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A THANGKA OF ARHAT NAGASENA The Karma Kagyu order headed by the Karmapa lineage was once the
SCHOOL OF CHOYING DORJE, wealthiest in Tibet until it lost a civil war with a Gelug-Mongol alliance.
EASTERN TIBET OR YUNNAN PROVINCE, In 1645, leading what little remained of his order, Choying Dorje fled
17TH/18TH CENTURY Tibet, eventually taking refuge for 29 years in the Chinese city of Lijiang
Himalayan Art Resources item no.90513 (Yunnan province). There, according to his biographies, he created a
38 7/8 x 20 5/8 in. (73.1 x 52.4 cm) copy of a famous set of silk arhat paintings kept at Gangkar monastery
in Sichuan province called the Drakthokma Arhats (“Arhats atop
$30,000 - 50,000 Rocks”). In another instance, he is recorded tracing his set with heavy
ink, as if making further iterations. Debrecezny argues this Nagasena,
確映多傑風格 藏東或雲南 十七/十八世紀 那迦犀尊者唐卡 together with the identified group, represent iterations of the Tenth
Karmapa’s Drakthokma Arhats. Further supporting the attribution, this
Tibetan arhat paintings form a special genre borrowing heavily from Nagasena has a strikingly similar composition, including a number
the Chinese arhat tradition. Yet, compared to most Tibetan thangkas, of idiosyncratic elements, that a painting of the same subject in the
this painting has an even stronger Chinese aesthetic, adopting not only Lijiang Municipal Museum shares, which is clearly in the style Choying
traditional figural and landscape elements, but also Chinese brushwork Dorje is best known for (ibid., p.194, fig.7.2).
techniques and the medium of monochromatic ink on silk. In fluid lines,
spontaneous ink wash, and wet dots, this remarkable painting creates Published
a dynamic image of Arhat Nagasena sitting on a craggy rock in front Karl Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric: Artistic Visions of the Tenth
of rolling waves. One of the Sixteen Great Arhats, he is best known for Karmapa, New York, 2012, pp.194, fig.7.1 (also detailed across pages
his conversations with the Indo-Greek king, Menander I (r.165/155-130 192 & 193).
BCE). Nagasena is often depicted holding a staff and a vase. Here, the
vase, which is decorated with peonies and a phoenix, is carried by a Provenance
charismatic gnome who pours an ocean from it, drawing the amiable The Rezk Collection
attention of an auspicious dragon. The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Pennsylvania,
deaccessioned in 2020
A leading expert on the life and artwork of the Tenth Karmapa, Choying Concept Art Gallery, 10 June 2020, lot 49
Dorje (1604-1674), Karl Debreczeny identifies this and eleven other
paintings that form part of, or represent copies of, an arhat set created
by Choying Dorje—Tibet’s most eccentric artist. All painted in this
monochromatic style, nine of the eleven thangkas are preserved at
Palpung monastery in Eastern Tibet, while the remaining two are at
the Brooklyn Museum and the Rubin Museum of Art (Debreczeny,
The Black Hat Eccentric New York, 2012, pp.194-201). Debreczeny
argues against an alternative attribution to Situ Panchen (1700-1774),
the founder of the Palpung painting style, made by the scholar Karma
Gyaltsen and some monks at the Palpung. Instead, referring to the
Tenth Karmapa’s biographies, he concludes that the group represents,
“copies that Situ commissioned in the eighteenth century based on
Choying Dorje’s paintings or products of his workshop” (ibid., p.202).

The Black Hat The Arhat Genre
The overwhelming majority of paintings so far identified as being in the style of Chöying
Dorjé, fifty out of sixty-four that I am aware of, are arhats. 608 It is difficult to tell if this is
Eccentric representative of his overall production and his thematic and stylistic interests during his
long painting career. An examination of textual descriptions of the Tenth Karmapa’s paint-
ings, however, corroborate this extant visual evidence and shows that the Sixteen Arhats was
in fact the most common theme recorded. For example, in surveying the excised biography
AR TIS TIC VISIONS OF THE by Situ Paṇchen and Belo, which contains the greatest detail about the Karmapa’s artistic
TENTH KARMAP A production, arhats are by far the most common painting theme mentioned: some twenty-
seven times, roughly twice as many as the next most common theme of Avalokiteśvara with
fourteen. The Karmapa self-identifies with both these subjects, and is considered an emana-
tion of Avalokiteśvara. 609
While the Sixteen Arhats was a prominent theme throughout his painting career, more
than half (about seventeen of twenty-seven paintings) were produced during the twenty-
five-year period from 1647 to 1673 when he lived in the kingdom of Lijiang, suggesting
that he became increasingly interested in this theme and the styles associated with it during
his stay there in exile. Beyond the Tenth Karmapa’s self-identification with his subject mat-
ter, it may have been the very nature of the arhat genre within the Tibetan tradition, being
Chinese-derived and thus a rich vehicle of Chinese visual modes, that may have attracted
The Black Hat the Karmapa to this genre and made it a convenient conduit through which to explore his
artistic interests. Indeed, based on the body of works so far identified, his new style seems
Eccentric intimately linked with this genre. That the Tenth Karmapa’s arhat interest does not appear to chapter 7
be purely religious in nature is reinforced by the fact that such a production of arhats is not
Genre, Style,
reflected in the sculpture he is recorded as making or in known sculptures in his style.
and Medium
As mentioned in the beginning of this discussion, the Sixteen Arhats was one of the
AR TIS TIC VISIONS OF THE earliest models the Tenth Karmapa copied and collected in his painting career. In 1629 he
is recorded as composing the outlines and color for paintings of the Sixteen Arhats for the
TENTH KARMAP A
first time, and in a few instances some description is given of the individual paintings, such
as Mahākāruṇika Surrounded by the Sixteen Elders and later in 1649 he copied a painting on
silk of the Sixteen Elders (gnas bcu’i si thang), which was known as “the One from the Inner
Sanctum of Tsal” (Tshal gTsang khang ma), of which the main figure Śākyamuni was [mod-
eled after a statue] called the “Sumatran [Buddha]” (gSer gling ma). 610 The Tenth Karmapa
was already famous in his lifetime for the beauty of his depictions of this genre, as this
theme was specifically requested: “In accord with [someone’s] having told him they needed
paintings of the Sixteen Elders by his hand he gave them and thus, [the Karmapa] said that
besides the shining of the colors (its beauty), they were not a good support for accumulat-
ing longevity.” 611 (One is tempted to take this as a kind of indirect acknowledgment by the
Karmapa that these paintings were made more for art’s sake, as opposed to a purely religious
motivation.)
Experimenting with Other (Ink) Styles
Monochrome Ink
Visual evidence suggests that the Tenth Karmapa experimented with other styles associ-
KARL DEBRE C ZENY ated with the arhat genre. None of these works are inscribed but appear to be related to
193
FIG. 7.1, DETAIL
Cover and illustration from Karl Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric: Artistic Visions of the Tenth Karmapa,
Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2012, pp.192 & 193.
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