AW: Request for help with manuscript

[John C. Huntington]

Dear Reinhold,

In the study of Asian incunabula, we usually cite a leporello as an  
"accordion-fold" book. In Nepal Bhasa (Newar) they are called  
thyasaphu and can be anything from very small to about about 100  
folds or more. Frequently they have an arsenic coating on one side,  
which gives it a characteristic yellow cast,  to keep the insects at  
bay.

  An important example of an iconographic model book in the thyasaphu  
format is at:

http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/exhib/CircleofBliss/ChakraBook02A.html
  from the Circle of Bliss Exhibition

Another with the arsenic coating is at:

http://huntingtonarchive.osu.edu/exhib/CircleofBliss/ 
ChakraRitual02A.html

Also from the CoB

While the Model books are often called sketch books they are usually  
not. True sketchbooks were an artist is learning something are known  
(the Jivarama sketch book of NS 555) (see my  “Nevar Artist  
Jivarama’s Sketch Book,” in Indian Art Treasures: Suresh Neotia  
Collection. Varanasi; Jñana-Pravaha (Center for Cultural Studies and  
Research) with Mosaic Books 2006, pp. 74-85) it may be downloaded at:

http://tiny.cc/NZbUs

This is actually one of the most complete studies of a "sketch book"  
to date.

The four complete and two fragmentary designs you have posted,  
suggest that this is a model book of designs for the ornamentation of  
a shrine or temple of some sort. However, since it is clearly not  
Buddhist, I am at a loss to say what it might be.

One interesting aside, is that the figure fighting the lion has  
twisted the lion around into the "broken-back" position of many  
central Asian animals motifs of the first millennium BCE and first  
half of the first millennium CE

Given the Bhujimo characters and their relationship to the  
Inscriptions of Jivarama,, I would date this to ca 1450 ± 30.

I hope this is useful. I would love to see more if you would be  
willing to share them.

All the best

John