Cleveland Museum of Art

Folio 1 (recto), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra)

Date

Sunday, September 14, 1119 (year 239 of the Newar Samvat in the month of Ashvina)

Medium

Palm leaf backed with yellow paper

Culture

Eastern India, Bihar, Vikramashila Monastery. Paper: Nepal, Kathmandu

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Sometime between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Nepalese paper known as lokta , made from the bark of high-elevation evergreen shrubs, was pasted to the first folio of this manuscript in order to prevent the delicate palm-leaf page from further deteriorating. Mantra syllables of invocation are written hastily in black ink. Like the Nepalese numbers found throughout the rest of the manuscript, the yellow paper is another indication that the Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines was held in a Nepalese monastery after being copied in eastern India. Yellow Nepalese paper functions as an insect-deterrent.

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