Return to Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting
Description: Flame-emitting four-armed image of Kurukulla, an emanation of Amittabha Buddha and an aspect of the Red Tara, dancing on a corpse in a mountain grotto.
Description: Enshrined image of Bodhisattva Maitreya, with a stupa represented in his headdress, flanked by two white lotuses, preaching to a female devotee.
Description: Boon-bestowing Green Tara.
Description: Boon-bestowing bodhisattva.
This upper cover comes from a palm-leaf edition of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita. Seated at the center is Prajnaparamita, the Goddess of Transcendent Wisdom, and the personification of the text she holds in a raised hand. Two seated bodhisattvas, Padmapani Lokeshvara and Vajrasattva, attend to her. At the left are two scenes from the life of the historical Buddha: his miraculous birth in the Lumbini grove and the performance of a miracle—the subduing of the enraged elephant Nalagiri at Rajgir. At the right, the Buddha is shown preaching his first sermon at Sarnath to an assembly of monks and bodhisattvas and the great miracle at Shravasti, where the Buddha caused a multiplicity of Buddhas to appear. This manuscript cover belongs to the Pala-Nepalese tradition.
This pair of painted wooden manuscript covers shows a series of Buddhist deities seated on lotus thrones before aureoles, interspersed with cauri-fans hanging above and ritual utensils below. Above are nine bodhisattvas, with Manjushri at the center; below, Prajnaparamita is accompanied by six other Taras, flanked by two wrathful guardians.
This eight-armed goddess is in deep meditation seated in a yogic posture (sattvasana), enthroned on a lotus seat resting on a cloth draped lion throne. She holds an array of attributes, mostly the weapons employed in the Buddhist notion of "cutting away illusions." Her lower hands hold a vajra (ritual thunderbolt) and a rosary. Another lowered hand holds a palm-leaf manuscript (pustaka), an attribute most associated with the goddess Prajnaparamita. This deity is most likely Mahapratisara, the "great protectress," an emanation of Ratnasambhava. An inscription on the back provides a passage of Buddhist creed—probably a magical charm (dharani)—typically found on Pala-period Buddhist stele. A donor kneels before the lion throne.
Description: A bodhisattva in a mountain grotto, playing a stringed instrument (vina).
Description: Wrathful eight-armed and three-faced goddess Tara Marichi, an emanation from, and sakti of, Vairocana.