Vajrapani Bhutadamara (HAR 64)

[00:00:05]Welcome to Himalayan Art Resources. My name is Jeff Watt.

[00:00:08]Today we're going to look at a painting of uh the deity Vajrapani, but not the Bodhisattva out of the Sutra literature.

[00:00:15]We're looking at a a one-faced, four-armed, wrathful Raksha figure in Krodha appearance. Krodha means wrathful. Raksha means demon-like.

[00:00:27]And this is uh typically in um in ancient literature how they described uh wrathful figures are to be Raksha-like.

[00:00:37]And Raksha were the were the um demon type figures that came from the Isle of Sri Lanka. And they were all the the followers of Ravana from the Ramayana out of the Mahabharata. So when um Ravana kidnapped um uh uh Sita and um Rama and his brothers had to go and rescue her. Uh they had to fight the Rakshas. And they were all these wrathful, ugly demon figures. And so that's what um Tibetan Buddhist um wrathful deities are based on is these Raksha figures. And so what we have here is uh a form of Vajrapani as a meditational deity, not Vajrapani as the Bodhisattva who is mentioned um numerous times in the Sutrayana literature. No, now we're dealing with Vajrapani as a meditation meditational deity as an example used by practitioners um in uh Tantric theory and Tantric practice. So But what's unusual and unique about this painting? Um it's horn number 64, belongs to the Rubin Museum of Art. It was originally um um it currently belongs to the Rubin Museum, but originally it belonged to the um Shelley and Donald Rubin private collection.

[00:01:56]Um and then later they gifted it to the museum.

[00:01:59]But, um, what we have is we have the Vajrapani with four arms at the center of the composition. And then above, we have, um, uh, several we have three Buddhas, most likely the Buddhas of the three times.

[00:02:13]Um, Shakyamuni of the present, Dipamkara of the previous era, and Maitreya of the upcoming era. Then we have what looks like to be a Manjushri and then an Avalokiteshvara at the upper right and left corners. Below that, we have a Sakya Pandita wearing a red hat on the viewer's right side, and we have a Tsongkhapa on the viewer's left side.

[00:02:36]Um, then descending down at the bottom center, we have a Padmasambhava.

[00:02:43]To the viewer's, uh, right, we have, I think it's a Drikung, uh, Jigten Sumgon, um, of, uh, the, uh, Drikung tradition, and on the left side we have the 11th Karmapa, uh, of the Karma Kagyu. How do we know that?

[00:03:00]Because there are inscriptions for all of these figures.

[00:03:03]At the bottom left side, we have a yellow Jambhala. He's a god of wealth.

[00:03:08]Now, what's notable in this painting is the lower right side, viewer's right side, where we have a figure, um, with his hands folded in prayer or in respect, and, um, wearing white garments, seated on a pinkish kind of, uh, flower blossom lotus with a red halo surrounding. This typically indicates that the person is demise, the person has passed away.

[00:03:38]And so we're looking at a kind of what we might call a a death tangka or a funerary, uh, painting. This would be done after the person passed away.

[00:03:48]And, um, typically, if the person who passed away is a religious practitioner, then they might have a painting done of their specific meditation deity practices. Or in other examples, you would have the family would ask a llama and the a teacher and by divination, he would say, "Oh, paint a painting of such and such a person, such and such a Buddha, or or certain type of wrathful deity or peaceful deity."

[00:04:20]And then what has happened with this painting is the family is looking for blessing from all of the different traditions. So, they painted a founder of the Gelug tradition, Tsongkhapa. They've painted a luminary of the Sakya tradition, Sakya Pandita. The founder of the Drikung tradition, the founder of the Nyingma tradition, and then what is likely to be the current living Karmapa. So, I think he passed away in 1702 or 17 around that time.

[00:04:53]And so, they painted him as well. So, they're looking for the blessings of all the different traditions for for the safekeeping and the auspiciousness of their deceased relative. So, this is very interesting painting from the point of view of culture and religious culture and funerary practices of Tibet.

[00:05:14]So, we'll leave it there. You can press like, you can subscribe, you can join HARN Patreon for longer videos, or you can make a donation on the homepage of Himalayan Art Resources.