(This painting) is consecrated by Hidayju. Painters are Jiva Pona, Jayata Pona, Kalyana Subha Harasu, _ rama, Jayacamda and Ja _ rama. In the year of 563 [C. E. 1443] on the first day of the bright half of Bhadra month, Magha naksatra Parigha yoga, Wednesday, this image was rendered and the ritual of Laksacaitya was performed in the reign of Jayajasamalladeva. Pious donors are the Vyanjakara family, Jasarama … Ruparama, Lutayi, Jivacamda, and _ kuniju. With this religious merit, may the donor family receive long life, health, friendship of people, prosperity, and offerings. May it be auspicious!

Gautama V. Vajracharya “The Nepali Inscriptions”, in Pratapaditya Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure, Chicago, 2003, p. 280.

This important dated paubha depicts the Lakshachaitya ritual where the donor family, shown kneeling in the lower register, offer one-hundred thousand (laksha) stupa, often in the form of small consecrated clay moulds, to the Swayambhu chaitya depicted in the centre of the painting.

The stupa remains the most potent and venerated symbol of the Buddha, who is depicted in the painting seated within the monument itself. The inscription records the names of the six artists, belonging to the chitrakara caste of painters who created the majority of Buddhist and Hindu paubha in the Kathmandu Valley: the donors are identified as the Vyanjanakara family who are highly regarded members of another caste of Newar society responsible for the production of sweets and cookery, ibid.

Compare similar geometric composition in a later lakshachaitya paubha in the Zimmerman Family Collection, dated to 1510-19, offering insight into the continuum of artistic tradition in Kathmandu Valley painting, see Pratapaditya Pal, Art of the Himalayas: Treasures from Nepal and Tibet, New York, 1991, p. 74, cat. no. 36.