One of a pair of manuscript covers for a copy of a Dharani Samgraha

Traditionally, in much of Southeast Asia and the Himalayas, sacred works were written by hand on long, narrow palm leaves, stacked and secured by a bottom and top cover, usually of wood and often carved or painted inside and out. This format endured long after paper began to be used, as in these narrow covers which protected the pages of a seventeenth-century Nepalese manuscript. Although only the covers have survived, the paintings on them suggest that the manuscript was a collection of mystic charms (dharani). The interior of what was probably the top cover bears a row of seven female bodhisattvas flanked by two fierce protectors. The central image is Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom. She personifies an important Buddhist scripture by that name, a manuscript of which she displays in her upper left hand.