Abstract
This article examines the paintings on the five surviving illuminated palm-leaf folios and the interiors of the two wooden covers of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s almost complete Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, or the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra, from the early twelfth century (CMA, Acc. No. 1938.301). Earlier scholarship on the CMA manuscript has overlooked the importance of the first folio, which depicts centrally a female personification of the Prajñāpāramitā text itself. Focusing on the details of the image and comparing it to the other instances of the figure in the manuscript, I argue that the golden image of Prajñāpāramitā on folio 1v serves as the core self-referential icon of the manuscript, alluding to not only the content of the text itself, but also to the very manuscript the image resides in. This essay shows the ways in which South Asian palm-leaf manuscripts can be understood from the purview of materiality, already well established in the scholarship of western European medieval parchment manuscripts.
Highlights
The manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, or the As..tasāhasrikāPrajñāpāramitā-sūtra, of the Cleveland Museum of Art
Prajñāpāramitā are placed at the beginning, middle, and end of the manuscript (Figure 3)
On the first folio, which is the only instance of Prajñāpāramitā appearing as gold and not red in the manuscript, her skin tone imitates that of the actual palm leaf she is depicted on and for which she is the visual shorthand
Summary
The manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, or the As..tasāhasrikā. Wears a bejeweled crown, crown, large barely visible—flutter fromher her crown crown, largehooped hoopedearrings, earrings,and and striped striped ribbons— barely visible—flutter from crown large hooped earrings, and striped ribbons— barely visible—flutter from her crown down around down around her arms Prajñāpāramitā holds in her upper left hand the light-colored palm-leaf down around her arms. The Sanskrit text is written in the formal scriptura continua, known as rañjanā, which was current in northeastern and twelfth continua, centuries,known on 188as narrow In this as rañjanā, manuscript, the Sanskrit India text isduring writtenthe in eleventh the formal scriptura rañjanā, rectangular palm-leaf folios held together between two wooden covers. The CMA’s Prajñāpāramitā is a testament to the cross-cultural interactions and diverse networks of Buddhist patronage in India and Nepal in the twelfth century (Kim 2015, p. 58; Pal 1978, p. 32; Pal 1985, pp. 38–39)
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