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REPRESENTING THE PERFECTION OF WISDOM, EMBODYING THE HOLY SITES

The images in an illustrated manuscript of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā sūtra (AsP) do not seem to be related to the text at all at first glance. Eight panels out of twelve painted panels in the illustrated manuscript of the AsP now in the Asia Society, New York, depict the eight scenes from the Buddha’s life (see fig. 2–1), whereas the accompanying text does not narrate the stories from the Buddha’s life. Even more challenging to understand is the inclusion of a number of images that are identified by captions as specific images of specific localities, as seen in the Nepalese AsP manuscript now in the Cambridge University Library (Ms B1, W-diagram 3–3), when these sites and images are not mentioned in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra. The reason behind the choice of these specific types of images at first seems to be purely instrumental: the chosen images were perfect for accruing religious merits (puṇya), one of the most important purposes of religious donations in Mahāyāna Buddhist context. Their systematic placement in a manuscript calls for further investigation regarding the religious and art historical significance of the images in Buddhist book production. These images also provide excellent art historical evidence for studying Buddhist iconography as it was understood and realized in the eleventh century. For example, a caption accompanying the image of the Goddess Cundā on folio 188r of Ms B1 reads “lāhṭadeśevunkaranagarecundā,” or “Cundā in Buṅkaranagara in Lahṭa country,” and the panel represents a four-armed goddess seated with a bowl on her lap, holding a rosary and a manuscript (see fig. 3–5). The surrounding elements, such as four nonmonastic devotees who look like wandering ascetics, a bull, three small shrine structures, an elephant, and a monk (or Buddha), indicate the specific locality of Buṅkaranagara in Lahṭa. In fact, these manuscripts have often been used as source books for iconographic studies since Alfred Foucher’s pioneering study in 1900.¹ But this art historical approach often discounts the fact that the manuscripts were made as sacred objects of worship in the context of the Buddhist book cult. When we consider these images in the context of a three-dimensional object, a book, as I propose to do in this study, we can appreciate their art historical and religious value more fully. I believe these images help us understand the process and the rationale behind the construction of Buddhist sacred objects in the medieval South Asian historical context. As we open the manuscripts and enter into their visual worlds, let us examine the roles of images in constructing a book as a cultic object par excellence of the time.

PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT

The text of the AsP does not tell us about the Buddha’s life stories, yet the main subject matter of the manuscript paintings is the Buddha’s life scenes, as seen in Group A manuscripts.² When we probe the relationship between the text and the images in the AsP manuscripts, they are not as unrelated as they first appear. One of the main goals of the text is to explain the importance of the Prajñāpāramitā as the root cause of the Buddha’s enlightenment. In chapter 3 of the AsP, the Buddha equates the spot of earth on which Prajñāpāramitā is placed with the seat of enlightenment, that is, vajrāsana at Bodhgayā.

Further, where this perfection of wisdom has been written down in a book, and has been put up and worshipped, where it has been taken up, etc., there men and ghosts can do no harm, except as a punishment for past deeds. This is another advantage even here and now.

Just, Kausika, as those men and ghosts who have gone to the terrace of enlightenment, or to its neighbourhood, or its interior, or to the foot of the tree of enlightenment, cannot be hurt by men or ghosts, or be injured by them, or taken possession of, even with the help of evil animal beings, except as a punishment for former deeds. Because in it the past, future and present Tathagatas win their enlightenment, they who promote in all beings and who reveal to them fearlessness, lack of hostility, lack of fright. Just so, Kausika, the place in which one takes up, etc., this perfection of wisdom, in it cannot be hurt by men or ghosts. Because this perfection of wisdom makes the spot of earth where it is into a true shrine for beings, — worthy of being worshipped and adored—, into a shelter for beings who come to it, a refuge, a place of rest and final relief.³

What Edward Conze translates in this passage as “the terrace of enlightenment,” bodhimaṇḍa in Sanskrit, refers to the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment, that is, Bodhgayā. The spot of earth where the book of the AsP is located (sa pṛthivīpradeśa) is equated to “not just a caitya, but with the bodhimaṇḍda,” in its power, firmly established as the mahā-caitya by the eleventh century when the illustrated manuscripts were made.⁴ The predominance of Pāla-period life-scene steles privileging the Māravijaya (the Buddha’s enlightenment, lit. “the Buddha’s victory over Māra”) scene suggests the status of Bodhgayā as the mahā-caitya;⁵ so does the popularity of Bodhgayā as a pilgrimage site where numerous votive objects datable to the periods between the eighth and the twelfth centuries were found.⁶

The text of the AsP further explains the relationship between enlightenment and the Prajñāpāramitā. In chapter 4, the Buddha asks Indra which one he would choose, tathāgata relics or a written copy of the Prajñāpāramitā, upon which Indra answers:

Just this perfection of wisdom [Prajñāpāramitā]. Because of my esteem for the Guide of the Tathāgatas. Because in a true sense this is the body of the Tathāgatas. As the Lord has said: “The Dharma-bodies are the Buddhas, my body. Monks, you should see Me from the accomplishment of the Dharma-body.” But that Tathāgata-body should be seen as brought about by the reality-limit, i.e. by the perfection of wisdom. . . . As come forth from this perfection of wisdom are the relics of the Tathāgata worshipped, and therefore, when one worships just this perfection of wisdom, then also the worship of the relics of the Tathāgata is brought to fulfillment. For the relics of the Tathāgata have come forth from the perfection of wisdom. It is as with my own godly seat in Sudharmā, the hall of the Gods. When I am seated on it, the Gods come to wait on me. But when I am not, the Gods, out of respect for me, pay their respect to my seat, circumambulate it, and go away again. For they recall that, seated on this seat, Śakra, the Chief of Gods, demonstrates Dharma to the Gods of the Thirty-three. In the same way the perfection of wisdom is the real eminent cause and condition which feeds the all-knowledge of the Tathāgata.⁷

Here, it seems clear that the all-knowledge that leads tathāgatas to enlightenment originates from the Prajñāpāramitā: Prajñāpāramitā is the cause of enlightenment. The famous simile of Prajñāpāramitā as the mother of the Buddhas from chapter 12 explains this point further as the Buddha emphasizes that the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) is the root of enlightenment like a mother to her son. The iconographic program explicitly articulates this important causal relationship between Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddha’s enlightenment through a visual pairing between the Prajñāpāramitā deities and the Buddha’s life scenes.

The life scenes in illustrated manuscripts are often placed at the beginning and the end of the text on two facing folios, as seen in figure 3–1. The four scenes of the birth, the enlightenment, the first sermon, and the miracle appear on the first two folios of most Group A manuscripts, flanking central panels that often have Prajñāpāramitā deities (see fig. 2–1, web 2–1, W-diagram 3–1). The four scenes of the descent, the taming of the mad elephant, the monkey’s offering of honey, and the Parinirvāṇa are placed on the last two folios, mirroring the first four panels. The pairing of the first sermon and the miracle, and that of the descent and the taming of the mad elephant, suggest that compositional balance was one of the main principles governing their placement, sometimes superior to the chronological order of the events, as the first pair, that of the first sermon and the miracle, has the Buddha seated in a preaching gesture (see fig. 2–1, web 2–1) and the second pair, that of the descent and the taming, has the Buddha standing in action (see fig. 2–1, 3–4).

From the popularity of the life scene steles privileging the enlightenment, we may suggest that the Buddha’s life scenes collectively signify the Buddha’s enlightenment.⁸ That the focus of the program was to represent the Buddha’s enlightenment is also evident in our manuscripts, as the scene of the enlightenment is placed foremost in the sequence of the life scenes in Ms A1 and Ms A5 (see fig. 3–1, W-diagram 3–2). The makers of Ms A5 and Ms A6 placed the life scenes in the center of the manuscripts rather than in the outer layer (see W-diagram 3–2, fig. 3–3). As seen in figure 3–3, Ms A6 goes further with the theme of emphasizing the Buddha’s enlightenment and places the enlightenment panel in the structural center of the manuscript on folio 102r (see fig. 3–4), with two additional panels that depict two more events that happened at Bodhgayā, the Buddha’s meditation under Nāga Mucilinda (folio 207v) and the harassment of the goatherds (folio 208r), centrally aligned on the last two folios (see web 3–1).

FIGURE 3-1Ms A1: AsP, Mahīpāla’s 6th year (ca. 983 CE), Asiatic Society, Kolkata G.4713.

The systematic placement of these scenes in the side panels of Ms A1, Ms A2, Ms A3, and Ms A4 is designed to frame the central panels (see fig. 3–1). The central panels of the first two folios feature the Prajñāpāramitā deities, that is, the goddess Prajñāpāramitā and bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, a male personification of wisdom (Ms A2, Ms A3, Ms A4), or Amitābha and Prajñāpāramitā (Ms A1, Ms A7). Then, the iconographic program visually relates the Buddha’s enlightenment (represented by the Buddha’s life scenes) and the Prajñāpāramitā (represented by the Prajñāpāramitā deities and the text itself ) by putting them on the same plane of existence. The relationship between the Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddha’s enlightenment is central to the Buddhist book cult because it provides the foundation of the cult: a book of the Prajñāpāramitā is worthy of veneration because the Prajñāpāramitā is the root of one’s enlightenment. This fundamental reason for the worship of a book is illustrated on the body of a book through the Buddha’s life scenes and the Prajñāpāramitā deities.

It is also important to note that the text also emphasizes the “seat,” or a locus. In the above-cited passage from the AsP, Indra explains the worship of his own seat in Sudharmā. Just as Indra’s empty seat is worthy of worship as a symbol of his presence, the visual representations of the Buddha’s life sites are all worthy of worship. The painted panels of the life scenes physically and visually locate the mahā-caityas inside a book. The eight life scenes of the Buddha not only represent the eight great moments but also signify the eight pilgrimage sites where these events took place. If the life-scene steles are designed to invite a practitioner on a symbolic pilgrimage to the eight sacred sites,⁹ the Buddha’s life scenes systematically placed in a manuscript, too, invoke a mental journey to these sites materialized in the space of a book. One may go through these sites on a symbolic pilgrimage, the goal of which is achieving enlightenment. In addition, the eight narrative scenes stand for the eight great caityas of the eight major Buddhist pilgrimage sites¹⁰ (as in the Aṣṭamahāsthānacaitya stotra).¹¹ Since the eight life scenes collectively signify the Buddha’s enlightenment,¹² these illustrated panels visually transform a book into the site of enlightenment. If the mahācaityas were worshipped with great vigor because the Buddha was powerfully present, so were these books. The presence of the Buddha’s life scenes enhances the cultic status of a book: the book is to be worshipped following the well-known code of worship of the Buddha, by offering flowers, incense, perfumes, and others.

The AsP is well-known for its paradoxical rhetoric, later epitomized by one simple paradoxical phrase of “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”¹³ One of the main means employed to explain the philosophy of the Prajñāpāramitā is contradiction as exemplified by such sentences as “the perfection of wisdom is neither form nor other than form” or “the perfection of wisdom is neither feeling, perception, mental activities, consciousness, nor other than them.”¹⁴ Contradictions and negations are commonly used along with various similes as a didactical method to explain śūnyatā, or emptiness. This rhetorical strategy operates also at the meta level: two main themes of the text, emptiness and book cult, are contradictory, yet deeply interdependent. The text promotes its own cult and emphasizes the importance of worshipping the materiality of the book, when it also tries to show the ephemeral nature of the perceived world. The dichotomy between the two themes is not easily discernible in the text despite the abruptly inserted interpolations.¹⁵ Both the elaboration on the book cult and the discussion of emptiness are about the Perfection of Wisdom, and they are certainly interdependent in their didactic goals.

The paintings illustrate these two big themes of the AsP text: the Buddha’s life scenes illustrate the practice of the book cult, while the Prajñāpāramitā deities represent the doctrinal teaching. At the meta level of a book, the images could collectively stand for the practice of the book cult as explained in the text, while the written words of the Buddha stand for the doctrinal teaching. In other words, it is not that the images are not related to the text but that our common perception of the text–image relationship in the modern book illustrations has perhaps hindered us from seeing the obvious relationship between them in the context of the South Asian Buddhist book cult.

BOOK AS A STŪPA

The placement of the life scenes in the outer folios of a manuscript, that is, the first and the last two folios, as seen in Ms A1, Ms A2, Ms A3, and Ms A4, renders a book comparable to a votive stūpa with the life scenes. A votive stūpa at site 12 in Nālandā has eight niches with architectural frames containing the eight scenes from the Buddha’s life (fig. 3–2). If we consider the panels in the clockwise order from the birth panel, the order is this: the birth, the enlightenment, the taming of the elephant, the miracle, the gift of honey, the Parinirvāṇa, the descent, and the first sermon. If we understand their placement according to their cardinal positions, we can discern a clear logic behind this arrangement of the scenes. As Hiram Woodward suggests, the enlightenment and the Parinirvāṇa form the primary east–west axis, and the intermediate events are ordered according to a visual symmetry that “seems to smooth the practitioner’s inward digestion of the path” to enlightenment.¹⁶ The fact that each scene is given an equal weight makes our comparison to the manuscript illustrations more compelling. That the arrangement of the life scenes in a manuscript are almost identical to what we see on a stūpa also suggests that the text was truly taken as the relic of the Buddha, a book was in a way conceived as encasing a relic.

This is literally the case because the text on the first two folios of these manuscripts is not the text of the AsP. Almost all the AsP manuscripts from the period begin with the hymn to the goddess Prajñāpāramitā (Prajñāpāramitānāmastuti) composed by Nāgārjuna, and the actual text usually begins on the verso of the second folio with the famous phrase “evammaya śrutam,” or “thus I heard.” Likewise, the last two folios usually bear colophons, including the “ye dharma . . .” verse and the donor colophon. For example, in Ms A1, the last chapter of the AsP ends in the third line on folio 202 verso, and the rest of folio 202v and folio 203r are devoted to colophons. Despite the damage and loss on the final folio of Ms A2, it is possible to determine that the AsP text also ends on the verso of the penultimate folio, as in Ms A1. In Ms A3, the last folio of this manuscript has long been wrongly identified as a folio from a manuscript of the “Dharaṇīsaṅgraha (collection of dhāraṇīs),” because written on this folio is the Uṣṇiṣavijayā dhāraṇī along with the date and the donor colophon.¹⁷ Based on Eva Allinger’s recent study, which identifies two manuscript folios in a private collection as a part of this manuscript,¹⁸ we can safely confirm that the text of the AsP ends on the recto of folio 183. Here, too, the illustrated panels are next to the text of cultic importance, that is, a dhāraṇī and a donor colophon. Even when the text on the last illustrated folios reads that of the AsP, as in Ms A4, the final chapter of the AsP is cultic and practical in its character, since the Buddha emphasizes the merit of worshipping the Prajñāpāramitā one last time and transmits the teaching to Ānanda. The images placed on the last two folios, the life scenes and Avalokiteśvara (folio 299v center) and green Tārā (folio 300r center) in their boon-giving gestures, befit the text in their cultic signification (see fig. 2–1).

FIGURE 3-2Votive stūpa with eight life scenes, Site 12, Nālandā, ca. 9th–10th century (?).

If we rearrange the illustrated panel around the text of the AsP as seen in Web diagram 2–1, we see the idea of images encasing the text-relic more clearly. The Prajñāpāramitā deities can be taken as the visual manifestations of the relic, or the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā, and the life scenes of the Buddha surround this text-relic in a manner similar to what we see on a votive stūpa from Nālandā (see fig. 3–2). A number of votive stūpas from Nālandā have the eight life scenes of the Buddha evenly placed on the drum of a stūpa, suggesting the popularity of this iconographic program. In fact, the standardized pattern of placing the life scenes encasing the text probably originated from Nālandā in the late tenth to early eleventh centuries, as three manuscripts with the life scenes encasing the text (Ms A1, Ms A3, and Ms A4) were prepared in Nālandā.

ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE HEART OF THE PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ

Reading a Buddhist book as a reliquary or a stūpa may relegate the images on a superficial plane of existence in relation to the text. But placing illustrated panels on the outer folios of a manuscript was not the only mode of illustration devised during this period. The power of images and the materiality of a manuscript as a sacred object were important aspects that the medieval Buddhist manuscript makers took into consideration as they utilized the center space of a book. Some manuscripts have a pair of illustrated folios in the center, where chapter 11 ends and chapter 12 begins in the case of the AsP, in addition to the first and last two folios. In Ms A5, the Buddha’s life scenes are placed in the center of the manuscript on folios 101v and 102r, with the enlightenment panel and the Parinirvāṇa panel opening and closing this sequence on the second folio and the penultimate folio (folio 207v) respectively (see W-diagram 3–2). This innovative arrangement figuratively locates enlightenment in the heart of the Prajñāpāramitā: the Buddha’s enlightenment emerges from the letters of the Prajñāpāramitā.

Interlocking of the enlightenment and the Prajñāpāramitā is even more clearly demonstrated in Ms A6. The first two folios of the manuscript have six panels depicting the goddess Prajñāpāramitā (folio 2r, center) with five tathāgatas, or transcendental Buddhas, a surprisingly rare combination. As identified on figure 3–3, Ratnasambhava (yellow, varada mudrā), Aksobhya (blue, bhūmīsparśa mudrā), and Amitābha (red, dhyāna mudrā) occupy the three panels on folio 1 verso while Vairocana (white, dharmacakrapravartana mudrā) and Amoghasiddhi (now white but possibly once light green, abhaya mudrā) occupy the two side panels on folio 2 recto. Prajñāpāramitā shown with her characteristic preaching gesture with two lotuses on either side of her shoulders sits in the central panel of folio 2 recto facing Akṣobhya. The appearance of the five tathāgatas paired with the goddess Prajñāpāramitā is unusual in manuscript illustration and signals that we are in the world of Esoteric Buddhism, perhaps what Linrothe categorizes as Phase Two Esoteric Buddhism whose characteristics include the emergence of the five-family system. A few sādhana texts designate Aksobhya as her sire,¹⁹ while others have her wear a five-tathāgata crown (pañcatathāgatakuṭī). The goddess Prajñāpāramitā in this context, then, is the cognate mother of the five tathāgatas, if we employ the traditional understanding explained in the AsP, but there is an implied courtship with Akṣobhya as her spiritual consort, reflecting the basic tenets of Esoteric Buddhism that we will see in twelfth-century manuscripts belonging to Group D. The manuscript’s makers placed the Buddha’s life scenes in the heart of the manuscript, with the enlightenment panel in the very center on folio 102r (see fig. 3–4). Amplifying the importance of the enlightenment, two additional scenes related to the Buddha’s enlightenment at Bodhgayā are placed in the central panels of the last two folios (see fig. 3–3, web 3–1). The Prajñāpāramitā group (folios 1 and 2) and the life scene group (folios 101, 102, 207, and 208) exist in parallel but are connected through the teaching of the AsP that the Prajñāpāramitā is the root cause of enlightenment. In other words, the goddess connects the transcendental Buddhas (or five tathāgatas) with the historical Buddha and his enlightenment as a causal root of both. She encompasses time and space, and so does the teaching of the Prajñāpāramitā text. This arrangement shows how illustrations were strategically used to transform a manuscript of the fundamental Mahāyāna principles to fit the garb of the new religious environment, while remaining true to its core message.

FIGURE 3-3Ms A6: AsP, Vigrahapāla III’s reign (ca. 1043–1069 CE), Wellcome Library, London, Sansk ε 1.

FIGURE 3-4Buddha’s life scenes on folio 101v and folio 102r, AsP Ms (Ms A6), ca. mid 11th century, Vigrahapāla III’s reign (ca. 1043–1069 CE), Wellcome Library, Sansk ε 1.

MAHĀYĀNA CULTIC DEITIES AND THE CONSERVATISM OF THE BUDDHIST BOOK CULT

In addition to the Prajñāpāramitā deities and the Buddha’s life scenes, bodhisattvas and cultic deities form the third main component of the iconographic programs in Group A manuscripts. Mañjuśrī appears commonly as one of the Prajñāpāramitā deities, while Avalokiteśvara and Tārā claim their seats at the end of manuscripts responding to the donors’ desire to earn religious merits. Vasudhārā and Jambhala are also commonly seen right next to the donor colophons, reflecting the worldly benefits sought in donating these manuscripts, although the formulaic colophons are usually silent about them (Ms A5 and Ms A7).²⁰ Different forms of bodhisattvas in the illustrated AsP manuscripts reflect the doctrinal changes that occured following the development of Esoteric Buddhism in eastern India, but in Group A manuscripts their traditional Mahāyāna characteristics are clearly sustained, as bodhisattvas appear in more conservative forms. For example, Mañjuśrī in eleventh-century manuscripts is easily identifiable, as he is shown with a preaching gesture and holds a blue lotus sometimes with a book on top, as in Ms A1 (folio 202v center), Ms A2 (folio 2r center), Ms A3 (folio 2r center), Ms A4 (folio 2r center), and Ms A5 (folio 2r right). All the Mañjuśrī images in Group A manuscripts are represented as riding a lion.²¹ The Mañjuśrī panel in Ms A4 now in the Asia Society (see fig. 2–1), in particular, gives us a chance to examine the articulation of Esoteric Buddhist iconography in manuscript illustrations because this manuscript was originally prepared during Vigrahapāla’s reign in the mid-eleventh century and repaired in the mid-twelfth century. The Mañjuśrī panel belongs to this later period of repair.²²

The panel depicts a golden Mañjuśrī bedecked with ornaments and jewelry. He sits on a blue lion and displays the gesture of preaching while holding a blue lotus that shoots over his left shoulder (see web 3–2). On the left sits Sudhanakumāra kneeling in homage, and on the right sits Yamāntaka looking up to the bodhisattva. It is remarkable how closely the iconography of this panel resembles the description of the Mañjughoṣa form of the deity in the Sādhanamālā, a collection of sādhana texts that contain detailed instructions for rituals. One sādhana reads, “The worshipper should meditate himself as the deity Mañjughoṣa who rides a lion, and is of golden yellow color. He is decked in all ornaments, and his hands are engaged in forming the vyākhyāna mudrā [preaching gesture]. He displays the night lotus in his left, and bears the image of Akṣobhya on his crown. On his right there is Sudhanakumāra and on the left Yamāntaka.”²³ This description reads as if the author had our image in front of him. The propose compilation date of the Sādhanamālā in the early twelfth century is close to the date of this painting, and the image and the sādhana text naturally complement each other in providing a “period-eye.” The iconography of Yamāntaka suggests that this panel closely follows its eleventh-century predecessor because the iconography of Yamāntaka in this panel belongs to what Linrothe categorizes as Phase One wrathful deities.²⁴ Although Yamāntaka is in his wrathful form with big belly, blue-colored body, yellow-orange hair, tiger skin, and a staff, he is subservient to Mañjuśrī and his expression appears sweet, just like Sudhanakumāra’s. The flame that surrounds Yamāntaka is not intense red. Rather, it is painted a softened peach color, which suggests the subdued and subservient character of Yamāntaka in this panel. By the twelfth century, the wrathful deities in all their various manifestations were known in Nālandā, where this manuscript was restored with new paintings.²⁵ The restorers and the users of the manuscript in Nālandā were probably aware of the Phase Two type of Yamāntaka images with three heads and six arms, trampling a buffalo, since such image survives from Nālandā.²⁶ While this fascinating new iconography of Yamāntaka loomed in the image-making scene with a newly acquired independent status, the earlier form of the deity was still much entertained.²⁷ While highly developed systems of Esoteric Buddhist schools made their way vigorously into the visual culture of Nālandā, the earlier forms of deities were vigilantly sought after and constantly reintroduced, just like the continued popularity of the illustrated manuscripts of the Prajñāpāramitā. The Buddha’s enlightenment, the fundamental subject of both the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra and many Esoteric Buddhist texts, never went out of fashion, as it is the adamantine truth that Buddhist practitioners of all time uphold.

EMBODYING TĪRTHAS AND REPLICATING FAMOUS IMAGES

By mid-eleventh century, a standardized scheme for representing the Buddha’s life scenes in an AsP manuscript was established in eastern India, probably at a monastic center like Nālandā. The characteristic iconographic program of Group A manuscripts provided a basis for many manuscripts made in the following two centuries. In comparison to this controlled and systematized employment of images in Group A, the Group B manuscripts appear to have a random iconographic program. But if we understand the images in the context of a three-dimensional space of a book and employ the concept of four-dimensionality, that is, three-dimensional space plus time, taking into consideration the factor of movement, we can reckon the innovative strategies behind the iconographic programs of Group B manuscripts.

MOVING BEYOND THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL BOUNDARIES

The earliest Group B manuscript (Ms B1) now in the Cambridge University Library (Add. 1643) was initially prepared by Sujātabhadra at a monastery named Śrī Hlam in Nepal during the joint rule of Bhojadeva, Rudradeva, and Lakṣmīāmadeva in 1015 CE (NS 135).²⁸ A second colophon adds that it had fallen into the hands of nonbelievers; one Karuṇāpūrva-vajra saved the manuscript with piety in 1139 CE (NS 259) during the reign of Mānadeva (ca. 1137–1140 CE).²⁹ Ms B1 has eighty-five illustrated panels scattered throughout the manuscript. The illustrated folios are placed roughly at the end of each chapter, and each illustrated folio has two panels placed on either side, with a few exceptions (see W-diagram 3–3). Unlike any other illustrated manuscripts of the AsP, a few painted panels are placed in the middle of chapter 1 (folios 2v, 5v, 8v, and 13v) and in the middle of chapter 31 (folios 216v, 218v, and 220v). The illustrated folios of chapter 1 (folios 2v, 5v, 8v, 13v, and 14r) have single panels, whereas most other illustrated folios have two panels per folio. Yet a few folios (folios 120-b r, 127r, 222r, and 223v) have three panels per folio, and folio 224r, where the second donor colophon appears, has five panels on a single folio. Such inconsistency in the layout of illustrated panels makes it difficult to understand the governing iconographic principle, if any.