XUANDE INCISED SIX-CHARACTER PRESENTATION MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1426-1435)

The ritual bell, Diamond Bell, or Ghanta serves as a ritual instrument. Bells of this type symbolise sound, the creative word which through vibration transmits the repetition of a mantra. It is the female aspect of wisdom and truth in the void and emptiness. When the bell is struck its sound is brief which represents the concept of a short duration and all that is fleeting. Compare with a similar Xuande example in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, bearing a cast Da Ming Xuande nianshi presentation mark on the interior, illustrated in Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism Collected in the Qing Palace, Forbidden City Press, 1992, nos. 132-1, 132-2, 132-3. A Yongle-marked example is also illustrated, ibid., nos. 131-1 and 131-2. It is interesting to note that the present bell is cast with Oṃ āḥ hūṃ in Lantsa Sanskrit, which forms the beginning of the Padmasambhava mantra, Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum.

Compare also a related Tibetan ritual bell cast with the same mantra on the interior, illustrated in Monarchy and Its Buddhist Way, Tibetan-Buddhist Ritual Implements in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1999, p. 76, no. 8.