'Shri Dhola-Maru' with over eighty illustrations, India, Jaipur, Chandawas, dated VS 1805/1749 AD

Asia Libris, New York

Ex-collection Anant Chaturvedi, Dubai, before 1999

inscriptions:

begins (f. 2/12r)

Varasa eka lagāi ṇa pareṃ rahyau ||

Tapa pigala citā tura thaya || 97 ||

Aika āpaṇe puraṣa pāṭhavo ||

Āṇā ko je rāja pūchavo ||

Ima piṃgala je salaneṃ kaheṃ ||

Māraga paṃtheṃ koī navi vaheṃ || 98 ||

ends (f. 128)

Duhā ||

Sajana ṣārāṣāṃjhasā || abhāva sā dudha ||

Jhugara jehā bhārī ṣamā || uchāti sāsa mudha || 825 ||

Iti śrī ḍholāmāra vaṇī copaī saṃpūrṇaḥ

Śrīrastuḥ || śrī 

Colophon (f. 128):

Saṃvata 1805 varṣe | māsa māhavadi 5 dine || gura vāsare || paṃḍita śhrī hamīra kusalena || liṣataṃ || caṃdavāsā grāme lapī hutāḥ || kalyāṃṇam astuḥ śri raghuṃ

This manuscript is richly illustrated throughout with scenes and episodes from the Dhola-Maru narrative, with identifications in accompanying marginal text notes. The opening folio depicts a fine illustration of Ganesha with his royal court. The Dhola-Maru version given in this manuscript is incomplete and does not appear to be the same as the most common version, attributed to the early seventeenth-century Jain scholar and monk Kushallabh. The colophon indicates that the manuscript was copied by a man named Hamirakusala, in the village of Chandavasa, and completed in 1749. While nothing is known about Hamirakusala, the village Chandavasa most likely corresponds to modern-day Chandawas in the Jaipur region.