Rato Macchendranath distemper on cloth Nepal

The deity holding the stems of lotus flowers in each hand, standing on a lotus pedestal within a lobed torana supported by splayed white lions, with Garuda above clutching nagas, kinara offering conch shells and mounted makara at either side, four-armed Ganesha and Mahakala guarding the entrance to the shrine laid with a floral throne cloth and blue Rahula before, a Shiva linga by a river and a plant flowering in a mountain setting to the lower left and right of the inner shrine, golden rays emitting from Macchendranath linked to numerous multi-armed Hindu deities within the shrine, the deity wearing an antelope skin over the left shoulder and another tied around his waist securing a long blue floral patterned dhoti, a naga placed over the right shoulder and entwined at the waist with its hands held in anjali mudra, sumptuous golden jewelry adorning the deity with his crown bearing a four armed Shiva Dakshinamurti, the Supreme Teacher, and possibly his spiritual progenitors the Siddha Luyipa and his disciple Gorakhnatha above, the shrine placed in a snow-capped mountain setting with Hyagriva, Kumara, Manjusri and Vajrapani and monks in adoration, a bird-filled sky above with auspicious emblems, garland bearing winged vidyadhara, Buddhas and Hindu deities, with the sun and moon in black space above, a donor family below flanking ritual objects and offerings, the whole framed by registers of deities within roundels against a floral background.

Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 76, no. 25.

Rato (red) Macchendranath, also known as Karunamaya, Bunga Dyah or Matsyendranatha, is a Buddhist deity with complex iconography and great popularity in the Kathmandu Valley where Hindu and Buddhist deities co-exist in the harmony displayed in this exceptionally rare paubha. For an extensive discussion of the iconography; see Slusser, 1982, pp. 367-79. Compare an 1809 Lakshacaitya paubha in The Avery Brundage Collection, and a Lokeshvara in The British Museum dated 1819; see Pal, 1978, pls. 129-30.