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Text, Folio 31 (verso), from a Kalpa-sutra
c. 1475–1500
- Medium
- Gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 12.5 x 25.7 cm (4 15/16 x 10 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Western India, Gujarat
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Edward L. Whittemore 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
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The large, seated figure in the center of the composition is Indra, king of the gods, who holds in his lap the infant Mahavira, founder of the Jain religion. Indra had taken him to Mount Meru, indicated by the jagged peaks at the bottom of the painting, for his first bath. Two priests flanking them hold vessels for the bath, and the two cows above indicate that the vessels are full of milk. The milk bath washed away all the impurities of the birth.
