Manuscript

Book

Tibetan Non-canonical Buddhist manuscript of the lineage of the liberation of Avalokitesvara treating the former births of Padma Sambhava. Authors: dge slon ri chen, tshe rin and dpal 'byor. Excellent quality locally made paper. 223 folios; 2 folios unnumbered. Text in four sections; numbered 1-48, 1-34a, 34b-163a, 163b-176. Numbers 5-9 in second foliation on one folio; 141-2 on same folio, folio which should be 73b missing. Five lines per folio side. Folios colored black. Writing in white, with occasional lines, works or groups of works in yellow. Areas for holes for tie cord indicated by red circles, two on each folio side. Bordering devices in red. Red design around sectional titles of work, each of which titles stands alone on the recto of its respective folio. Lacquer has been applied to the text area on each folio. The first two folios and the last folio consist of a number of leaves tied together with red ribbon. General title folio and each sectional folio has on its verso two illuminations flanking text on each side. The illuminations are in red, pink, green, orange, yellow, blue, gold, black, and off-white. The names of the figures depicted are in yellow under each illumination. Some of these are difficult to read as they are often smudged. Each of these folios is covered with patterned red silk which, being attached to the top of the folios only, can be lifted up in order to see the covered areas. The general title folio has in addition a piece of green silk covering the patteren red silk. The sectional title folios have only three lines of text on them. The general title folio has only one major line on it, below which there are a number of invocations written in a much smaller hand. Occasionally the folio immediately following the first of each section has less tha five lines on a side. On the bottom of the next to last folio verso, in red, in both dbu med and sbu can scripts, is the invocation, "kar ma pa mkhyen no." Three pull cloths are sewn with thread onto the recto of the first sectional title folio, one of them reading,"hi'khor'das ran frol." The main invocation on the general title folio, in larger red -bordered gold letters, is in a script imitative of lan dza script. Initial invocation on first sectional folio also in such a script. On bottom and top of the text, along the edges, are two sets of three nothces with the areas between the nothches colored red and yellow. One such set of three notches, similarly colored, is on both the right and left edges of the manuscript. Two heavy wooden covers, painted red and over this black, with the black paint wearing off. Design carved on one end of each cover.