Page 92 - Bonhams May 11th 2017 London Thangka Collection

37
A RARE THANGKA OF LAKSHMI
Mongolia, 19th century
Distemper on cloth, the reverse with inscription, with silk mount,
framed and glazed.
39 x 29 cm (15 3/8 x 11 1/2 in);
With mount: 49 x 36 cm (19 2/8 x 14 in).

蒙古十九世紀 吉祥天母像

Referenced 參考: Himalayan Art Resources item no.2196

Provenance 來源: The Jongen-Schleiper Collection of Fine Thangkas

Published and Illustrated: A.Neven, Etudes D’Art Lamaique et de
L’Himalaya, Brussels, 1978, p.84, no.61

出版及著錄： A.Neven著，《Etudes D’Art Lamaique et de
L’Himalaya》，布魯塞爾，1978年，頁84，編號61

This finely painted thangka depicts the very rare subject of the Indian
Goddess Lakshmi, or Pal Lhamo in Tibetan. She is the peaceful form
of Shri Devi Dudsolma. The Goddess sits atop a five tiered Mount
Sumeru. Her two earrings are decorated with a lion (simhakundala)
and a snake (nagakundala). In the right hand she holds a jewel and
a wealth vase in the left. Seated on her lap is a child suckling at her
nipple. Lakshmi was sometimes invoked against disease and for
protecting children.

The text on the reverse of the painting begins with a greeting to the
omniscient (sarvavidya) holder of the life procuring vajra (vajra ayushe):

ཨ་ཾོ སར་ྦ བདི ་ྱ ས་ྭ ཧ།
ཨོཾ་ཤ་ིྲ ར་ི རརུ ་ུ རོ་རཙ་པ་ལ་ཨ་ཤུག་མ་ེ ཧུཾ་བ༔ྱོ ཛཛ་
ཨོཾ་བཛ་ྲ ཨ་ཡཱུ་ཥ་ེ སྭ་ཧ།
ཨཾོ་མཧཱ་དེ་ཝི་ཀ་ལི་ར་ེ མ་ཏི་བོྷྱ་ཛྙ་ན་ས་ུ པ་ྲ ཏཥི ྠ་བཛྲ་ཡེ་ས་ྭ ཧཱ།
བུ་འགརུྱ ་མ་ེ ཚེ་དབང་ར་ོྡ རེྗ། བུ་ཨ་ོ རྒྱན་རམྣ ་གྲོལ། བུ་བྱང་ཆུབ་རྱྒལ་མཚན་ཀནུ ་བཟང་ཐགེ ་མཆོག་རྡོ་རེ།ྗ
བ་ུ མ་ོ ཡ་ེ ཤསེ ་ཆསོ ་སནྒྲོ ་རྣམས་ཀིྱས་བ་ླ ཚ་ེ སོྲག་ཚ་ེ ལསུ ་ངག་ཡདི ་གསུམ་ལྷ་མོ་ཁྱེད་ལ་བཅོལ་ལོ། གཏད་ད།ོ བུ་གཏའ་བསམོྡ ས་ལ་སུངྲ ་སབྐྱོ ས་མཛདོ ་
གཅིག། པཏུ རྲ ཀྵ་རཀྵ་རཀྵ་ས་ྭ ཧ།ཱ

‘The soul, life force and body, speech and mind of all my sons,
Tsewang Gyurme, Orgyen Namdrol, Jangchub Gyaltsen Kunzang
Thegchog Dorje and a daughter, Yeshey Chodron, I surrender and
entrust to you. Please protect all the entrusted children.’

Translation by J.Watt & K.Gellek, February 2017

37 (reverse detail)

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