Page 50 - Indian, Himalayan and Tibetan Art March 2018

The bodhisatttva Ekadashamukha Lokeshvara
is depicted with eleven heads, as described in
the ancient Indian text ‘Arya Avalokiteshvara
Ekadashamukha Nama Dharani’.
This form of the bodhisattva has been popular
with Tibetan Buddhists since the reintroduction
of the faith in the country during the Chidar, or
Later Di* usion of Faith, corresponding to around
1000-1200 C. E. The iconography of this example
corresponds to eastern Indian Pala period (c.
750-1200) sculpture, such as a twelfth century
northern Bengal copper alloy statue depicting
Ekadashamukha Lokeshvara now in the Potala, see
Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet,
Hong Kong, 2001, Vol I. p. 238, pl. 72A.
The cult was not popular in Nepal in this early
period, and it may be assumed that it was Indian
Buddhist culture that was the source of the deity’s
practice in Tibet. Indeed the style of the present
example owes much to the artistic traditions of the
Pala period, including the linear stance, as seen in
the Pala example of the same iconography, and
the necklace with distinctive inverted teardrop
pendants held by % ower petal clasps; compare the
necklace pendants on an eleventh century Pala
period crowned Buddha in Mindroling, ibid., p.
265, pl. 84C. Also compare the Tibetan 1150-1250
copper alloy Tathagatas at Nyethang monastery,
ibid., Vol. II, pp. 1166-7, pls. 310A-E, including
the drop necklace, circular beaded earring and
armband design, the casting sprues left in place
in the crown, and the scrolling vine design of
the central element of the crown, including the
miniature image of Buddha.
Nyethang was one of the principal residences
in Tibet of the Indian guru Atisha (982-1054),
founder of the Kadam order, who was known
to have employed Indian artists, the legacy of
whom is manifest in this important statue of
Ekadashamukha Lokeshvara. It remains one of the
larger copper alloy examples of the bodhisattva
outside Tibet which date to this early formative
period of Tibet’s art history; for a large and later
example, dating to circa 1400, see Pratapaditya Pal,
Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure, Chicago, 2003,
p. 226, pl. 147.

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