Footnotes

黑檀普巴杵
西藏 約十五世紀

A phurba is a three-bladed ceremonial stake used to anchor, neutralize, and transmute negative phenomena in Vajrayana Buddhist rituals. The phurba's magical effects cover a variety of domains, from exorcism and consecration to weather-making and the curing of diseases.

This magnificent phurba is carved in ebony—a rare and expensive material in Tibet. The hardwood has a highly polished surface. Comprised of three sections, the phurba's pommel is carved with the three wrathful faces of Vajrakila, a personification of the teachings and practices around the ritual implement. Each face was painted a different color—black, red, and white—and has inlaid bone depicting the Vajrakila's fangs and teeth. Above the conjoined hairbun is a later wood vajra-finial replaces the original. The phurba's shaft is intricately carved with a lozenge-shaped lotus grip in the middle of two knotted 'thread mansions'. The blade begins as if ushering from a makara's mouth. It has large snakes coiling over it, and the edges are carved with bifurcating flaming bands that are still occasionally highlighted with the phurba's original gilding.

Stylistically, the round hairbun above the three faces confers the phurba's attribution to the 15th-century, as later examples have spiky, flame-like hairstyles. The tensile quality of the overall carving and the superlative treatment of the makara head further indicate the high artistic production of the 15th century, considered Tibet's renaissance. Compare related examples held by the Rubin Museum of Art and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology (HAR 65390 & 35060, respectively). While the phurba's iconography is consistent with the larger corpus, the carved embellishment of its bladed edges are shared by very few examples, one other being published in Henss, Buddhist Ritual Art of Tibet, Stuttgart, 2020, p.179, no.206.

Exhibited
Rituels tibétains: Visions secrètes du Vème Dalaï Lama (1617 – 1682), Musée Guimet, Paris, 6 November 2002-24 February 2003.

Published
Nathalie Bazin et al., Rituels tibétains: Visions secrètes du Vème Dalaï Lama (1617–1682), Paris, 2002, p.155, no.120.

Provenance
Robert Burawoy, Paris, before 2002
Private European Collection