Provenance:
The Richard R. & Magdalena Ernst Collection
Sotheby’s, New York, March 22, 2018, no. 959
Probably one of a series of paintings, this elaborate and skillfully-painted thangka depicts one episode of the Miracles at Shravasti, which are traditionally celebrated in Tibet during the Great Festival of Miracles in the first two weeks of the Tibetan New Year. The celebration praises the defeat of six Brahmanical or non-Buddhist teachers (tirthika) by Sakyamuni Buddha. This thangka appears to narrate the eighth miracle, with the naga offering a lotus tree of a thousand petals with myriad emanated Buddhas expounding the dharma while Vajrapani dispels the heretics depicted in the lower left of the painting.
Sakyamuni is depicted with his right hand raised in vitarka mudra and left in dhyana mudra. He is surrounded by a multitude of Buddhas within a rainbow realm and seated on a flower rising from a lotus pond with naga in attendance. Gods, mythical animals, monks, and dignitaries are in obeisance to each side, with a stupa on an outcrop below
The Tibetan inscription can be translated as follows:
The nagas offered a lotus tree (…) with as many as one thousand petals (…) was seated in the heart of that lotus. Then, many similar lotuses appeared to the right and left of the Blessed One (bhagavan). On these also were seated many emanations of the Buddha. [In the same way], Buddha Avatamsaka manifested himself as far as the Akanishtha realm. Upon seeing the miracle, [King] Prasenajit, the queen’s retinue, hundreds of thousands of spiritual heirs who had come from different lands, and hundreds of thousands of celestial gods felt overjoyed.
The Tibetan inscription beneath may be translated as follows:
Yaksha Vajrapani having sent [dusty] wind gusts and torrential rain, such that the magical pavilion did not come into the path of their sight, the heretics ran away.
