Myanmar · 8 of 15
Mahākassapa Pays Homage to the Buddha's Feet
Unrecorded artist · mid-19th century
- Maker
- Unrecorded artist
- Date
- mid-19th century
- Medium
- Pigment on manuscript paper
- Collection
- British Library, London
- Licence
- CC0
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons
The moment before the fire is lit, from a Burmese manuscript of the mid-nineteenth century.
The scene is the end of the Buddha's life. After the parinibbāna, the body is prepared for cremation, and the tradition holds that the pyre could not be lit until the senior disciple Mahākassapa arrived to pay his respects. He is shown here doing so, at the feet.
The painting comes from a Burmese folding manuscript of the mid-nineteenth century. These were made from long strips of paper concertinaed into a book, opened panel by panel, and the format shapes the composition: it works in horizontal registers, with figures arranged along the fold rather than receding into depth.
The visual language is court Burmese — tiered white spires, red and gold, attendants stacked in ranked rows, and no interest whatsoever in perspective. Scale is doing what perspective does elsewhere: importance is size and position, not distance from the eye.
What is easy to miss is that this is a manuscript of a religious subject made for lay use. Illustrated parabaik circulated widely and were not confined to monasteries; they were how a story was carried and read, which puts them closer to a printed book than to an altarpiece.
No artist is named. The manuscript is held by the British Library and has been released under CC0, which means it can be reproduced freely — a modern licensing decision that has a good deal to do with why it can appear here at all.