The caption in the top margin says: devī pāpaḍī – 'the wicked queen'.

A male figure in an intricate headdress stands in the middle of the painting, his eyes directed upwards. At his feet kneels a well-dressed woman with her hands clasped. On the other side of the man is a seated woman, also richly costumed. She raises her hands too.

The flower and the curving bands of patterned white and yellow probably show this is an indoor scene.

King Yaśodhara has expressed his wish to renounce worldly life – perhaps indicated visually by his gaze away from the world – but his wife, Queen Amṛtamati, wants to postpone his decision. She pretends that she cannot live without him. She invites Yaśodhara to the ladies' apartments for one last feast before they both give up worldly life.

The artwork shows Queen Amṛtamati humbly kneeling down in front of her husband to make her request. Hearing her honeyed words and seeing her respectful and loving behaviour, Yaśodhara is convinced that he has imagined seeing his beautiful wife with her paramour.

The lady sitting on the left is probably Candramatī, Yaśodhara's mother, who is also invited to the feast.

The long protruding eye is a typical feature of western Indian painting. Its origin is unclear.

Other visual elements

This is a good example of an average manuscript. A red background is used for the painting but there is no use of gold, intricate design elements or elaborate script.

The bottom of the right margin contains the number 4, which is the folio number.

In the upper and lower margins there are syllables missing from the main text, or corrections. The number before them is the line number where they should be inserted.

Script

The script used for the main text is the Jaina Devanāgarī script. It is used for writing numerous Indian languages, here Apabhraṃśa Prakrit.