Painting

Description

A leaf from a folding book, with a painting of a temple and three tiers of figures on a pink coloured background with a an inscription in the top left hand corner referring to the Buddhist cosmos, and a longer inscription in the reverse: South East Asia, Thailand, 20th century

Museum reference

A.1995.589.67

Collection

World Culture

Object name

Painting, Manuscript leaf

Production information

Thailand, Southeast Asia

Date

20th century

Style / Culture

Buddhist

Materials

Paper, Pigment

Physical description

A leaf or folio from a folding book. Pink coloured background with a building and three tiers of figures, and an inscription in the top left hand corner. A translation of the inscription is: 'The Yama World is situated below the Jambudvipa in the distance of 10,000 yojanas. And the distance from the Yama world to the Avici Hell is 10,000 yojanas.' Jambudvipa is a Sanskrit term meaning "rose-apple continent", which is often taken to mean India, though here it probably more generally means the realm of humans. The Yama world is the realm of the dead (ruled by Yama). Avīci is one of the hell realms. A yojana is a measure of distance. The inscription on the reverse is probably a longer version of this.