Image and Text in Newar Buddhist Ritual Manuals

Abstract

This article addresses the relationships between text and image in a group of Newar Buddhist manuscripts from Nepal. While these manuscripts all describe essentially the same ritual, a version of the ubiquitous Vajradhātu maṇḍala, they do so in widely varying ways, serving more as practitioners’ notes than as a meticulously copied sacred text. In this context, words and drawings are employed complementarily to communicate both visual and ritual information, neither complete in itself. While one might expect the images to be straightforward illustrations of visual aspects of the texts, some images perform ritual functions entirely outside the text, while some textual passages convey far more specific and useful visual information than the associated illustrations. Furthermore, both text and image have complex relationships with the meditative visualizations and ritual practices ostensibly performed via the manuscripts. In the end, the illustrations perform multiple functions, including the protection of the manuscript itself, practical instruction in the actions and visualizations of the ritual, and indexing key moments of the performance. These contrasting functions are not explicit, but they are marked by both formal differentiation in the illustrations and noticeably dissimilar relationships between the images and accompanying texts.