How do we see and share a mental image? In the era of digital imaging and breakthroughs in neuroscience, capturing and sharing a mind’s image is a distinct possibility that once belonged to sci-fi movies. The desire and the needs to externalize, circulate, and control a mental image pushed and shaped the creative solutions seen in Buddhist painted palm-leaf manuscripts of twelfth century South Asia. This talk will demonstrate how the pictorial and manuscriptological strategies we find in painted palm-leaf manuscripts relate to the tantric vision practices, and how they opened up a unique way to share visual knowledge.
Caption for the image: Folio 233verso-folio 234recto(partial view), a painted palm-leaf manuscript of the Perfection of Wisdom sūtra, probably Bengal, c. late 12th- early 13th century. Varendra Research Museum. Photo©J Kim 2014.