Mahāsattvāvadāna

This peculiar set of manuscripts is from the popular Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra. One of its chapters is the Vyāghrī Jātaka, also known as the Mahāsattvāvadāna. The first page consists of few lines in Nepalbhāṣā, while all the remaining folios are in Sanskrit. This narrative is told by the Buddha to the assembly of monks during his visit to the forest near Prāñcāla Janapada, which is localized in the Newar Buddhist tradition as Namobuddha. This Avadāna recounts the past life of the Buddha, in which he was born as a prince and offered his body after encountering a tigress that had just given birth and was on the verge of death due to weakness. The Avadāna is so popular that it has inspired Dapha songs and dramas in Nepalbhāṣā literature. Moreover, the pilgrimage to the stūpa at Namobuddha remains popular and continues to be practiced by Newar Buddhists to this day.