Shakyamuni Buddha Distemper on cloth Tibet or Nepal

The Buddha standing with hands in abhaya and varadha mudra, gestures of reassurance and charity, his disciples Shariputra and Maudgalyayana at either side holding patra and khakkhara, all with golden aureoles and set against a verdant landscape, a parasol and flowing scarves above, the five sense offerings on a lotus emerging from a lake, with five devotees kneeling in a mountain setting holding offerings to the Buddha, cloud-borne offering deities above.

Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 94, no. 34.

The Newari inscription running around the border of the picture confirms its Nepalese patronage although the style in which it is painted is very much in Tibetan taste. It is recorded that Newari artists employed in Tibet painted for both Tibetan patrons and visiting Nepalese pilgrims or merchants. The inscription records that the painting was made during the reign of Prithvi Bir Bikram Sha Deva, by the donor family of Shakyas of Hiranyavarna Mahavihar, Patan, in samvat 1017 (1897).