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Folio 40 from a Kalpa-sutra: Text (recto); Birth of Mahavira (verso)
c. 1400
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 9.4 x 28.4 cm (3 11/16 x 11 3/16 in.)
- Culture
- Western India, Gujarat
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Dr. Norman Zaworski
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This page describes the joyous and peaceful pregnancy of Queen Trishala, mother of the 24th Jina Mahavira, which lasted 9 months, 7-and-a-half days. It goes on to say that Mahavira was born at midnight on the 13th day of the first month of summer, and all omens augured success. The painting shows the happy mother nestling her infant on a swing.
