Text, Folio 46 (verso), from a Kalpa-sutra
1500
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1500
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Text, Folio 46 (verso), from a Kalpa-sutra is a 1500 unspecified by Unknown, a Mughal Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a blue figure standing still in rising water, cobras coiled around him like a living umbrella. This is Parshva, a spiritual teacher from Jain stories. The snakes protected him so he could finish meditating, even as the flood rose to his shoulders. The gold lines on the blue background show the water level—simple but powerful. To see more paintings like this, look up *western india, gujarat, late 15th-early 16th century*.
Parshva stands in a yogic posture of meditation, bearing the hardship of the elements, unmoved. When stormwaters threatened his life, serpents shielded him so that he could complete his meditations and reach liberation. One cobra stretched his seven-hooded canopy over his head like an umbrella, while a serpent king and his wife praise him. The abstract gold lines on the blue background represent the waters that rose to the level of his shoulders. In this painting, the image of Parshva wears a white lower garment, which indicates that this manuscript was made for the prominent branch of…
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