Provenance:
David R. Nalin Collection
Published:
Melissa R. Kerin, Artful Beneficence: Highlights from the David R. Nalin Himalayan Art Collection, Rubin Museum of Art exhibition catalogue, New York, 2009, cat. no. 60
Exhibited:
"A Collector's Passion: South Asian Selections from the Nalin Collection," Rubin Museum of Art, June 12-November 9, 2009
At the center of this painting, Sakyamuni Buddha sits upon a multicolored lotus throne, his right hand extended in bhumisparsha mudra, the earth-touching gesture that commemorates the moment of enlightenment. Around him unfolds a panorama of the Buddha's previous lives. Rather than illustrating a single episode, the artist filled the painting with dozens of narrative scenes drawn from the Jataka tales—the stories through which the future Buddha cultivated wisdom, compassion, generosity, and self-sacrifice over countless lifetimes.
The composition is organized with unusual clarity. Instead of surrounding the central Buddha with a continuous landscape, the artist divided the painting into five horizontal registers, each containing its own sequence of events. Rolling hills, monasteries, palaces, forests, animals, and human figures create distinct narrative settings, while thin red lines separate the episodes. Gold inscriptions and numerical markers identify the individual stories, inviting the eye to move deliberately across the surface before returning to the serene figure of Sakyamuni at the center.
The artist employed a vivid palette of blues, greens, reds, and oranges that remains striking today. The broad shoulders, rounded face, and gently lowered eyes of the Buddha reflect painting traditions that flourished in Central Tibet during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the same time, the orderly arrangement of the narrative scenes distinguishes this work from many Tibetan paintings of the period, where stories often unfold within more densely layered landscapes. Here, the carefully separated registers give the composition a sense of order while allowing each episode to retain its own identity within the larger whole.
The numerical sequence preserved within the inscriptions provides an important clue to the painting's original conception. The scenes are numbered from thirty-one through forty, indicating that this thangka once formed part of a much larger narrative cycle. Rather than illustrating only the thirty-four stories of the classical Sanskrit Jatakamala, the sequence corresponds to the expanded collection of one hundred Jataka tales associated with the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339). Another painting from the same series survives in the Zimmerman Collection, sharing the same compositional format, numbering system, and narrative organization, confirming that both belonged to an ambitious cycle devoted to the Buddha's previous lives.
Viewed from a distance, the painting is dominated by the calm presence of the enlightened Buddha. Closer inspection reveals a wealth of miniature narratives populated by monks, kings, ascetics, animals, and ordinary people, each illustrating a different stage in the bodhisattva's path toward Buddhahood. The work rewards repeated viewing, offering both the immediate impact of a devotional image and the pleasure of discovering story after story woven into its carefully ordered design.
Viewed from a distance, the painting is dominated by the calm presence of the enlightened Buddha. Closer inspection reveals a remarkable succession of miniature narratives populated by monks, kings, ascetics, animals, and ordinary people, each illustrating a different stage in the bodhisattva's path toward Buddhahood. The work rewards repeated viewing, offering both the immediate impact of a monumental devotional image and the pleasure of discovering story after story woven into its richly-ordered design.
