• Pañcarakṣā sūtra (Sūtra of the five protectresses)
  

Contributor:

• Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Indic Manuscript no. 31.

Publisher:

• [Nepal], [1140?]

Extent:

• 109 leaves : paper, illustrations ; 76 x 406 mm.

Format:

• Manuscript
• Book

Description:

• Ms.
• Layout: 6 lines.
• Description: Written in gold on heavy blue-black paper. Likely missing folio 109, 5th miniature and colophon.
• Decoration: 4 colored miniatures. (64 x 76 mm).

Binding note:

• Wood covers covered in gilded metal with raised foliate design. Metal pegs through lateral holes. Leaves stacked in the pothi format.

Subject:

• Buddhist goddesses—Early works to 1800
• Manuscripts, Sanskrit—New Jersey—Princeton
• Wooden boards
• illuminated manuscripts
• illuminations (paintings)
• Colored papers

Provenance:

• Deposit no. 9056. Garrett. Purchased from Luzac in 1929.

Former owner:

• Garrett, Robert, 1875-1961

Edm rights:

• Copyright Not Evaluated

View in catalog:

• https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99130898957006421

Curator's notes:

• Sanskrit, in Rañjanā script
  Nepal, 1140, paper

  By the end of the first millennium CE, manuscripts of the Pañcarakṣā sūtra, a treatise on five protective goddesses, became popular in India and Nepal. At the same time, paper making arrived in Nepal from China. Most spectacular are manuscripts written with gold or silver on blue-black paper, a color combination also present as a luxurious combination elsewhere, from Qur’āns to Buddhist scrolls. The work shown here may very well be the oldest such Nepalese paper manuscript still in existence.

  Gift of Robert Garrett, Class of 1897, 1942
  Princeton Indic Manuscripts IM 31

  For further reading

  Kim, Jinah. “A book of Buddhist goddesses: illustrated manuscripts of the Pañcarakṣā sutra and their ritual use.” Artibus Asiae 70, no. 2 (2010): 259-329.

Exhibit category:

• The pothī tradition
• From palm leaves to loose paper bundles