The Buddha preaching in Indra's heaven; Scenes from ten of the Buddha's previous lives

The lower half of this painting is divided into ten compartments each containing a scene from one of the last ten stories of the Buddha's previous lives.

The top portion shows the Buddha sitting enthroned in Indra's Heaven preaching to his mother and to Indra and other celestials. In the portion below this, the Buddha is again enthroned, presumably still in Indra's Heaven, but it is not known exactly which episode this scene represents. The Buddha is flanked by two tall stupas. One of these must be the Chulamani stupa, the monument in Indra's capital in which the hair relic is enshrined.

This work is painted on a piece of fabric decorated with elaborate Siamese designs of the sort made in India for the Siamese market and imported in large quantities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It seems surprising that a painting was painted over-and hiding- what would have been an expensive textile.