ink with gouache and gold on paper, fifty four double sided folios of from a dispersed manuscript, devanagari text, thin red borders, the text interspersed with full and part page illuminations, 11 x 25.5cm (each folio)

Provenance: Private collection, London. Acquired by the vendor in 1971.

A Saṃgrahani-Sūtra or “Book of Compilations” is a generic name defining a body of texts delineating Jain cosmology, an important topic for the community. Cosmological texts had a didactic purpose, and in some cases, such as the present manuscript, they were also intended to be pleasing to the eye.

Saṃgrahani-Sūtras provide long descriptions and vivid illustrations of the Jain universe, such as the continents, the oceans, and their inhabitants. The present manuscript contains many of the typical canonical depictions found in such manuscripts, including several diagrams, maps, and cosmological measurement charts, including the image of the cosmos in the form of a gigantic man, the lokapuruṣa (see inside front cover), the twelve animals symbolizing the lower heavens, different hells with scenes of tortures inflicted upon sinners, planetary deities such as the Sun and the Moon with their directional animals, schematic representations of Mount Meru – a sacred mountain that serves as the axis mundi, and a representation of the six spiritual taints (leśyās) in which six male figures display different colour complexions, indicating the respective states of their souls, determined by karma accumulation.

An unusual illustration depicts the God Śakra (Indra) receiving his envoy and army commander, the goat-headed Hariṇaigameśi, and eight women (see illustration above). The story refers to Śakra learning about the conception of Mahāvīra in the womb of a woman of the priestly caste. Since all Jinas had to be born in families of the warrior caste, Śakra sends his envoy to remove the embryo and implant it in the womb of Queen Triśalā. This iconography is rarely found in Jain cosmological texts (for another image, see Granoff 2009, pp. 250–251).

For further reading, see Granoff 2009, Del Bonta 2013, Caillat 1981 & Van Alphen 2000. (We are indebted to Isabella Nardi for her assistance with cataloguing this lot).