A thangka depicting a mandala of Vajravidarana, Central Tibet, 14th century | 藏中 十四世紀 摧破金剛佛母曼荼羅唐卡

Christie's New York, 17th September 1998, lot 150.

紐約佳士得1998年9月17日，編號150

It is rare to find an early painting of this unusual iconography, depicting the mandala of Vajravidarana. Inscribed in blood-red script on the reverse with an extensive inscription, it encapsulates the artistic heritage of Central Tibet in the 14th century.

As revealed in the Tibetan book Bod rgyud nang bstan lha tshogs chen mo, the blue-black form of Vajravidarana has 'one face and two hands. In his right hand he brandishes a five-pronged vajra and in his left he holds a bell which rests on his hip. His light-colored hair streams upwards. His left leg is held in an outstretched manner. He is adorned with a tiger skin and snakes as his ornaments and he stands in the middle of a blazing sun. He is filled with a non-dualistic (non-discriminating) wisdom and by using his vajra-like protective fence and canopy of blazing fire he utterly crushes the power of the four demons – Homage to Vajravidarana'.

The complex and vibrantly painted interior of the current mandala clearly conveys this vision of Vajravidarana. Located at the center of the mandala, Vajravidarana can be seen surrounded by a whirl of flames which fill the entire central section. For comparable iconography on the murals at Gyantse Stupa, Gyantse, commissioned in 1427, see Franco Ricca and Erberto Lo Bue, The Great Stupa of Gyantse: A Complete Tibetan Pantheon of the Fifteenth Century, London, 1993, pl. 40.

The style of the flames and the sense of coloring used suggest the work of Newar artisans, who were at the apex of their influence in Tibet in the 14th century. Vajravidarana is clothed in the skin of a white elephant whose head may be seen at his right hip and a tiger skin which covers his mid-section. His ornamented necklace appears to be a decorated snake with pendent jewels and his wristlets and armlets are also snakes. His head is adorned with the five-pointed crown which represents his mastery of the five aspects of wisdom. His hair, which according to the Tibetan text quoted above, should be light-colored, is swept upwards in the heat of the flames and has taken on a fiery red color. The deities which surround Vajravidarana inside the inner squared section are those who are direct emanations of the central deity himself, and their various bodily positions and gestures all have significance for the meditational practice required to ‘enter’ into the mandala to gain its powers and insights. The four of these deities at the middle of each wall are known as the door guardians (dvarapala in Sanskrit, or sgo srung ba in Tibetan) and in the ritual meditations on the central deity it is these guardians who question and interrogate the practitioner on their motivation, state of ritual purity, etc. The foliage emanating from the various pots reflects the thangka as a living mandala rather than a static painting.

It is not unusual to find that the pillars of some Nepalese and Tibetan temples stem from a carved pot (bumpa), emphasizing the living nature of the building. The richly decorated turrets above the doorways (seen ‘flattened out’ to give a better perspective) are decorated with a pair of deer at the top, reminiscent of the Deer Park at Sarnath in India, where the Buddha first preached and where he was, in a previous incarnation, one of those very deer. These motifs accentuate that what transpires within the mandala’s central sacred space is thoroughly Buddhist.

The upper horizontal row of figures includes, from left to right: two eminent lamas, a white Avalokiteshvara, a yellow Manjushri Namasangiti, Shakyamuni Buddha, Chakrasamvara holding his red consort, Vajradhara, a brown lion-headed dakini, a dancing red vajra-wielding dakini and, at the end, a brown-colored yogi– possibly the renowned 11th century Indian Padampa Sangyé who lived and taught in Tibet. The bottom horizontal row of figures, usually associated with protector deities and sponsors, includes an elegantly draped lama, probably the patron of the painting or someone closely linked with the tantric cycle of Vajravidarana, a red-colored yet compassionate-looking Hayagriva with the diminutive horse head in his hair, a yellow Jambhala with his jewel-spitting mongoose, a female nagini snake deity protector of wisdom and wealth held by nagas underwater, and, at the end, an animal-headed figure in a black-spotted white robe — possibly an astrological deity.

The inscription on the reverse reads:

All those things which arise come from causes. The Buddha has taught about those causes. The Great Ascetic (Buddha) has also taught how to make them cease. The highest practice of an ascetic is that of being patient. The Buddha said that patience is the highest nirvana. The monk who brings harm another person or hurts them Such a person is not a true monk.

A 15th century thangka depicting a mandala of Vajravidarana, included in the exhibition The World of Mandala—Tamashige Tibet Collection, Okura Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2005, cat. no. 14, was sold in these rooms, 19th March 2014, lot 94.