What does it look like?

This is a book, consisting of 227 pages, (folios) made of palm leaves. Palm leaf was the most common writing material in ancient India. Typically, the folios are pierced in two places, because in ancient times, there were strings that passed through the holes and held the leaves together. The covers are made of wood and richly painted on the inner sides, with representations of the Buddha, his disciples and various gods and goddesses.

Five leaves are decorated, each with three miniatures representing deities and bodhisattva-s (“beings whose essence is enlightenment”). The latter are human beings, who have reached the ultimate truth and may enter nirvana, the state of final liberation according to Buddhism, but out of compassion, choose to remain on earth, in order to preach the Buddhist doctrine and save others. They were worshipped like gods, and the book itself was a cultic object.