The caption in the top right corner says: dāna – ‘gift’. It has been written twice.

A richly jewelled figure dressed in elaborate clothing sits on an ornate throne in a highly decorated pavilion. An old white-bearded man stands on the right. Two small figures stand at the top.

The large figure is Prince Mahāvīra, shown with all his worldly privileges. The old man represents the poor. The two men at the top may be the Laukāntika gods.

The Laukāntika gods have come to awaken Mahāvīra spiritually and inspire him to give up his possessions. They exclaim:

Victory be to the joy of the world!
Victory be to one with auspicious marks!
Glory be to thee, oh bull among best kṣatriyas
Awake, oh Lord, Master of the Universe!
Establish religion and order
For the well-being of all living beings.

Then Mahāvīra knows that the time is right for him to renounce the worldly life. He spends the following year giving all his possessions to the poor.

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

Other visual elements

The original paper has been pasted onto a new base. As with many Kalpa-sūtra manuscripts, there is a clear intention to make the manuscript a valuable and remarkable object in itself. This aim is signalled by the:

• use of gold in the paintings, margins and ornamental motifs
• decorated border with blue floral motifs
• single diamond filled with gold ink and surrounded by blue ornamental motifs.

The golden diamond in the centre is a symbolic reminder of the way in which manuscripts were bound at one time. Strings through one or more holes in the paper were used to thread together the loose folios so the reader could turn them over easily. The shapes are in the places where the holes would once have been.

A single diamond means a recto side.

Script

The elaborate script used is the Jaina Devanāgarī script, which is here like calligraphy. It is used for writing numerous Indian languages, here for Ardhamāgadhī Prakrit.

There are a few notable features of this script, which:

• is an old type in the way the sounds e and o are notated when used with a consonant, known as pṛṣṭhamātrā script
• contains red vertical lines that mark out verse divisions, with a single line dividing a verse in two while double lines are found at the end of the verse.

The lines in smaller script above and below the main text and in the margins are explanations in Sanskrit of phrases found in the central part. The two small parallel lines like slanted = after the words are meant to separate the explanations.