A thangka depicting a mandala of Akshobhya, Tibet, 14th / 15th century

Carlo Cristi, Brussels, 6th July 2017.

Blue Akshobhya appears at the centre of this finely painted mandala with his right hand in bhumisparsha mudra and his left with an upright vajra. The Tathagata’s throne and torana are supported by white elephants representing Akshobhya’s vahana, and set within an eight-petalled lotus flower with goddesses on each petal personifying the Eight Auspicious Emblems. Four Directions goddesses are depicted outside the lotus in the red, yellow, white and green quadrants representing, west, south, east and north respectively. Red Manjushri appears in the upper register together with an unidentified monastic lineage. Tathagatas are depicted in the left hand register, and forms of Tara and Manjushri in the right, with a host of Buddhas, direction guardians, dharmapala, wealth gods, and other deities in the lower registers, together with a lay officiant with his offering stand. The verso is inscribed in Tibetan uchen script within the drawn outlines of a stupa. The thangka is painted in the Nepalese manner and is likely to have been commissioned in Western Tibet around the fourteenth century. Compare stylistic elements with a fourteenth century, or earlier, Western Tibetan portrait of an Abbot and his Lineage in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, illustrated in Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Tibet, Los Angeles, 1983, pl. 9, where Dr. Pal discusses questions regarding the identification of the lineage depicted on the painting, ibid, p. 136. Compare also the style of a ca. 1300 Western Tibetan Vajrahumkara Vajrakila mandala in the Pritzker Collection, illustrated in Pratapaditya Pal, Tibet: Tradition and Change, Albuquerque, 1997, pl. 71, where Pal discusses the Newar stylistic influence, ibid, p. 143.