A SILK THANGKA DEPICTING AN ASSEMBLY OF EMBLEMS Tibet, Circa 18th Century

A SILK THANGKA DEPICTING AN ASSEMBLY OF EMBLEMS Tibet, Circa 18th Century

depicting a skull crown, tiger skin apron, bone apron, scarf, golden earrings, necklace of freshly severed heads and snake jewellery, with a canopy above and black ravens to the side, an array of drums and ritual implements on altar tables beneath, and offerings of the emblems of chakravartin, weapons and animal skins below, together with a separated white silk veil with Tibetan inscription

Himalayan Art Resources item no. 18364.
51 3/4 by 23 1/4 in. (129 by 59 cm)

Provenance:
The Tibetan inscription on the silk veil may be translated as follows:

Om mahakala vikala ratri[k]a hum bhyo shatrun maraya hum phat! Through a compassionate display of raging wrath, the terrifying warrior with four faces, four arms, one leg bent and the other one stretched out, stands majestically upon samaya offenders. His dark blue body [wears] a warrior’s [bone] attire. He holds a sword, a skull, a spear, a garland of heads, a chopper, a vase, and innumerable weapons. The faces are light yellow, greenish red, and variegated. Through the manifestation of the four activities you protect the Buddha’s teachings. The four supreme consorts and the eight classes of malevolent deities partake in slaughtering a gathering of twenty one tribal (Tibetan: mon pa) men and women. The Lord of Life in union with his consort are the thieves of mortal beings’ vital breath. Surrounded by an ocean of oath-bound protectors, I bow down to you. Blessed Nepalese metal images (bal li), jewels, silk brocades, animal pelts, and this sharp-pointed sword, were offered symbolically (…) by the monk Palden Chökyong as a thanksgiving for a well [granted] former request. This was realised in accordance with the Dharma to accomplish what was wished for. Sarva Mangalam.

The text written on the silk veil reveals that the painted khatta represents a symbolic depiction of Chaturmukha Shrimahakala and his consorts. The display of attributes alone would appear to be consistent with Sakya tradition, whereby this four-faced and four-armed manifestation of Mahakala is rarely depicted in art and never shown to the uninitiated. In this form, Shrimahakala is the chief protector deity of Ngor Monastery, where the abbots were compelled to receive ritual permission for practicing the deity prior to their installation ceremony as head of the monastery, see Jörg Heimbel, Vajradhara in Human Form: The Life and Times of Ngor chen Kun dga’ bzang po, Lumbini, 2017, pp. 263–64.

It seems likely therefore that the monk mentioned in the inscription is indeed Palden Chökyong (1702-1760), the thirty-fourth abbot of Ngor. Palden Chökyong’s tenure lasted from 1733 until 1739, after which he became the court chaplain to the king of Derge between 1739 and 1754, ibid., p. 527, n. 45. It has been suggested that the abbot of Ngor commissioned this painting during a pilgrimage to Derge in Eastern Tibet, see Richard R. Ernst, ‘Science and Arts’, EPR News Letter 14, no. 1-2 (2004): pp. 15-18. Palden Chökyong left an impressive body of literary work, including an autobiography, which may bear evidence for the present work and votive scarf.

༄༅། །ༀམཧཱཀཱལབིཀཱལརཊི ཏཧཱུྃབྷྱོ་ཤཏྲུན མཱརཡཧཱུྃཕཊ།

གཏུམ་ཆེན་ཁྲོས་པའི་ཐུགས་རྗེའི་ཟློས་གར་ལས། །འཇིགས་རུང་དཔའ་

བོ་ཞལ་བཞི་ཕྱགས་བཞི་པ། །ཞབས་གཉིས་བརྐྱང་བསྐུམ་དམ་ཉཾས་རོ་སྟེང་འགྱིང།།

མཐིང་ནག་སྐུ་ལུས་དཔའ་བོའི་ཆས་ཀྱི་བརྒྱན། །རལ་གྲི་ཐོད་པ་མདུང་ཐུང་མགོ་ཕྲེང་

དང་། །གྲི་ཁུག་བུམ་པ་མཚོན་ཆདུ་མ་འཛིན། །རེ་འགའ་དཀར་སེར་དམར་ལྗང་

སྣ་ཚོགས་ཞལ། །ལས་བཞིའི་སྤྲུལ་པ་ཐུབ་བསྟན་སྐྱོང་ཁྱོད་ཉིད། །ཡུམ་ཆེན་བཞི་དང་

དྲེགས་པ་སྡེ་བརྒྱད། །རོལ་ཤན་ཉེར་གཅིག་མོན་པ་ཕོ་མོའི་ཚོགས། །སྲོག་བདག་ཡབ་ཡུམ་སྐྱེ་

འགྲོའི་དབུགས་ལེན་སོགས། །དམ་ཅན་རྒྱ་མཚོས་ཡོངསུ་བསྐོར་ལ་འདུད། །

བྱིན་གྱིས་བརླབས་པའི་པལི་དང་། །རིན་ཆེན་དར་ཟབ་སྤྱན་གཟིགས་ཚོགས། །རྣོ་ངར་ལྡན་པའི་རལ་

གྲི་འདི། །དགེ་སློང་དཔལ་ལྡན་ཆོས་སྐྱོང་གིས། སྔར་ཞུས་ལེགས་པའི་བཏང་རག་ཡིན།།

་་་ ས་ལེགས་པའི་བརྡའ་རུ་འབུལ། བསམ་དོན་ཆོས་བཞིན་འགྲུབ་པར་མཛད། །

སརྦ་མངྒ་ལཾ།