A Copper Alloy Figure Depicting Bodhisattva Manjushri

Vittorio Eskenazi, Milan, 1981

Oriental Art. Summer 1981, Vol XXVII, No. 2, p. 141

This rare sculpture of the bodhisattva Manjushri, the oldest and most significant bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhist literature, is cast in a lustrous copper alloy with silver inlay in the Kashmiri style. The style of the sculpture is based on the fabulous sculptural traditions of Kashmir, which were all but wiped out by the Islamic conquests in the medieval period. Kashmiri artists were invited to establish ateliers in West Tibet to decorate the burgeoning local temples and monasteries as early as 980 CE, when Kashmiri artists were brought to the kingdom of Guge by the returning translator Rinchen Zangpo. Thus a sophisticated Kashmiri style was established in West Tibet, embodied in the current fine example, which set the local style for subsequent period throughout the region and informed later Central Tibetan sculpture.

Several stylistic concerns, such as the foliate motif of the body garland (as compared to the floral garland motif of 11th century West Tibetan bronzes); the treatment of the jewelry; the tubular shape of the torso; and the abbreviated petals of the lotus accoutrement at right suggest a later date of circa 12th century for this sculpture. 

Compare the foliate body garland with a 12th century bodhisattva Avalokiteshavara now in the Norton Simon Museum, see P. Pal, Art from the Himalayas and China, New Haven and London, 2003, p. 137, pl. 89. See also U. von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 133, pls. 23 E, F and G for three additional examples of foliate body garlands on 12th century standing Bodhisattvas.

Also compare an 11th century standing bronze bodhisattva in the Kashmiri style from Guge, see U. von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 85, fig. 11-13; as well as another 11th century standing bronze Padmapani in the Cleveland Museum, acc. no. 1976.70.