Description
This page shows the beginning of the text and is an instance of the typical beginning of a Jain manuscript. From the top:
- it starts with the auspicious sign, sometimes called bhale
- it continues with a phrase of homage to the Jinas: oṃ namo sarvajñāya[ḥ] – ‘Homage to the Omniscient‘.
- then the text proper starts with the typical opening sentence of Śvetāmbara canonical texts: teṇaṃ kāleṇaṃ teṇaṃ samaeṇaṃ – ‘at that time, at that epoch’.
Other visual elements are:
- the marginal title, Jñātā-sūtraṃ
- the folio number, appearing firstly at the bottom of the right-hand margin, which is its regular place, and again in the left-hand margin
- in the right-hand margin, the folio number is emphasised by surrounding red ornamentation
- the three red circles along the central horizontal plane
- the floral motifs around the circles.
The three red circles are symbolic reminders of the way in which manuscripts were bound when they were on palm leaf. Here the central one is in a lozenge blank shape. Strings through one or more holes were used to thread together the loose folios so the reader could turn them over easily. The circles are in the places where the holes would once have been.