Footnotes

銅鎏金六世薩迦法王 薩迦班智達貢噶堅贊像
西藏 或出自貢嘎曲德寺 十五世紀

Tibetan inscription
ས་སྐྱ་པཎ ཌི་ཏ་ལ་ན་མོ།།

Transliteration
[1] sa skya paṇḍi ta la na mo | |

Translation
Homage to Sakya Paṇḍita.<sup>1

1</sup>Sakya Paṇḍita Kunga Gyeltsen (sa skya paṇ ḍi ta kun dga' rgyal mtshan).

Himalayan Art Resources item no.8316
treasuryoflives.org biography no.P1056
BDRC Resource ID P1056

This splendid gilded bronze depicts Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsan (1182-1251), a spiritual ancestor of the Panchen Lama lineage in the Gelug order and a great Tibetan scholar. He is one of the 'five founding fathers' of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism. To the Yuan Imperial Court he became Viceroy of Tibet in 1249.

The present portrait bears close similarity to an important mural painting of Sakya Pandita in Gongkar Choede Monastery (see Laird, Murals of Tibet, TASCHEN, Koln, 2018). Most noticeably the depiction of the master's fleshy and well-articulated hands with prominently splayed little fingers, his oval-shaped face with long and narrow eyes, and his unusually large pandita hat. In both, Sakya Pandita is wrapped in a sumptuous patchwork robe over his sleeveless monastic shirt, with strips of carefully delineated floral patterns.

Many paintings within Gongkar Choede were created by the great artist Khyentse Chenmo (fl.1450s-90s) during 1464-65. He founded the Khyenri school of Tibetan painting and was also a famed sculptor. It is known that Khyentse had created large sculptures of lineage masters and wrathful protectors for the chapels of Gongkar Choede, which were sadly destroyed during the 1920s. The connection between the present lot and the mural suggests the possibility of the bronze either being created by the Khyentse or following in his tradition established at Gongkar Choede.

Sakya Pandita's bulbous and oversized pandita hat is also shared by his portrait in a 15th-century thangka in the Shelley & Donald Rubin Collection (HAR 162). The broad, squarish, and plump lotus petals are closely related to a bronze figure of Marici and another of Shadbhuja Mahakala published in von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, pp.1055 & 60, nos.267A & 270A.

Exhibited
Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 1 February – 15 July 2019.

Published
Karl Debreczeny (ed.), Faith and Empire: Art and Politics in Tibetan Buddhism, New York, 2019, p.109, fig.5.2.

Provenance
Christies Amsterdam, 20 November, 2007, lot 418.