Page 130 - Sotheby's October 3 2017 Tantra Buddhost Art

perfections. These textural bone ornaments appear in beaded
rows in the present work, and also represent the Five Dhyani
Buddhas: (1) the crown of the head, symbolising dhyana or
concentration and Buddha Akshobhya; (2) the earrings that
symbolise kshanti or patience and the Buddha Amitabha; (3)
the necklace that symbolises dana or generosity and Buddha
Ratnasambhava; (4) the armlets and anklets that symbolise
shila or discipline and the Buddha Vairocana; (5) the girdle
and apron that symbolises virya or exertion and Buddha
Amoghasiddhi; and (6) the crisscrossed torso ornament that
symbolises prajña or wisdom and Buddha Vajradhara. From
Chakrasamvara’s neck hangs a garland of fifty-one severed
heads strung on a length of human intestine and the hair of
a corpse, signifying both the purification of speech and the
purification of the fifty-one mental factors according to the
Cittamatra or Mind-Only School as described by Asanga.
As outlined in Olaf Czaja and Adriana Proser, Golden Visions
of Densatil: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, New York, 2014,
pp. 55-62, the surviving accounts of visitors to the monastery
of Densatil, destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, reveal their
admiration of the stunning treasures on the towering tashi
gomang stupas. Their words resonate through the ages and
place the current magnificent sculpture in its original context.
Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), founder of the Gelug school,
visited Densatil at the occasion of a stupa being erected to
commemorate his tutor Dragpa Jangchub (1356-1386), and
proclaimed:
“Being surrounded by statues which are beautiful in all ways
On all tiers of the sides filling all directions,
Which are of sparkling lustre of a clear brilliance”.
Giuseppe Tucci, visiting in 1948, wrote:
“The architectural lines of those buildings were smothered
with a wealth of carvings and reliefs that knew no limits. The
whole Olympus of Mahayana seemed to have assembled
on those monuments. As I cast the light of my torch on the
chortens, the several figures sprang into life, glittering with
gold outlines and set off by darker hues and deep shadows”.

128 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比