Buddhist Hierarch

Giuseppe Tucci speculated that this painting might represent the Gelugpa hierarch Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) and dismissed a Sakya attribution due to the lamas in the outer and lower registers not wearing the distinctive red cap associated with that order.[1]  These figures may in fact represent Indian pandita.  Early Gelugpa paintings depict the Indian lineages of the Kadam order that was introduced to Tibet by Atisha (982-1054) in the eleventh century: Kadam teachings influenced Tsongkhapa’s new Gelug order in the fifteenth century.[2]  Unusually, no Tibetan lineage is depicted on the painting to confirm a particular religious affiliation, although Gelugpa is most likely judging by the typical yellow cap with long lappets worn by the hierarch.  With no inscriptional evidence, the identification of the central figure as Tsongkhapa remains conjecture.  Moreover, the majority of fifteenth-century Tibetan paintings of Tsongkhapa show the master holding the stems of flowers that support his identifying emblems of sword and book.[3]  It is perhaps more likely that the painting portrays one of the many Gelugpa teachers who were active under Tsongkhapa’s leadership in the fifteenth century.

Prajnaparamita and Amitayus are depicted at the top of the outermost side registers above the Indian teachers, and the sixteen arhats are portrayed in the inner registers and below the central figure, together with the lay attendant Dharmatala and Green and White Tara.  Mahakala, Sri Devi, and Vaishravana complete the lower register next to a consecration scene of ritual vessels on tripod stands beneath a green pleated-textile canopy, with a lay officiant, an ordained monk wearing a red outer robe, and a donor and her family or attendants.  Shakyamuni Buddha, Manjusri, Chaturbhuja Avalokiteshvara, and Vajrapani are represented in the upper register, with Chintamanichakra Avalokiteshvara at the right standing before a ten-point chakra wheel.

The sixteen arhats are a relatively common theme in Western Tibetan painting, appearing on two other fifteenth-century examples in the Tucci Collection.[4]  Consecration scenes with monks and donors, and in this case a lay officiant, are also common.  The officiant is a colorfully-dressed, youthful, and commanding figure with a full head of black hair, beard, and moustache—perhaps an unordained hierarch of the Sakya or Kagyu order.

Nepalese stylistic influence is evident in the detail of the painting, including the flower-filled midnight-blue background, the columns of the torana emerging from kalasha vases, and the style of makara and kirtimukha in the arch above.  The consecration scene, the costume style of the donors, and comparisons with the geometric composition of fifteenth-century Nepalese-style Western Tibetan paintings—such as the ex-Tucci Tsongkhapa portrait in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts[5]—suggest a Western Tibetan provenance and a fifteenth-century date for this unusual devotional portrait.

[1] Tucci, op. cit.
[2] David P. Jackson, Mirror of the Buddha: Early Portraits from Tibet, New York, 2011, pp. 89-92
[3] Ibid, pp. 89-93, figs. 3.16-3.19
[4] Tucci, op. cit., pls. 24, 36
[5] Tucci, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 339, no. 10, pls. 8-12; and Jackson, op. cit., p. 89, fig. 3.16