Rishabha giving away his possessions before renouncing the world, from a manuscript of the Kalpasutra (Book of Ritual)

This page from a Jain religious text describing the lives of the twenty-four Jinas (“spiritual victors”) shows a scene from the life of the first Jina, Rishabha. The heavy use of gold and rich colors reflects the importance of the sacred figures and increases the merit of the manuscript’s donor, who was probably a wealthy merchant. The long, narrow format of the page imitates the shape of palm leaves, which were used for sacred manuscripts until the fourteenth century.