Provenance:
Christian Humann (Pan-Asian Collection), 1974-1982
Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, New York, 1982-1993
European Private Collection
The Gandavyuha Sutra describes the legend of Sudhana’s pilgrimage, in which the young man travels widely in his quest for enlightenment through discourse with divine and mortal teachers before attaining the ultimate truth from Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom.[1] Episodes in the quest are delightfully illustrated in these Nepalese miniatures.
The manuscript is dispersed among a number of collections including six folios formerly in the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art[2], and four in the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society.[3]
The recto of each palm leaf page is divided into four sections of text around a central illumination and two binding holes.
1 Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Nepal, Los Angeles, 1985, p. 196
2 Ibid., pp. 195-197, cat. P3a, b, c, d, e, f
3 Denise Patry Leidy, Treasures of Asian Art: The Asia Society’s Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, New York, 1994, p. 69, pl. 52A, B, C, D
