Folio 1 (recto), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra) Eastern India, Bihar, Vikramashila Monastery. Paper: Nepal, Kathmandu

Folio 1 (recto), from a Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita-sutra)

Sunday, September 14, 1119 (year 239 of the Newar Samvat in the month of Ashvina)

Eastern India, Bihar, Vikramashila Monastery. Paper: Nepal, Kathmandu

Leaf: 5.4 x 54.3 cm (2 1/8 x 21 3/8 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1938.301.1.a

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Did You Know?

Yellow Nepalese paper functions as an insect-deterrent.

Description

Sometime between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Nepalese paper known as lokta, made from the bark of high-elevation evergreen shrubs, was pasted to the first folio of this manuscript in order to prevent the delicate palm-leaf page from further deteriorating. Mantra syllables of invocation are written hastily in black ink. Like the Nepalese numbers found throughout the rest of the manuscript, the yellow paper is another indication that the Manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines was held in a Nepalese monastery after being copied in eastern India.