siddhi manjusri and kesani tara distemper on cloth nepal

The six-armed and three-headed saffron-red form of Manjusri holding the sword, blue lotus, the bow and arrow, and the Prajnaparamita text, with his consort the white Kesani Tara holding the stems of two blue lotus flowers, both seated on a lotus pedestal supported by a tiered peacock throne draped with a floral patterned textile, the throne supported by lions upon elephants at each corner and flanking the five Pancharaksha goddesses, an elaborate torana above with makara, kinnara, hamsa, Garuda and nagas, monkeys climbing the base of the shrine bearing offerings, Ganesha and Mahakala flanking the shrine, Shadakshari and Vajradhara above with Shakyamuni Buddha and Prajnaparamita within lotus mandalas, the tableau surrounded by inscribed narrative scenes, the upper register with Manjusri and Avalokiteshvara flanking the Five Transcendental Buddhas, an inscription below with donors, the Chakravartin and a Vajracharya performing puja, all flanking a troupe of musicians and dancers.

Hugo E. Kreijger, Kathmandu Valley Painting, The Jucker Collection, Boston, 1999, p. 46, no. 10.

An inscription states that the painting was consecrated on Monday the fourteenth of the dark half of Bhadra during the Purvaphalguni Naksatra and the Subha Yoga in samvat 65_ (153_) in the name of Bijaya Singh, the deceased son of Khipithima Bharo. The inscription records a donation of nine ropanis of land (a little over an acre) below Gatra for the support of ritual observance including the cooking of one hundred pathis of rice grown on the land and its distribution as alms, and that the bhiksus of Pam Bahal should read the golden Dharani. Inscriptions beneath the narrative scenes surrounding the shrine refer to the results of good and negative actions, the majority describing the latter. A note beneath the main inscription states that the consecration and "writing" of the painting - likely to refer to the writing of the inscription rather than the painting of the image - was done by Vajracharya Mayera Singh. The names of the principal deities are now illegible but their similarity with the inscribed Siddhi Manjusri painting, lot 1, would suggest the same iconography notwithstanding the different mudras of the consort in each painting.

Compare the geometric arrangement of the narrative scenes surrounding the shrine with a slightly earlier Vasudhara mandala, dated 1495, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see Pal, 1985, p. 213, P 17, color plate, p. 67. And compare the checker design of the pillars supporting the torana with a 1488 Nepalese Vajradhara paubha now in the Musee Guimet, see Auboyer, 1975, p. 66, pl. 31.