
Mark Rasmussen
International Director
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International Director
There are numerous ways in which the Avadana teaching stories have been illustrated. In the New Menri style of painting, beginning in the 17th century, there are at least two methods of composition based on emphasizing different characters and meanings from the 108 avadana stories. The painting style emphasized at Palpung Monastery, founded by Situ Panchen Chokyi Jungne in the mid 18th century, follows in the Kham Style (khan dri) and places the narrative stories on a much more open landscape compared with the Central Tibetan New Menri style of painting.
This is painting number 2 in Avadana series containing stories numbering 1 through 3, from a set of 23 compositions and 108 stories. This particular composition is very finely done. Each of the three stories are identified by a Tibetan inscription along with a number reference.
The second story is related to the generosity of King Srisena whose actions attracted the attention of the god Indra. Indra, wishing to test Srisena, took the form of a Brahman who lost the lower half of his body after being devoured by a tiger, and asked Srisena for half of his own body to replace it. Srisena immediately agreed, as he did not wish to see the Brahman suffer and ordered for his body to cut in half, as shown in the thangka. Indra acknowledged the remarkable selfless act by restoring both of their bodies to whole.
Other thangkas from this series are in the Newark Museum of Art, see Reynolds, From the Sacred Realm: Treasures of Tibetan Art, New York, 1999, p. 184, pl. 103; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, see Pal, Art of Tibet, Los Angeles, 1990, p. 165, no. P28; Rubin Museum of Art, see Jackson, Patron and Painter: Situ Panchen and the Revival of the Encampment Style, New York, 2009, pp. 12 and 27, figs. 1.15 and 2.10, 6.11 (HAR #247 and #65136); and in the Shelley and Donald Rubin Collection featured on the himalayanart.org (HAR #30 and #138).
Jackson notes, "In 1733 at Palpung, soon after hearing the heartbreaking news of the sudden passing away of both the Twelfth Karmapa and Sharmar lamas (possibly from smallpox), Situ began designing a set of thangkas depicting the 108 stories from Ksemendra's Wish-Granting Vine collecting of versified moral tales (avandana) and themes. He set up a workshoip for executing some thirty thangkas, for which he himself sketched the compositions according to his own imagination and original ideas" (New York, 2009, p. 11).
Published:
HAR #41005 - http://www.himalayanart.org/image.cfm/41005.html
Provenance:
Private Collection, New York