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The Lion's Cave with Sthulabhadra and His Sisters, Folio 60 (verso), from a Kalpa-sutra
c. 1450
- 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
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This manuscript is open to a page with a painting that depicts the story of a Jain monk who transformed himself into a composite beast when his sisters, two nuns, came to visit him. Terrified, the nuns ran to a senior monk, at the lower left, who admonished their brother for his overly prideful display of power. Remarkably, this story is not told in the text itself, which contains only their names among a list of prominent Jain teachers. The painting would remind a reader of the story that is found in many commentaries to the text.
