Nine illustrated folios from a Gandavyuha-sutra manuscript
Not on view
These illustrated palm-leaf folios are among the finest known twelfth-century Buddhist manuscript paintings. They are from the only known illustrated Sanskrit edition of the Gandavyuha Sutra, a Mahayanist visionary text illuminating the pathway to a Buddhist paradise. It describes the legend of Sudhana, the youthful son of a wealthy merchant, who undertakes a pilgrimage in his quest for enlightenment. On his journey he receives spiritual instruction from a succession of fifty-three teachers, twenty of whom were women. Each imparted to him a bodhisattva quality, leading to his spiritual awakening. These wondrous miniature paintings evoke the haunting solitude and blissful joy experienced by the youth in his arduous quest for spiritual awakening.
