Text, Folio 5 (recto), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra)

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Byzantine icon painting Classical Antiquity Religious

Dominant colour

Text, Folio 5 (recto), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra) is a 14 unspecified by Unknown, a Byzantine icon painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 14 · Byzantine icon painting
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see a small, hand-painted page from an old book, filled with neat rows of black text and a bright red border. Tiny figures sit in the margins, dressed in robes, holding books or teaching. This page is part of a Buddhist manuscript written in 1119—over 900 years ago. Scribes in a monastery in India copied sacred words by hand, while artists in Nepal added the decorations. It traveled between countries, carried by monks who valued its wisdom. To see more pages like this, look up The Cleveland Museum of Art.

The story of this work

Overview

This manuscript, consisting of 188 double-sided folios, was calligraphed by a scribe at a monastery in northeastern India, commissioned by a monk from Nepal.

Read the full account in the museum source.