A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF SARAVID VAIROCANA
TIBET, 15TH/16TH CENTURY Himalayan Art Resources item no.16884 15.2 cm (6 in.) high
注脚
大日如來銅像西藏 十五/十六世紀Saravid Maha Vairocana is the patriarch of all the families of Vairocana Buddha. A statue of the root deity is installed at the center of the famed Tabo monastery complex in Spiti Valley (see Klimburg-Salter (ed.), ?Tabo, a Lamp for the Kingdom, Milan, 1997, fig. 61, p. 97). There, 'the Omnipresent One' sits at the center of a 37-deity mandala from which everything stems, spreading out from his germinal refulgence until finally becoming dim. Saravid Vairocana is recognized by his bodhisattva regalia, his three faces, and his wheel resting in his hand representing the Dharma. (The wheel is often missing, but remains with this example.) The bronze has the dressy silks and slender lotus petals of 15th-to-16th-century Tibetan bronzes inspired by the Early Ming imperial style. Its crown type is popular in West Tibet, near where Tabo monastery is located. Compare a Ratnsambhava in the Essen Collection in von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p.192, no.132F and the treatment of the textiles and lotus platform on a Vajradhara (ibid., no.40A and p.477). Provenance Private Collection, Bloomington, Indiana, before 1995