Pañcarakṣā (MS Add.1688) Pañcarakṣā (MS Add.1688)

The Pañcarakṣā corpus ("Five Protections") is a collection of five Sanskrit texts (the Mahāpratisarā, Mahāmāyūrī, Mahāsāhasrapramardanī, Mahāmantrānusāriṇī, and Mahāśītavatī). These scriptures include spells, enumerations of benefits and ritual instructions for use. With the course of time, the spells became deified and five related goddesses emerged, although the texts themselves do not have any references to these goddesses. This Bengalese palm leaf manuscript, dated to the second half of the 11th century and commissioned by the queen Ḍaddākā, is one of the oldest known examples of such a collection and is decorated with a series of thirty-six refined miniatures.

The Pañcarakṣā corpus ("Five Protections") is a collection of five Sanskrit texts (the Mahāpratisarā, Mahāmāyūrī, Mahāsāhasrapramardanī, Mahāmantrānusāriṇī, and Mahāśītavatī). These scriptures include spells, enumerations of benefits and ritual instructions for use. With the course of time, the spells became deified and five related goddesses emerged, although the texts themselves do not have any references to these goddesses. This Bengalese palm leaf manuscript, dated to the second half of the 11th century and commissioned by the queen Ḍaddākā, is one of the oldest known examples of such a collection and is decorated with a series of thirty-six refined miniatures. The miniatures here depict three of the Mortal Buddhas.