Receptacle of the Sacred. Jinah Kim

mid-eleventh century, a standardized scheme for representing the Buddha’s life scenes in an AsP manuscript was established in eastern India, probably at a monastic center like Nālandā. The characteristic iconographic program of Group A manuscripts provided a basis for many manuscripts made in the following two centuries. In comparison to this controlled and systematized employment of images in Group A, the Group B manuscripts appear to have a random iconographic program. But if we understand the images in the context of a three-dimensional space of a book and employ the concept of four-dimensionality, that is, three-dimensional space plus time, taking into consideration the factor of movement, we can reckon the innovative strategies behind the iconographic programs of Group B manuscripts.

      MOVING BEYOND THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL BOUNDARIES

      The earliest Group B manuscript (Ms B1) now in the Cambridge University Library (Add. 1643) was initially prepared by Sujātabhadra at a monastery named Śrī Hlam in Nepal during the joint rule of Bhojadeva, Rudradeva, and Lakṣmīāmadeva in 1015 CE (NS 135).²⁸ A second colophon adds that it had fallen into the hands of nonbelievers; one Karuṇāpūrva-vajra saved the manuscript with piety in 1139 CE (NS 259) during the reign of Mānadeva (ca. 1137–1140 CE).²⁹ Ms B1 has eighty-five illustrated panels scattered throughout the manuscript. The illustrated folios are placed roughly at the end of each chapter, and each illustrated folio has two panels placed on either side, with a few exceptions (see W-diagram 3–3). Unlike any other illustrated manuscripts of the AsP, a few painted panels are placed in the middle of chapter 1 (folios 2v, 5v, 8v, and 13v) and in the middle of chapter 31 (folios 216v, 218v, and 220v). The illustrated folios of chapter 1 (folios 2v, 5v, 8v, 13v, and 14r) have single panels, whereas most other illustrated folios have two panels per folio. Yet a few folios (folios 120-b r, 127r, 222r, and 223v) have three panels per folio, and folio 224r, where the second donor colophon appears, has five panels on a single folio. Such inconsistency in the layout of illustrated panels makes it difficult to understand the governing iconographic principle, if any.