Nine illustrated folios from a Gandavyuha-sutra manuscript
Not on view
These richly painted palm-leaf manuscript folios are from the only known illustrated South Asian edition of the Gandavyuha-sutra in its original Sanskrit form. The Mahayanist text illuminates the pathway to a Buddhist paradise. It describes the legend of Sudhana, a wealthy merchant’s youthful son, who undertakes a pilgrimage across the length of India in his quest for enlightenment. It recounts him receiving spiritual instruction from a succession of fifty-three spiritual teachers (kalyanamitra, "spiritual friends"), of whom twenty were women.
The paintings are among the finest examples of the Buddhist palm-leaf manuscript painting tradition, distinguished for their exceptional animation and sophisticated painterly modelling. Measuring only 2 x 2 1/2 inches, these illuminations are wondrous, elegant miniature works of art, variously evoking the haunting solitude and blissful joy experience by the young Sudhana in his quest for spiritual fulfilment. The paintings are uniquely important to our understanding of the beginnings of early Indic book illumination and to medieval painting in South Asia in general.
