Page 34 - 2021 March 16th Indian, Himalayan and Tibetan Art, Bonhams NYC New York

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A THIRTY-THREE-DEITY USHNISHAVIJAYA MANDALA
TIBET, NGOR MONASTERY, CIRCA 1500-50
Distemper on cloth; verso with repeated Tibetan, ‘om, ah, hum’,
invocations in black ink; with original cloth mount, and original red
lacquered dowel inscribed in gold Tibetan translated, ‘Ushnishavijaya
with Many Deities’.
Himalayan Art Resources item no.88540
Image: 50.9 x 44.2 cm (20 x 17 3/8 in.);
With silks: 85.2 x 48.4 cm (33 1/2 x 19 in.)
$200,000 - 300,000

西藏 俄爾寺 約1500-50年 三十三神尊勝佛母壇城唐卡

Glowing in white from the center of her celestial palace, the wisdom
goddess, Ushnishavijaya, calmly smiles. She has three faces of white,
yellow, and blue, the last being slightly wrathful. In her eight radiating
arms she holds a lotus-borne red Amitabha, a bow and arrow, a
vase of plenty, a lasso, and displays gestures of reassurance (abhaya
mudra) and wish-granting (varada mudra). At the center, before her
bosom, she balances a five-colored visavajra, itself a color-coordinated
microcosm of her abode.

Adding to the painting’s complexity, Ushnishavijaya’s palace is also
inhabited by thirty-two deities, each reclining against lotus petals
similar to those of sculptural mandalas (cf. Huntington, Circle of Bliss,
Columbus, 2003, p.254, no.68). A ring of thirty-two petals surrounds
the palace, symbolizing the purified minds of these retinue deities.

Furthermore, sixteen tiny offering goddesses dance around the
palace’s veranda. Its walls are decorated with garlands and streamers,
while four gates are surmounted by parasols under which deer flank
a Dharma-wheel – symbols of Shakyamuni’s wisdom. Beyond the
palace’s protective ring, alternating figures of Amitayus and Amitabha
populate the painting’s corners and top and bottom registers. Sitting in
the bottom center is another figure of Ushnishavijaya; in the top center,
a Sakya teacher.

This mandala likely forms the final painting of a set of approximately
forty-four based on the Vajravali of Abhayakaragupta (11th century).
The palette is strong and vibrant, consistent with many portraits and
mandalas that have survived from Ngor monastery. For example,
compare with the Thirty-Two Deity Guhyasamaja mandala sold at
Bonhams, New York, 17 March 2014, lot 18 that was dated by
inscriptional evidence c.1520-1533.

A very similar Sakya mandala of Paramasukha Chakrasamvara in the
McCormick Collection is published in Leidy & Thurman, Mandala, 1997
pp.92-3. Also from Ngor monastery, it bears inscriptional evidence that
dates it c.1500. Like this Ushnishavijaya mandala, it is associated with
tantric practice to promote long-life.

The mandala is unusual for the large size of its central figure. The
painter sets Ushnishavijaya against the green, blue, and red of her
immediate aureole to project her outwards like a dazzling light.
The proportions allow for the fine treatment of her pale green and
maroon lower garments, draped in sumptuous folds across her lap.
These features are often absent at the center of more conventional
mandalas of the period. A Pancharaksha Mandala of strikingly similar
composition, sharing a brilliant white figure in its center, is held in
the Alain Bordier Foundation (von Schroeder, Tibetan Art of the Alain
Bordier Foundation, Hong Kong, 2009, pp.40-1, pl.14).

Provenance
Private European Collection
Rossi and Rossi Ltd, London, 2001
Carlton Rochell Asian Art, New York, 2003
Private Collection, New York

32 | BONHAMS