A Mandala of Ushnishavijaya

TIBET, NGOR STYLE, SAKYA ORDER, LATE 15TH/EARLY 16TH CENTURY

Details

A Mandala of Ushnishavijaya
Tibet, Ngor style, Sakya order, late 15th/early 16th Century
Very finely painted in minute detail depicting the three-headed Goddess of Longevity encircled by eight Bodhisattvas and a second frieze of sixteen images of Bodhisattva Amitayus painted in niches against acanthus scrolls, with a further four Bodhisattvas at the corners painted in dual colors joining the background planes painted in red, green, blue and yellow, and surrounded by square borders with smaller dancing figures, with gateways on all sides in the four cardinal directions with makaras issuing colored flames centered by dharmachakra wheels and pairs of recumbent deer, all painted against an emerald green ground with stylized wave border and multicolored foliate scrolls, the outer mandala with seated Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in lotus supported aureoles against a red acanthus scroll ground, below a frieze of alternating figures of Amitayus and Shakyamuni in niches centering a red-hatted Sakya lama, and a corresponding frieze at the bottom centered by Ushnishavijaya, inscribed in U-Chen Ohm Ah Hum on reverse behind each smaller figure and Ohm Brahm Svaha in Ranjana script behind the central figure
20 x 17¾ in. (50.8 x 45 cm.)

Lot Essay

Associated with long life, this Ushnishavijaya 33-Deity Mandala appears from the Kriyasamucchaya "text of Darpa Acharyia. The Tantric source text for this is the Vijaya-kalpa (rNam par rgyal ma'i rtog pa).

Compare to a mandala of similar size and finely executed detail in the Michael J. and Beata McCormick Collection, cf. D. Leidy and R. Thurman, Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment, 1997, pl. 25.

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