The caption in the top-left corner says: janma – ‘birth’. The newborn Mahāvīra is in his mother’s arms. The queen lies on her couch in her bedroom, fanned and waited on by a female servant. The text elaborates on the light and brilliance that came from gods ascending and descending in the sky during the night of the birth.

Other visual elements

The bottom of the right margin contains the number 30, which is the folio number. The central diamond filled with golden ink is a decorative ornament. Jain manuscripts usually have three on verso pages, like here. Here the margins are thickly outlined in red.

Script

The elaborate script used is the Jaina Devanāgarī script, which is here like calligraphy. It is an old type in the way the sounds e and o are notated when used with a consonant, and is known as pṣṭhamātrā script. In this particular folio there are occasional rings above the main line of writing. These notate the nasalised vowels and are used instead of simple dots. There is one example above the first line.