Footnotes

銅鎏金阿閦佛像
西藏 約十四世紀

Echoing his name, which means "Immovable One" in Sanskrit, Akshobhya Buddha is shown rooted in meditation with a steadfast expression, with his right hand angled downwards in a symbolic gesture that recalls Shakyamuni's victory over the armies and temptations of Mara. The sculpture can be distinguished from an image of Shakyamuni Buddha because of the pair of elephants that appear on the sides of the bronze's waisted plinth. Each of the Five Transcendental Buddhas is associated with an animal, which is the elephant for Akshobhya. A vajra is placed in front of his ankles, symbolizing his position as the spiritual sire of the Vajra Family of buddhas and bodhisattvas.

With tapering waist wrapped in a sheer monastic robe, the artist has represented Akshobhya with a slender physique that was preferred in Tibet against fleshier, more bodily, Indian, and Nepalese Buddha images. The leaner figure serves to emphasize a Buddha's otherworldly nature. By contrast, the lotus pedestal's petals are plump and rounded, evoking the fructuous quality of Buddhist teachings. Their pleasing shape is shared by a number of Kagyu lama portraits from the 14th century, such as an example sold at Bonhams, New York, 14 March 2017, lot 3234.

The sculpture's combination of a lotus pedestal and a waisted plinth underneath Akshobhya was a popular device in Central Tibet between the 13th and 15th centuries, certainly used at least by the Kagyu order and most gloriously repeated in the sculptures of Densatil Monastery. Compare other 14th-century bronzes with similar arrangements published in von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p.188, no.38B, and von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Vol.II, Hong Kong, 2003, pp.1036-7, 258C. Also see a bronze in the Fondation Alain Bordier, Gruyères (ABS 022).

Provenance
Collection of Michael Henss, Zurich, 1995
Swiss Private Collection