The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2023

Manuscript of the Five Protections (Pancharaksha)

Thursday, August 2, 1117 (Year 39 of Ramapala, reign 1078/79–at least 1130)

Eastern India, Bihar or Bengal, possibly Sattar

Gum tempera, ink, and gold on 89 palm leaves

Overall: 5.7 x 54.6 cm (2 1/4 x 21 1/2 in.)

On Loan from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection 16.2014

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Seeing the painting of each goddess is as efficacious as reading the text.

Description

This manuscript consists of five separate texts, each personified by the figure of a Spell Queen. The texts contain protective spells along with ritual instructions and stories about how the Buddha taught the spells to his followers.

The colors of the figures correspond to those of a tantric Buddhist mandala, or diagram of space. White indicates the center, followed by green, red, yellow, and blue for north, west, south, and east, implying that the protections extend to all directions.

Inscriptions

Inscription

[[recto, line 4]] … || deyadharmo ‹’›yaṃ pravaramahāyānayāyinaḥ paramopāsakasādhukaiśrī[śrāva-s](u) [[recto, line 5]] tacintokasya yad=atra puṇyaṃ tad=bhavatv=ācāryopādhyāyamātāpi | || tṛ-pūrvaṃgamaṃ kṛ ○ tvā sakalasatvarāser=anuttarajñāna □ phalāvāpta‹ya› iti || || parame ○ śvaraparamabhaṭṭārakaparamasaugatamahārājādhirājaśrīmadrāmapāla-de(vapravardhamāna) verso, line 1 vijaya‹rā›jye samvat* 39 bhādradine 6 bṛhaspativāre titiyāyāṃ tithau «uttara-phālgu ○ nīnakṣatre» sattarme li ○ khiteyaṃ bhaṭṭārikā pañcarakṣeyaṃ lekhakaśrīvibhūtideveneti || ...

Inscription Translation

This is the religious gift of the follower of the excellent Mahayana, the best lay devotee Chintoka, the son of Shri Shrava...The merit [that arises] on this occasion may serve to the gain of the fruit of highest wisdom for the whole mass of beings, having placed first the teacher (acharya), preceptor (upadhyaya), mother, and father. This [text called] goddess Pancharaksha was written by the scribe Srhi Vibhutideva during the flourishing victorious reign of king Srimad Ramapala, the Supreme Lord, the Supreme Master, the Supreme Buddhist, the best King of Great Kings; in the year 39 [of his reign], on the sixth day of [the solar month of] Bhadra,Thursday, the third lunar day in the lunar mansion Uttaraphalguni, in [the village of] Sattar.

Inscription Remark

Colophon on Folio 89 recto, line 4 to Folio 89 verso, line 1. Transcription by Shin'ichiro Hori. The name of the donor is Chintoka, an Eastern Indian name.

Inscription

śrī-nīlīsālāyāṃ || śrī-saṃkharadevakārita, -śrī-sīhadevamahāvihāre vāstavyaḥ paṇḍita-śrī -pad-masenasy(a) <|>

Inscription Translation

In Shri Nilisala, [the possession] of the scholar Shri Padmasena, a resident of the great Simhadeva monastery, that was built by Shri Saṃkharadeva.

Inscription Remark

Nepalese post-colophon on Folio 89 verso. The manuscript was carried into Nepal where it entered the collection of a monastery called Simhadeva Mahavihara, possibly in Patan. Transcription and translation by Eva Allinger and Gudrun Melzer.

Provenance
1960s
Shirley M. Black, Nepal 1
1996–2009
(Sam Fogg, London, England, sold to the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection) 2
2009–
The Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection, Beverly Hills, CA

Provenance Footnotes

1 Shirley M. Black, "An Early Nepalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript," Oriental Art 13, no. 2 (1967): 107.
2 Eva Allinger and Gudrun Melzer, "A Pancaraksa Manuscript from Year 39 of the Reign of Ramapala," Artibus Asiae 70, no. 2 (2010): 387.
Citations
Black, Shirley M. "An Early Nepalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript." Oriental Art 13, no. 2 (1967): 107–112.
Fogg, Sam. Indian Paintings and Manuscripts, Catalogue 21 (London, 1999),6–7.
Fogg, Sam. Tibetan Manuscripts, Catalogue 22 (London, 2001), 22, 23.
Fogg, Sam. Dreams, Devotion, Romance, Catalogue 31 (London, 2006), 42.
Allinger, Eva, and Gudrun Melzer. "A Pancaraksa Manuscript from Year 39 of the Reign of Ramapala." Artibus Asiae 70, no. 2 (2010): 387– 414.
Kim, Jinah. "A Book of Buddhist Goddesses: Illustrated Manuscripts of the Pancaraksa Sutra and Their Ritual Use," Artibus Asiae 70, no. 2 (2010): 259–329.
Hori, Shin'ichirо̄. "On the Exact Date of the Pancaraksa Manuscript Copied in the Regnal Year 39 of Ramapala in the Catherine Glynn Benkaim Collection." Bulletin of the International Institute for Buddhist Studies 2 (2019): 51–56.
Mace, Sonya Rhie. “Clearing the Course: Folio 348 of the Nepalese Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra in the Cleveland Museum of Art.” Religions 2020, 11(4), 183. Reproduced: Fig. 11 doi.org
Exhibition history

Stories From Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).

Text and Image in Southern Asia​ (Indian Painting and Himalayan rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26, 2022-March 5, 2023).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/16.2014