This double-sided folio of grisly imagery is likely from a Jain karma series depicting the punishments in hell of evildoers. Such hell scenes of torment and torture appear in the Jain pictorial tradition on murals, manuscript folios, and in the better-known large-scale representations on cloth of the cosmic man (loka-purusha) whose compartmentalized body symbolizes Jain cosmographic views of the structure and nature of the universe.
The didactic inscriptions on this work, albeit somewhat cryptic and inexact per the painted imagery, read as follows:
Recto: Demon with enchained souls
Do auspicious Dharma, occasionally would be hit
Later does bad deeds, thus get hit
Observe Dharma
To get result of it
Do Karma, offer Daan [offerings] to God and reduce sins
(Translation by Naval Krishna.)
This folio depicts a dark-skinned demon with horns, fangs, elephant ears, a long tail, sectarian forehead markings, gold jewelry, pearl necklaces and anklets, and red shorts. He holds the chains of two shackled naked men representing doomed souls. He is trampling one, while leading the other by the neck.
Verso: Tiger eating arm
Follows wrong path, head would be striked
Observe religion and Karma
(Translation by Naval Krishna.)
In this folio a tiger is biting off the arm of a naked man who had sinned.
