Page 18 - Blum Feinstein Tanka collection HIMALAYAN Art Bonhams March 20 2024

704
A THANGKA OF A GUHYAJNANA DAKINI
EASTERN TIBET, KHAM PROVINCE, CIRCA 19TH CENTURY
Distemper and gold on cloth; with original silk brocade mounts and silk curtain.
Inscribed on the verso with the ‘ye dharma hetu...’ Buddhist creed, Supratishtha
mantra and the following:

ཕྱི་ནང་གསང་བའི་མ་དཔལ་དབྱིངས་ཀྱི་ཡུམ།
བདེ་སྐྱོང་ཌཀིའི་གཙོ་མཆོག་བཀའ་སྡོད་ཀྱི།
སྣང་བརྙན་དད་པའི་རྟེན་དུ་བསྐྲུན་པའི་དགེས།
རྡོ་རྗེ་བཙུན་མོས་རྗེས་འཛིན་དབུགས་དབྱུང་རྩོལ།
ཅེས་པའང་གསང་བ་རྩལ་གྱིས་སོ།

Translated:
“Supreme Mother of outer, inner and secret meaning
Supreme Dakini - the guardian of happiness with attendants,
May the merit of creating your image as an object of worship,
bequeath liberation to all the devotees of the Queen of Vajra.
Also by Sangwa Tsal.”

Inscribed on the recto identifying the figures in the upper register:
བེེ་རོ། (Be ro )
ཆོས་རྒྱལ། (chos rgyal)
བཞད་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ། (bzhad pa’i rdo rje)
མཚོ་རྒྱལ། (mtsho rgyal)
གཏེར་ཆེན། (gter chen)
དྲི་ལྷས་རྗེ་དྲུང་སི་དྡིའིམཚན་ཅན། (dri lhas rje drung si di’i mtshan can)

Himalayan Art Resources item no. 1849
Image: 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. (41.9 x 31.8 cm);
With Silks: 38 1/4x 22 1/4 in. (97.2 x 56.5 cm)

$15,000 - 20,000

藏東 康區 約十九世紀 密智空行母唐卡

Guhyajnana Dakini, the ‘Secret Wisdom Dakini’, is depicted at the center of
this thangka. She holds the chopper and skull cup together with the sword and
khatvanga staff, forming a connection with Padmasambhava floating above her
head. The crimson goddess is further surrounded by a retinue of protector deities
and dakinis representing the four directions of space. At the upper left corner, the
Nyingma monk with an orange vest and a red halo represents the Fifth Lelung
Jedrung, Zhepai Dorje (1697-1740), who popularized this dakini practice. He
was an important Nyingma and Gelugpa master who specialized in the study of
Nyingma teaching and their protective deities who appears on the thangka of
Padmasambhava as a Long-Life deity (Lot 702). The white-bearded figure at the
painting’s right corner likely represents Terdag Lingpa Gyurme Dorje (1646-1714),
the founder of Mindroling monastery and a Nyingma contemporary of the Fifth
Dalai Lama whose teachings were admired by Zhepai Dorje.

(detail)

16 | BONHAMS
16 | BONHAMS