Page 32 - Himalayan Art Macrh 19 2018 Bonhams

3019
A GILT COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA
KHASA MALLA, 13TH/14TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.61544
23 in. (58.5 cm) high

$1,200,000 - 1,600,000

卡薩瑪拉 十三/十四世紀 銅鎏金釋迦牟尼佛坐像

This Buddha is one of the largest bronzes thus far attributed to the lost Khasa Malla
kingdom of Western Tibet and Western Nepal (flourished 13th century). It was evidently
produced by the artist(s) in their prime, exhibiting the highest quality of modeling, casting,
chasing, and gilding.

His formidable frame is softened by the sinuous fluidity of the sheer sanghati clinging to
his body, and the delicate engraving on the double hemlines, showing scrolling vines and
rice grain patterns. The caster has achieved a beautiful balance and symmetry between
the precise ‘fishtail’ lapel of Shakyamuni’s robe over the left, coupled with its hems
pooling around his ankles.

Fleshy cheeks, heavy-lidded eyes, and plump lips convey the auspiciousness of a well-
nourished being, integral to the criteria for beauty within Nepalese aesthetics. He smiles
cheerfully, very much present before his audience, where other large Buddha images
seem deliberately aloof.

Exemplary of the Khasa Malla tradition, the back of the sculpture’s base is plain and
painted with red pigment. The double-lotus band across the front and sides, however,
has plump, double-lobed petals incised with an eyelash motif. Below them runs a frieze
with an upright vajra flanked by side ribbons at the center of a bed of scrolling vines, floral
roundels, and a pair of lions.

Siudmak finds the origins of Khasa Malla lotus bases in the bronze sculpture of Kashmir
(Siudmak,The Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Ancient Kashmir and its Influences, 2013,
p.462). However, details particular to this rare instance of a large Khasa Malla Buddha
surviving with its original base, and that base having an even rarer ornate band, appear
to indicate borrowings from the Pala style. This can be gleaned from the similarity of
the scrolling lotus vines and the lions facing outwards with their tails whipping over their
backs (cf. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree, Dayton, 1990, no.36). Yet closer still,
the bronze appears to be in union with the 14th-century Newari painted murals of the
South chapel of Shalu monastery in Southern Tibet, with its inverted flowers presented as
closed blossoms or palmettes. The only other known large sculpture to feature a similar
lower band is a bronze of Avalokiteshvara Shadakshari from the Sandor Fuss Collection,
which is embellished with simpler floral decoration (Rossi & Rossi, 2007, no.7).

30 | BONHAMS