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-Leaf Tradition
July 29, 2008–March 22, 2009
Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for the Arts of South and Southeast Asia, 3rd floor
This installation of thirty palm-leaf folios features some of the earliest surviving Indian illuminated manuscripts dating from the tenth to the thirteenth century. It centers on one remarkable Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra ("Perfection of Wisdom"), illustrated through the Museum's rare holdings of eastern Indian and Nepalese illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, book-covers, initiation cards, thankas, and sculptures.
Indian illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts from this period are extremely rare, and the few that survived did so outside India, principally in the monasteries of Tibet. The painting style in these earliest surviving manuscripts reflects stylistic conventions developed in Indian temple and monastic mural painting, now almost completely lost to us. Thus these manuscript paintings provide a unique insight into Indian painting styles at the close of the first millennium A.D.
Drawn from the Museum's own holdings of illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, the installation features many rarely seen works, including some that have never been exhibited.
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