About the Artwork
This manuscript — considered a physical embodiment of the Buddha's wisdom — is both an object of learning and one of devotion. Devotees study and recite its text, believed to be the Buddha's own words. The illustrations, which depict Buddhist deities and events from the Buddha's life, enhance the manuscript's sacred power. This page features two scenes from the life of the Buddha: On the left is his birth, when he emerged from his mother's side in a grove of trees at Lumbini. On the right is his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, when he reached one hand down to touch the earth, calling on her to witness the moment. The celestial buddha Amitabha sits at the center of the page. Hundreds of manuscripts like this one were produced in eastern India, an important hub for Buddhist scholars and pilgrims. At some point, a visiting devotee brought this manuscript to Nepal, where the covers were made centuries later.
Manuscript of the "Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses"
ca. 1160
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Indian
Indian
Ink and opaque watercolor on palm leaf
Overall: 2 1/8 × 17 7/8 inches (5.4 × 45.4 cm)
Manuscripts
Asian Art
Gift of P. Jackson Higgs
27.586.1A
This work is in the public domain.
Markings
Scribe Dharaka, from the town Ghoshaligrama
Colophon with donor inscription starts at the second line in the right-most section after the lotus design marker on folio 249, verso. Records manuscript's donation by a nun named Mahashribhadra in the seventeenth regnal year of king Madanapala (ca. 1160 CE). Also records name of scribe, Shri Dharaka of the town Ghoshaligrama. Postcolophon dated Nepal Samvat 807 (1687 CE), probably after restoration, records worship and suggests a re-donation or a re-dedication of the manuscript.
Provenance
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Suggest FeedbackPublished References
Lee, Sherman E. "A Manuscript and a Bronze from Nepal." Bulletin of the DIA 21, no. 8 (May 1942): pp. 66-70 (ill.).
Kim, Jinah. “Emptiness on Palm Leaf: A Twelfth-century Illustrated Manuscript of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā." Bulletin of the DIA 82, no. 1/2 (2008): pp. 76-91.
Kim, Jinah. “Unheard Voices: Women’s Roles in Medieval Buddhist Artistic Production and Religious Practices in South Asia.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 1 (March 2012): pp. 207-213.
Kim, Jinah. Receptacle of the Sacred: Illustrated Manuscripts and the Buddhist Book Cult. Berkeley, 2013, pp. 55-56, 67, 78, 86, 263.
Bisulca, Christina and Christopher Foster. “Perfection of Wisdom - a Spectroscopic and Microscopic Analysis of a Twelfth-Century Buddhist Sūtra.” Bulletin of the DIA 92, no. 1/4 (2018): pp. 68-71, 74-75 (figs. 1-2).
Kim, Jinah. Garland of Visions: Color, Tantra, and a Material History of Painting. Oakland, 2021, pp. 122-126, (ill. fig. 3.9) p. 124.
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Indian, Manuscript of the "Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses", ca. 1160, ink and opaque watercolor on palm leaf. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of P. Jackson Higgs, 27.586.1A.
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