A Thangka Depicting Kalachakra

Private European collection, acquired 1970s/early 1980s

M. Brauen, The Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism, London, 1997, p. 96, pl. 47

The painting depicts the mandala of the Buddha Kalachakra, Wheel of Time, with the multi-colored semi-wrathful god in union with his prajña Vishvamata, Mother of the Universe. The deities represent one of the most complex practices of the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. Kalachakra is depicted with four heads and twenty-four arms, with his principal head and upper body in blue symbolising great wisdom. His red face represents passion, the white purity, and the yellow head facing rearwards, single-mindedness in meditation. One leg is white and the other red, denoting two separate halves of the yearly cycle.

In union with his golden eight-armed prajña with four heads in white, blue, red and gold, the couple represent the embodiment of wisdom and compassion, the goal of Tibetan meditational practise leading to enlightenment and salvation of sentient beings: for an exhaustive treatise on the Kalachakra Tantra see M. Brauen, The Mandala: Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism, Serindia Publications, London, 1997.

The predominant reds and blues of the painting together with the symmetry of design and geometric placement of the deities suggest a Nepalese artistic style in the central regions of Tibet in the early fifteenth century. The rectangular central space reserved for the principal deity is seen in 14th and 15th century Tibetan paintings in the Nepalese style such as a Raktayamari in the Kronos Collections, a Chakrasmavara mandala in a private collection and a Mahavajrabhairava mandala in the Pritzker Collection, see S. Kossak and J. Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, New York, 1999, cat. nos. 40, 43, 44. The crown type of the subsidiary deities is comparable to that of a Guhyasamaja illumination in an early 15th century Tibetan manuscript in the Nepalese style, possibly painted at the Sakya monastery of Shalu, see P. Pal, Art of Tibet: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection, Los Angeles, 1983, pp. 128-9, M4b.  

The painting is one of the earliest representations of Kalachakra in Tibetan art, together with a 14th or 15th century mandala now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, see D. Leidy and R. Thurman, Mandala: the Architecture of Enlightenment, New York & Boston, 1997, p. 100, cat. no. 29, and the renowned 14th century gilt bronze Kalachakra and Vishvamata kept at Shalu monastery, see U. von Schroeder, Buddhist Bronzes in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, Vol. II, p. 965, pl. 232C.