Page 118 - 2019 September 11th Christie's New York Chiense Art Himalayan bronzes and art

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A RARE BRONZE FIGURE OF HVASHANG
TIBET, 15TH CENTURY
5¿ in. (13 cm.) high

$30,000-50,000

PROVENANCE
Rossi & Rossi, London, by 2003.
Private collection, United Kingdom, by repute.
LITERATURE
Rossi & Rossi, Homage to the Holy: Portraits of Tibet’s Spiritual Teachers
[exhibition catalogue], London, 6 November - 28 November 2003, no. 3.

Hvashang was an eighth-century Chinese Buddhist monk who, after teaching
on a visit to the region of Dunhang, was invited by Tibetan King Trisong Detsen
to represent the Northern Chinese school of Ch’an Buddhism in a debate
against an Indian adept to represent the position of the gradual approach to
enlightenment. The latter school prevailed and Hvashang’s Ch’an philosophy
of sudden enlightenment was oficially denounced.
The present representation depicts the adept holding a persimmon fruit—an
ofering to the arhats he challenged at the Lhasa Council. A monk sits before
him and other devotees at his side, perhaps symbolizing his audience or fellow
Chinese monks.
The sculpture bears a compositional and stylistic similarity to a sculpture
housed in the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, illustrated below.
Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 24562.

“Hva shang; Tibetan, 15th/16th century; Brass; Height 9 cm; width 11.1 cm.; Jo khang
/ gTsug lag khang Collection; inventory no. 137,” after G. Dorje, Jokhang – Tibet’s Most
Sacred Buddhist Temple, London, 2010, p. 271, fg. 20G.

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