These two paintings depict stories from the Kalpasutra, a text containing biographies of the twenty-four spiritual teachers of Jainism, a nontheistic religion founded in India in the sixth century B.C.E. The scene in the top register of the painting recounts how Sthulabhadra (297–198 B.C.E.), a Jain monk and founder of the Svetambara Jain order, took the form of a lion before his sisters. The sisters, unaware of his trick, thought that the lion had consumed him, and in the lower register, they recount their experience to another monk. The painting on the bottom depicts the founder of Jainism, Mahavira (599–527 B.C.E.), renouncing his worldly possessions. Although the three scenes tell stories, they also resemble icons in their representation of a core religious idea in an emblematic manner that merges text and image and emphasizes stasis over movement.