A large thangka of Amoghasiddhi Tibet, 13th century | 西藏十三世紀 密集不動金剛唐卡 設色布本

This important and superbly painted thangka is one of three that survive from what may be the earliest set of Tibetan paintings, commemorating the Five Celestial Buddhas. Two others from the same set, representing Ratnasambhava and Akshobhya, were sold in our New York rooms, 28 March 2006, lots 51 and 52, from the Jucker collection, with those of Vairochana and Amitabha and any accompanying painting now missing.

Amoghasiddhi Buddha is the patriarch of the Five Celestial Buddhas (or Five Symbolic Buddhas), residing in the Karma Paripurana buddhafield. He is typically green in colour with one face and two hands, but in this composition is depicted yellow. The right hand is held up to the heart and the left rests in the lap. He wears jewelled ornaments and garments with the overall appearance of a peaceful deity seated in a vajra-cross legged posture. Two attendant bodhisattva figures stand to the right and left sides. Only the standing figure on the proper left side, orange in colour, can be identified as Maitreya in a peaceful bodhisattva appearance. A small water vase adorns the fronds of leaves held in the right hand. The standing white figure is currently unidentified. The winged figures on either side of the lower throne are kinnaras as is typical for the throne supports of Amoghasiddhi. Each of the Five Symbolic Buddhas has a different animal support adorning the base of the elaborate throne seat. The ten seated bodhisattvas at the top of the composition appear to be identical for each painting of the three known surviving compositions. The Buddhas along the bottom are seven of the Thirty-five Confession Buddhas according to the system of Nagarjuna. The lower registers of the other four compositions would hold the remaining thirty-five buddhas. At the bottom left side is a Tibetan monk depicted wearing a meditation cloak around his lower torso.

The artist who created this series of masterpieces was clearly well versed in the palette and modelling traditions of eastern Indian ateliers. Vivid colour contrasts and subtle shading give an almost sculptural presence to the Tathagatas and accompanying bodhisattvas. Compare the broad shoulders and narrow waists of the Buddhas with eastern Indian sculpture such as a circa 12th century Pala stele of the crowned Buddha, illustrated in Huntington and J. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India, (8th - 12th centuries) and its International Legacy, Dayton, 1990, pl.31. Compare also the rich palette with eastern Indian manuscript illuminations; see ibid, pls.57-60. 

This representation of Amoghasiddhi and the two Jucker paintings differ from other sets of Tathagatas by presenting each Transcendental Buddha in the same golden hue, rather than in their individual iconographic colours. Compare another 13th century set of Tathagata paintings with striking similarities in format and detail such as their virtually identical jewellery, the two sets differing only significantly in the iconography of the lower registers, the inclusion of a framework for the throne cushion and the iconographical color of the principal deities, exhibited in Kossak and Casey Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1999, cat. nos.23 a, b, c. 

The current thangka is similarly rendered but for the mudras of the Tathagatas, their vahana, the choice of mythical beings in the torana and the dress and posture of the attendant bodhisattvas. The same presiding lama appears in each of the three surviving paintings of this set.

Early Tathagata paintings with their commanding figures of bejewelled Transcendental Buddhas are amongst the most evocative images from Tibet. The tradition for the commissioning of such sets of paintings was confined to the early period and examples such as this important thangka evoke an otherworldliness with its sense of serenity and calm, and are defining icons of this inspired period in the history of Tibetan art.