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A page of Selected Masterworks depicting Vajravarahi - a form of Vajrayogini.

Vajrayogini is the principal female deity of the Chakrasamvara Cycle of Tantras. There are many forms of her each having a unique name and appearance. Some names are descriptive such as Varahi meaning the 'sow,' or Krodha Kali meaning 'black wrathful' yogini. Other names refer to the Indian or Tibetan lineage associated with a particular Yogini form and practice. The most common forms found in art are the Naropa (Naro Khacho) form, Vajravarahi (with the pig face at the side), Krodha Kali (the black form) and Dechen Gyalmo (of the Longchen Nyingtig).

There are many other forms of the deity besides those mentioned above but they are not as commonly found in art as a central subject or sculpture. Besides those painted and sculptural representations, there are also many different mandala configurations for the various forms.

Shakyamuni Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats are again shown to be the most common painting subject found in Himalayan and Tibetan art. In this set there are seven compositions making up the full complement of the twenty-five required figures. The set is from the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. The composition of the seven is somewhat unusual as they appear to be either copied from a set of block prints used as a model or painted directly onto the prints after carved blocks were inked and printed on cloth. (See the Arhats Painting Sets Outline).

Vajrakila, also known as Vajrakilaya or Vajra Kumara (Vajra Youth) , is the activity aspect from the set of Eight Herukas (Tib.: ka gye) of the Mahayoga Tantras of the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and a principal meditational deity for both the Nyingmapa and Sakyapa, later taken up by the Jonang and many of the various Kagyu Traditions. The study of Vajrakila can be divided into three major subjects: (1) the early Nyingma and Sakya Traditions, (2) the later 'Revealed Treasure' (Terma) traditions and (3) the Purba Drugse Chempa of the Bon Religion.

See the updated Vajrakila Main Page.

The unique iconographic feature of Vajrakila is the three-sided peg (purba) that is held, pointed downward, with the two principal hands at the heart. Typically Vajrakila has three faces, six hands, four legs and wide outstretched wings behind. He embraces the consort Dipta Chakra who has one face, two hands and two legs.

There are two basic forms of the deity Vajrakila. The first is as described above with the lower body having four legs. An alternate to this is with a lower body shaped as a triangular peg with three blades (purba). In the 'Revealed Treasure' Tradition a variety of other forms developed such as the Nine-headed Vajrakila. There are dozens and dozens of 'Revealed Treasure' Traditions for Vajrakila and it can probably be said that he is the most popular meditaional deity of the Nyingma Tradition. Another deity form sometimes confused for Vajrakila is the deity Guru Dragpur, a form of Padmasambhava, an early Buddhist teacher in Tibet. Numerous wrathful meditational deities and protectors hold the purba (peg) as a hand attribute but they should not be confused with Vajrakila. Examples of these other deities are: Guru Dragpo, Shri Devi Dudsolma of the Naropa tradition, etc.

Copper load of this! Company digging mine in Afghanistan unearths 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery - By Daily Mail Reporter.

The dating may be a little off but the find is certainly sensational.

Shakyamuni Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats are the most common painting subject found in Himalayan art. The Buddha and arhats can be depicted all together in one composition or spread over several compositions of three, five, seven, eleven or twenty-three paintings in total. The complete complement of figures in a set is twenty-five. (See the Arhats Painting Sets Outline).

The Painting Sets Image continues to be added to all record pages where the single image of a painting belongs to a multiple painting set. In some cases the sets image indicates the exact number of paintings in the complete composition. Sometimes the image is also linked to other paintings from that same set.

Recently Completed Collections with Sets Images:

American Museum of Natural History, New York

The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago

Also see the Painting Sets Outline and the Painting Sets Glossary.

This seven painting set of Shakyamuni Buddha and the Sixteen Arhats is missing painting numbered 'Left One' containing four of the arhats. (See the Outline Page for this painting set).

One of the most interesting things about this set from the The Field Museum in Chicago is the depiction of a single Tibetan Lama bearing the inscription Je Changkya Rinpoche. From the incarnation line of the Changkya Tulkus it is quite possible that this is referring to Changkya Rolpai Dorje (1717-1786) an extremely important figure for Buddhism in China in the 18th century. (See the upper right corner of HAR #54439 for Changkya Rinpoche).

In Tibetan painting and sculptural sets the arhats are never created alone as just a set of sixteen. The full composition always has twenty-five figures: the most important - Buddha Shakyamuni, together with the two foremost disciples - Shariputra and Maudgalyayana, followed by the sixteen Arhats. Accompanying all of those are the attendant Dharmatala, the patron Hvashang and the Four Guardians of the Directions; Vaishravana, Virupaksha, Dhritarashtra and Virudhaka.

Arhat (Tibetan: ne tan): a Sanskrit term for Buddhist saints representing the earliest followers of the Buddha, always found in a group of sixteen (arhats), they are painted on cloth, as wall murals, and fashioned of metal, stone, clay, or wood. An early iconographic source for the individual descriptions of the arhats is the verse text Praise to the Sixteen Arhats attributed to the Kashmiri teacher Shakyashri Bhadra of the 12th/13th century.

In all, an extensive set of paintings with one figure per composition would comprise twenty-three individual paintings making up the complete work. In painting the two foremost disciples are almost always portrayed in the same composition with Buddha Shakyamuni. Each of the other figures is depicted in their own individual composition. In Chinese Buddhist art they count eighteen arhats known as lohan. This number is calculated by adding Dharmatala and Hvashang and including them as arhats (lohan) whereas the Tibetan system does not.

An outline page has been created for a set of paintings belonging to The Field Museum of Chicago. The four paintings belong to a five painting set depicting all of the Dalai Lama incarnations up to the 7th Dalai Lama (1708-1757) along with pre-incarnations. The depiction of each of the central figures, three per painting, is based on the famous Nartang Block Print Set of compositions from Nartang Monastery, Shigatse, Tibet. The central figure for the set is the 7th Dalai Lama, Kalzang Gyatso. At the top and bottom of each painting are depictions of the Buddha & Sixteen Arhats along with Attendants & Guardian Kings. For two of the paintings, at the bottom center, there are two protector deities - Inner Yama Dharmaraja & Magzor Gyalmo.

The missing painting depicts the 1st, 3rd and 5th Dalai Lamas along with the arhat Gopaka, the patron Hvashang & two of the Guardian Kings - Virudhaka and Dritarashtra. (Click on the individual paintings for the identification of each figure).

Art as commodity was somewhat known in Tibet for the last several hundred years with paintings produced in advance for sale to pilgrims and traders traveling to Tibet from India, Nepal, China and Mongolia. In Tibet the market places of Lhasa and Shigatse appear to be the primary sources for such paintings and objects of general consumption.

Pilgrimage paintings directed towards the Nepalese travelers and traders are generally identified by a black border with a Nepalese or Newar inscription at the bottom of the composition. Unlike typical Tibetan compositions the inscription on paintings for the Nepalese market almost always includes a date, the name of the donor and the individual or special purpose of dedication. The example painting at the left, Sitatapatra, was purchased in 1864 by a loving Nepalese husband to honour the memory of his deceased wife

The paintings in this group appear to be trade goods, export art, from the turn of the century China. The central figures - deities - are somewhat recognizable without close inspection. However, after a detailed viewing many of the iconographic details are incorrect. Some of these paintings are duplicates with the copies showing minor changes and differences while others are clearly made from tracings with some of the the tracing originals mistakenly reversed (duplicates: example 1, example 2. Reversed examples: Yama Dharmaraja, White Tara). A number of museums in North America have paintings such as these but they are rarely if ever displayed making the presentaion of these images a rare opportunity to study the phenomena of Himalayan art turning into a factory produced trade good. 

The paintings in this set are both interesting for the study of Himalayan and Tibetan style art becoming a commodity in 19th century China and also because these particular examples have a very clear provenance as of 1908-09 when they were collected in China by Berthold Laufer for The Field Museum of Chicago.

On recent attributions to Aniko by David Weldon. October 21, 2010

"Publications of late have seen a trend in the attribution of sculpture and painting to Aniko (1245-1306), the renowned Nepalese artist and architect. While Aniko’s career is well documented, his oeuvre has up to now been known only from descriptions in the annals. He was one of a group of artists summoned to Tibet from Nepal in 1260 by the Sakya hierarch Phags-pa (1235-1280) to construct a memorial stupa to Sakya Pandita (1182-1251). The Mongol emperor Khubilai Khan (1215-1294) sponsored the building. Aniko was then brought to the Chinese court where he impressed the emperor and rose to prominent posts in the Yuan (1279-1368) court. Amongst many honours he was appointed ‘Supervisor-in-chief of All Classes of Artisans’, and later ‘Minister of Education’ in charge of the ‘Imperial Manufactories Commission’ responsible for the court’s supply of precious materials such as gold, pearls and rhinoceros horn. The court annals describe numerous temples and stupas that Aniko constructed, bronzes that he cast and textiles that were woven to his design. Two stupas remain, one in Beijing and one on Wutai Mountain. The temples have not survived. But does anything remain of the portable works? The prolific output that we are told about would suggest there might be, and this leads to the desire among scholars to identify his work. While these recent attributions could be important steps forward in our understanding of thirteenth century Tibeto-Chinese metal sculpture and portable painting, how can we be sure of the attributions when there is a paucity of his works with which to compare them and no inscriptional evidence relating to the attributed works?" (Read the full article on the Asian Art website. See images of the Aniko Stupa in Beijing on the HAR website).

Images of Tibetan style paintings and sculpture from the public galleries of the Sichuan Provincial Museum in Chengdu, China, have been added to the HAR site [See Gallery Page]. There are now approximately 30 images with some details on the HAR site. Cataloguing is ongoing and more images will be added in the future.

In the beautiful and newly constructed museum there are three primary galleries for Tibetan artifacts: (1) sculpture, (2) shrine room with sculpture and (3) paintings. There are also additional Tibetan and Himalayan artifacts found scattered in other galleries. The Museum's total collection of Tibetan paintings might number as many as several hundred. It is not known how many sculptural objects are in the collection. According to HAR staff, after viewing a portion of the Tibetan painting collection in art storage, the best material in the museum's collection is not on display. The Tibetan collection is known for having a complete, or near complete set, of Gesar of Ling narrative paintings almost identical in composition to the partial set belonging to the Guimet Museum in Paris. Currently only one of those Gesar paintings is on display, although not in the Tibetan galleries.

There are two other important Tibetan museums in Chengdu, aside from a number of private collections of note - the Sichuan University Museum with approximaterly 300 Tibetan paintings and the Minorities University Tibetan Museum with approximately 50 paintings.

A page of Selected Masterworks depicting the form of Avalokiteshvara known as Chaturbhuja has been added to the site.

Avalokiteshvara is commonly referred to as the patron bodhisattva of Tibet. He is practiced by all traditions of Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism. There are numerous New (Sarma) lineages and forms of practice which span all four Tantric Classifications. In the Nyingma Tradition there are uncounted numbers of Kama and Terma (treasure) traditions of Avalokiteshvara. Amongst all of the different forms of Avalokiteshvara the four armed form of the deity is the most commonly depicted.

This is surely an unusual Refuge Field. It contains elements of both Nyingma and Karma Kagyu Traditions. Probably the most interesting visual element is the line of lineage teachers extending above the head of Vajradhara. This feature follows the Refuge Field description according to the 9th Karmapa and later the commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul. The image has not yet been added to the HAR database. (See the Custom Subject Fields Page).

An easy to follow Overview Outline has been added to the Refuge Field Main Page.

As for the creation of Refuge Field paintings and the Kagyu Tradition in general, the Drigung appear to be the earliest to adopt this visual model with a number of extant examples. Then follow the Drugpa Kagyu with one example on the HAR website. The Karma Kagyu appears to be the last to adopt the visual form with three pre 1959 examples known to exist. The earliest of those Karma Kagyu Refuge Fields can be dated to between 1900 and 1922 based on inscriptions and a depiction of the 15th Karmapa, Kakyab Dorje (1870/71-1921/22).

Kagyu Refuge Field Main Page

Kagyu Refuge Field Outline Page

The design for this style of a wood block print Refuge Field composition likely originates in the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery of Shigatse and based on the artistic and iconographic tradition of Konchog Gyaltsen (according to inscription). Looking at an unpainted print image (HAR #71968), the previous incarnations of the Panchen Lamas are clearly depicted in the upper right and left sides of the composition. Of the images exhibited on the Block Print Page, some are direct copies (HAR #74089, 571) from the wood block and others are variations based upon the wood block composition (HAR #94331, 64604). A good example of a variation is seen in HAR #87209 where the original central figure of Tsongkapa has been swapped for the image of Shakyamuni Buddha.

In the Gelug Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism there are numerous Refuge Field composition types distinguished both by central figure and also by support (i.e. lotus or tree): (1) Shakyamuni Buddha, (2) Je Tsongkapa, (3) Pabongka Design, and (4) Lotus Support, and (5) Block Print. The first three types are depicted at the peak of a wish-fulfilling tree, seated on a throne and lotus. The fourth type is placed only on a lotus blossom. The two general types of central figures for all types of Refuge Fields are Shakyamuni Buddha and Je Tsongkapa. The variation of the two subject figures depend on the intention, purpose and function of the painting. The former is a Lama Chopa (Shakyamuni) Refuge Field and the latter a Lamrim Lineage (Tsongkapa) Refuge Field.

Aside from those five general types of Gelug Refuge Fields there are also three miscellaneous types. The first of the miscellaneous types (1) are depictions of the Qianglong Emperor of China portrayed either as a royal figure, or as a monastic. He is pictured at the center of a painted composition, surrounded by the religious figures, deities and protectors typical of the Gelug Tradition. The second (2) is an unusual subject, not completely understood, but likely to be, a set of seven paintings drawn in the composition of a refuge field painting (with a tree as the support). The central subject of each of the paintings is a single buddha surrounded by the One Thousand Buddhas of the Age. A third type of Refuge Field is the Custom Subject Field where any Lama, Buddha or Deity can be placed at the center, surrounded by the appropriate lineage of teachers, related deities and special protector figures.

The Painting Sets Image is being added to all record pages where the single image of a painting belongs to a set of paintings. In some cases the sets image indicates how many paintings are in the full composition. Sometimes the image is also linked to other paintings from that same set.

Completed Collections with Painting Set Images:

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Rubin Museum of Art, NY

Tibet House, New York

Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY

Philadephia Museum of Fine Art

MFA Boston

Shelley & Donald Rubin Collection

Also see the Painting Sets Outline and the Painting Sets Glossary.

The Glossary Page has been updated with more links. There are now eleven (11) specialty glossaries listed at the top of the page.