When a small Indian child falls into the arms of Indiana Jones in the small village, he hands him the centre piece of this long lost cloth manuscript. Indy tells Willy the story of how a Hindu priest, Sankara, climbed Mount Kalisa where he met Shiva, the Hindu god. Shiva tells the priest to go forth and combat evil. To help him he gives him five sacred stones with magical properties, the Sankara stones that Indy quests for in The Temple of Doom.

I reproduced this relic by reconstructing an image of the original prop and having it professionally printed onto a heavy canvas cloth similar to the one used in the film. I then aged the back to match the color of the front. Finally, I cut and frayed the edges to match the original prop. Because this replica is printed, it matches the original very closely.

This set of three cloth paintings, tell the story of Sankara. In the film only one piece of the manuscript is seen (the centre piece above). To complete the set, I designed the two other pieces which show Sankara approaching Mt. Kalisa and him actually receiving the five stones. Written on these pieces are authentic Sanskrit, spelling the names of the priest, the god and the mountain.

This version of the manuscript is entirely made by hand, inked and painted to match the appearance of the screen used prop. This version varies slightly from the one in the archives (from which the uppermost replica was based). The writing is different in places and there is more detail on both Sankara and Shiva. The overall shape of the cloth is also different.