Footnotes

錯銀錯紅銅羅俄堪千索南倫珠銅像
西藏 十六世紀

Lowo Kenchen Sonam Lhundrup (1456-1532) was one of the most prolific Sakya educators of the 15th and 16th centuries. According to his hagiography, his own Buddhist education began in his infancy, learning from Jamyang Sherab Gyatso at the age of one, and Sonam Gyeltsen Pelzangpo at the age of two. Later, Sonam Lhundrup would go on to teach a considerable number of accomplished Sakya masters, including the ninth and tenth abbots of the Ngor monastery, and the twenty-second Sakya Trizden, Jampai Dorje.

As an important religious leader, Sonam Lhundrup is well represented throughout numerous portrait sculptures. However, unlike most, which portray the master in his old age, here he is afforded a youthful face and a slimmer physique. While well on its way, his hairline has yet to recede into its signature pendent-bead shape at the center of his dome. Nonetheless, in his youth Sonam Lhundrup is already a wise master, as signified by the attributes of Manjushri in leafy bloom by his shoulders: a sutra and a sword that can cut through ignorance. He offers the gesture of teaching with his raised right hand, and in his left he holds the flaming triratna, the symbol of the 'Three Jewels' of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the monastic community. Silver inlay within his eyes enliven young Lhundrup's alert countenance and evoke his enlightened consciousness within.

Provenance
New York Art Market, 2008