Footnotes

A COPPER ALLOY FIGURE OF CHATURBHUJA MAHAKALA
TSANG, CENTRAL TIBET, 15TH/16TH CENTURY

藏中 十五/十六世紀 四臂大黑天銅像

Published:
Arman Neven, Le tantrisme dans l'art et la pensée, Bruxelles, 1974, p. 76, no. 388.

Exhibited:
Le tantrisme dans l'art et la pensée, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, 7 March - 10 April 1974.

Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s

Depicting the protector deity for the Chakrasamvara tantric cycle—one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist teachings—the artist has portrayed Chaturbhuja Mahakala as a most formidable opponent to any maleficent forces that would encroach upon the Tantra's initiates and sacred practice. In India, Mahakala was associated with cremation grounds, an environment reflected in his gruesome iconography. In his primary hands, the corpulent god holds a skull cup filled with blood and a human heart. A garland of freshly severed heads drapes over his shoulders and falls to his thighs. A serpent winds around his abdomen, another in his hair. A tiger skin cloaks his hips, the stripes chased with considerable flair; the animal's open jaw is positioned on Mahakala's right knee, suggesting he is being devoured. An inscription around the foot of the base pays homage to the deity:

Om swasti!
In the midst of an expanse blazing like [the end of] an eon, [abides] the one with a dark-blue body, one face, four arms, Holding a coconut, a sword, a human skull [filled with] blood, and a khatvanga.
I prostrate to the Glorious-Wisdom-Protector [Mahakala].
May all adversity and obstacles of mine [along with those of my] fellow practitioners be pacified! To him by virtue of his own bla."

Bonhams would like to thank Dr. Yannick Laurent for his assistance in translating the inscription.

This four-armed form of Mahakala is said to be especially popular within the Kagyu and Nyingma orders (Rhie in Linrothe (ed.), Demonic Divine, 2004, p. 45). Related examples can be found in the Musée Guimet and a private Belgian collection (Béguin, Art ésotérique de l'Himâlaya, 1990, no. H, p. 179; von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, pp. 474-5, no. 131C). The figure's wielded implements and lightly clad, pot-bellied physique betray Chaturbhuja Mahakala's (and the Chakrasamvara Tantra's) origins in Indian Buddhism, where dwarfish nature spirits (yakshas) evolved into assistants of primary deities. However, the subject is treated with a very Tibetan sense of humor, portraying the prone figure, which represents harmful forces and human ignorance, being squashed and almost completely engulfed by the deity's bulging rear end and thighs, save for the top of the head, feet, and one hand peering out from underneath his overbearing seat. This jovial quality, also reflected in the sculpture's painted face—which is arguably as approachable as it is fierce—convey a sense that despite all his terrifying abilities, Chaturbhuja Mahakala is ultimately a benign agent for the practitioner and a cherished, portly guardian.