Hevajra (HAR 3314471)

[00:00:05]Welcome to Himalayan Art Resources. My name is Jeff Watt. Today we're going to look at a painting of uh the deity meditation deity Shri Hevajra.

[00:00:14]And this painting I have not actually, to my recollection, seen it in person.

[00:00:21]Um it belongs to the Museum of Culture in Basel, Switzerland. And I have visited that museum and I have looked at a large number of the objects, but I don't actually recall if I saw this and I don't recall uh its measurements or its size, but I don't think that it is a particularly large painting.

[00:00:42]So, what we're looking at is we're looking at a Buddhist meditation deity with uh retinue deities and some historical figures at the top. And it's painted on a black background. So, this painting can be referred to as a nagtang or a black ground painting.

[00:01:01]And the figures, the the the um imaginary as well as the historical, are are painted in full color against this black background. This was not the original intention of black ground paintings.

[00:01:17]Black ground paintings uh originally would also have the figures uh just outlined in a dark brown or or uh yellow or a gold line.

[00:01:27]Um and then the uh there would not be color to fill entirely the figures. But this is a new trend that came about it's really hard to say when, but definitely we see this in the uh 17th and 18th century. And we can date this painting. This painting can be dated to to actually the mid um to the mid 18th century. How do we know that? Because we have inscriptions for two of the figures. We we only really care about the inscriptions for the two figures that are closest to to historical chronology. And those are the the two monastic figures directly above the central blue multi-faced multi-armed Hevajra. We have two figures above. The one on the viewer's left side is actually Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo. He lived 1382 to 1456. He was the founder of the sub-school of the Ngor tradition of Sakya.

[00:02:29]Now, what's important here for art history and chronology is the figure on the viewer's right side. On the right side, we have a fellow named Palden Chokyong. I believe Palden Chokyong was um also of the Tsar Tsay Labrang, if I'm not mistaken. And also related to the Khen Tsays.

[00:02:50]To I think Khen Tsay Wangpo is a leader. Belongs to the same tradition as Palden Chokyong.

[00:02:59]So, [clears throat] we know it's Palden Chokyong by the inscription that's written there. And he was born in 1702.

[00:03:06]And he lived till 1759.

[00:03:09]So, it's very likely that this painting was done by a student of Palden Chokyong.

[00:03:16]And and also he was the 34th Abbot of Ngor Monastery, which was founded by the other figure, Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo, who was seated across from him in the composition.

[00:03:29]Now, at the top center, we have the primordial Buddha blue in color.

[00:03:34]And then on the viewer's upper left side, we have the Indian Siddha figure of Virupa. Brown in color, one arm upraised. And then on the upper right side, viewer's right side, we have Sachen Kunga Nyingpo.

[00:03:49]One of the found early founders of the Sakya school. And so the these these figures go too far back. I mean the Virupa in India can go back to the 9th century and the Sachen Kunga Nyingpo is um is 11th and uh 12th century.

[00:04:08]Um but we really have to look at this Pelden Chogyal who lived in the first half really first half of the 18th century and that's how we date this painting.

[00:04:20]Um the eight dancing female figures are all retinue figures for the central meditational deity of Hevajra and they would be part of his mandala if this was a more geometrical more formalized painting but it's not it's very loose and the style of composition that we're looking at is is floating figure where where the figures are just placed against a background a very loose background of sky cloud and some very minimal landscape in the foreground but [gasps and sighs] um this is actually a a really wonderful example of black ground with a lot of color added for the figures which is this development 17th 18th century development of black ground where where you're really you're mixing multicolored paintings with black ground paintings and and you're beginning to um um really experiment and investigate with all different types of style composition and and your use of color um and so this is a very common in Tibet during this time period it's a very very um imaginative and very inspiring period of Tibetan art because you have so many new types styles genres of painting developing um so it's a of the most exciting periods. Prior to the really the uh the uh 15th century, uh painting was very static, and it was uh and it was um um a a lot of it was copy-based. And um they were using the same uh styles and the same um uh compositional frameworks. Whereas, once you get back down to the uh really the 16th, 17th, 18th century, then then um everything becomes much freer and more imaginative, and the artists have a lot more uh uh control and are allowed to put a lot more of themselves and their skill into into the art. So, we'll leave it there. You can press like. You can subscribe. You can join HAR on Patreon. You can also make a donation on the homepage of Himalayan Art Resources.