Text, folio 9 (verso) from a Kammavacha: Buddhist ordination text
Unknown Artist
1800s
Medium
Leaf: lacquer and gilding on cloth
Dimensions
12.8 × 56.1 cm
Classification
Manuscript
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Edward L. Whittemore Fund
Accession Number
1945.172.9.b
About this artwork
In premodern Burma, lay people commissioned lavishly ornamented manuscripts for ceremonial occasions, when officiants would read aloud from the text. Written in black lacquer, the text is in the language of Pali written in a Burmese script. It contains ordination rites and procedures for monastic ceremonies. The second to last page is covered with intricately drawn, winged celestial beings (nats) in gestures of praise. They fly amid intertwining vegetation—denoting bounty—that grows from serpent...