The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 19, 2026

A horizontally oriented manuscript page features Gujarati script in black and red ink breaking around a red circle in the center and is flanked by two more red circles. Left of the central circle, an illustration cuts across the page with a red background and blue and gold detailing depicting a stylized person colored gold and wearing dot and cross-hatch patterned clothes as they look down at an also gold baby in the crook of their arm.

Birth of Mahavira, folio 30 (verso), from a Kalpa-sutra

c. 1475–1500

Western India, Gujarat

Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
Overall: 11.3 x 26 cm (4 7/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
Edward L. Whittemore Fund 1932.119.30.b
Location: Not on view

Description

Accounts of the lives of liberated beings of the Jain religion are illuminated with special emphasis on the miraculous circumstances leading to the birth of its historical founder Mahavira (500s BCE). For Jains, liberated beings are not reborn after they die; they exist eternally in a blissful meditative state.

After a divinity miraculously implanted the embryo of Mahavira into the womb of Queen Trishala, she dreamed of 14 good omens. Later in the manuscript is an intimate moment between the mother and her special newborn. The bold and costly palette lends the paintings an otherworldly quality.
  • ?–1932
    (Heeramaneck Galleries, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1932–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Creation, Birth, and Rebirth. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17, 2024-July 16, 2025).
  • {{cite web|title=Birth of Mahavira, folio 30 (verso), from a Kalpa-sutra|url=false|author=|year=c. 1475–1500|access-date=19 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1932.119.30.b