Temple Banner with Pilgrimage Sites and Scenes from the Svayambhu-purana (Ancient Text of the Primordial Buddha)
Unknown Artist
1635
Medium
Gum tempera and gold on cotton
Dimensions
39 × 130.2 cm · painting: 41.7 × 132 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mrs. A. S. Ingalls
Accession Number
1954.788
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
During annual festival days in Kathmandu, horizontal cloth banners are hung on courtyard walls in Buddhist monasteries, where monks and lay people gather to watch ceremonial performances. Exposed to the elements and crowds of people, such banners rarely survive intact. This piece is a fragment of probably half of a complete banner. The paintings illustrate a story from a Nepalese text about the primordial Buddha named Svayambhu, meaning “self-created,” whose stupa, the white hemispherical monume...