India. Gujarat School. 15th/16th centuries. Two manuscript folios of the Kalpa Sutra Jain."
2 handwritten folios in nagari characters, embellished with miniatures, taken from an album of the Kalpa Sutra Djaïn, from the school of Gujarat, a state in western India. Around the 15th/16th centuries. Gouache, ink and gold on paper, in the same frame, without protective glass.
The Kalpa Sutra is a text considered sacred in Jainism, a religion born around the tenth century BC and whose certain precepts are similar to those of Buddhism, Hindu-
ism and Sikhism. Attached to the Shvetambara branch (the other being the Digambara branch), this sutra describes the life of the most renowned Awakened Master, the Tirthanhara Mahavira, whose illustrious father was King Siddhartha.
He also talks about the practice of medicine as well as astrology.
The Kalpa Sutra is said to have been composed around the 5th/3rd centuries BC.
Parts of this book are still recited today by Jain monks at certain religious events.