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Ratnasambhava, Akshobhya, Vairochana with attendants, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi, Top cover, 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)

Medium: Covers: Gum tempera, colors, and paper on wood; pages: gum tempera and ink on palm leaves
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: Covers overall: 6.5 x 57 x 1.5 cm (2 9/16 x 22 7/16 x 9/16 in.)
Culture: Eastern India, Bihar, Vikramashila Monastery. Paintings: Nepal, Kathmandu
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Credit line: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
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

About this work

The inner side of the top cover is fully painted with images of the Five Cosmic Buddhas of Esoteric Buddhism. Each one has a different color, meaningful hand gesture, and is associated with a spatial direction. In the center is the white Vairochana holding his hands in the enlightenment mudra. On either side of the binding holes are the other four Cosmic Buddhas Akshobyha (blue, earth-touching mudra, east) and Amitabha (red, meditation mudra, west), and on the ends are Ratnasambhava (gold, gift-giving mudra, south) and Amoghasiddhi (green, fear-not mudra, north). The top side is covered with ritual materials indicating that this book was once an object of worship.