Page 58 - Himalayan Art Macrh 19 2018 Bonhams

3027
A THANGKA OF VAJRABHAIRAVA
TIBET, 18TH CENTURY
Distemper on cloth.
Himalayan Art Resources item no.58529
42 1/8 x 27 1/8 in. (107 x 69 cm)

$50,000 - 80,000

西藏 十八世紀 大威德金剛唐卡

The painting’s exceptional quality is reflected in the complex and highly animated poses
of its many figures. Vajrabhairava is depicted with his consort Vajra Vetali. He has a
central buffalo head and six profile faces, thirty-four arms, and sixteen legs. In his hands,
he holds thirty-two different attributes, tantric implements, weapons, and trophies
symbolizing his power to subdue the five poisons: ignorance, attachment, aversion,
pride, and envy. Vajrabhairava tramples upon the bodies of the eight worldly deities,
symbolizing his dominance over the life and death of all beings.

He is a manifestation of Manjushri, the fierce archetype of wisdom’s triumph over death,
expelling the forces adverse to law and goodness. Manjushri’s three-eyed, semi-wrathful
yellow head appears at the apex of Vajrabhairava’s many faces. He is represented again
in the upper right corner of the painting, in the peaceful form of Manjuvajra.

The imagery of Vajrabhairava’s command over death is reinforced by the representation
of Vajrayogini in the upper left corner and the charnel grounds in bottom register of the
painting. The charnel ground is considered a potent context for Vajrayana practice, with
the power to transmute the fear of death into awakening. Charnel ground visualizations
are included in certain meditation practices and recorded in Tibetan tantric texts.

A landscape setting of flora, rocks, water, and hills completes the background. The visual
apparatus of pine trees, cloud scrolls, Chinese architectural forms, and distant peaks
behind the Buddhist temple, continue a tradition in Tibetan thangka painting that derives
initially Chinese landscape styles of the late Ming dynasty (16th-17th centuries).

Rotating counter-clockwise from the upper left-hand corner are the diminutive figures of
Vajrayogini, Mahasiddha Dampa Sangye, Garwa Nagpo, Yama Dharmaraja, Nechung
Chogyong, and Arapachana Manjushri, with Maitreya flanked by Tsongkapa and Atisha
finally at top center.

Compare with other significant examples published in Rhie & Thurman, Worlds of
Transformation, New York, 1999, p.374, no.138; and Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls,
Rome, 1949, pl.191.

Provenance
Sotheby’s, London, 12 October 1989, lot 43
Private European Collection

56 | BONHAMS