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A GILT LACQUERED AND POLYCHROMED WOOD MANUSCRIPT COVER WITH SARAVID VAIROCANA AND THE WISDOM BUDDHAS TIBET, CIRCA 14TH CENTURY image 1
A GILT LACQUERED AND POLYCHROMED WOOD MANUSCRIPT COVER WITH SARAVID VAIROCANA AND THE WISDOM BUDDHAS TIBET, CIRCA 14TH CENTURY image 2
A GILT LACQUERED AND POLYCHROMED WOOD MANUSCRIPT COVER WITH SARAVID VAIROCANA AND THE WISDOM BUDDHAS TIBET, CIRCA 14TH CENTURY image 3
Lot 3211

A GILT LACQUERED AND POLYCHROMED WOOD MANUSCRIPT COVER WITH SARAVID VAIROCANA AND THE WISDOM BUDDHAS
TIBET, CIRCA 14TH CENTURY

20 March 2018, 18:30 EDT
New York

US$15,000 - US$20,000

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A GILT LACQUERED AND POLYCHROMED WOOD MANUSCRIPT COVER WITH SARAVID VAIROCANA AND THE WISDOM BUDDHAS

TIBET, CIRCA 14TH CENTURY
Himalayan Art Resources item no.61527
9 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. (24.1 x 62.3 cm)

Footnotes

西藏 約十四世紀 木雕彩漆毗盧遮那佛護經板

This glorious and rare manuscript cover survives with its original gold, red, green, and ultramarine pigmentation. Its composition features the five Tathgathas deeply carved into lotus roundels, with the distinctive representation of four-headed Saravid Vairocana at the center. The Cosmic Buddhas are guarded by a protective deity at each center of the outer border, interspersed among scrolling vines from which are blooming plump lotus buds of alternating colors, redolent of the those seen on the necklaces of Tathagathas in 12th-14th-century thangkas (cf. Kossak & Casey Singer, Sacred Visions, New York, 1999, pp.54-61, 80-3, 104-8 & 154-5, nos. 3-5, 13, 14, 23, & 42.)

Before Akshobya's ascendancy, Vairocana was of primary importance among the Buddha families in early Buddhist Tibet, where a statue of Saravid Vairocana was installed at the center of at Tabo monastery founded in 966 in Western Tibet (see Klimburg-Salter (ed.), Tabo, Milan, 1997, p.97, fig.61).

The short sides of the cover have been skillfully carved with figures of Vajrapani, Shakyamuni, and Prajnaparamita. According to Heller, the practice of carving the sides is possibly specific to the Western Himalayas, as no such examples have been documented from other regions of Tibet. Similar book covers have been photographed at monasteries in Dolpo, Limi, and Mustang: geographic locations where wood was more plentiful. An example with comparable carving is published in Weldon, Early Tibetan Manuscript Covers, London, 1996, no.15.

Published
Marcel Nies Oriental Art, Body, Speech & Mind, Antwerp, 2006, pp.36-7.

Provenance
Private Collection, New Zealand, 2000s
Marcel Nies Oriental Art, Antwerp, 23 January 2007

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