Nepal Art of Nepal and Tibet - Karmisch

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    The Art of Nepal and Tibet

    Author(s): Stella KramrischSource: Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 265, Art of Nepal and Tibet (Spring,1960), pp. 23-38Published by: Philadelphia Museum of ArtStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3795115

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    THE ART OF NEPAL AND TIBETBY STELLA KRAMRISCHCurator of Indian Art

    The Buddhist art of Nepal and Tibet isa visual system of presenting symbols ofenlightenment and also the way of inducingthe experience of enlightenment. This sys-tem conveys and gives support to spiritualfacts. Its wide use in wall paintings, scrollpaintings, manuscript illuminations, sculp-ture and architecture fulfills a need that cannot be met by the word and intellectualconcepts. The Vajrayana, the Buddhist"adamantine way" towards Reality andFreedom shines in the colours of the rain-bow and gleams with golden images. Theirdisposition has two components. The one isthe geometrical mandala and the other isfigures of gods based on the shape of man.Both depict experiences and events of thepath of realization. Yet this art is not con-sidered an intuitive activity. It is a disci-pline like mathematics or astrology. It mustbe correct according to fixed rules other-wise the result will not be effective. Theresult, the visual evidence of the painting orsculpture has as its purpose the transfer ofthe person who sees or uses the work of artfrom everyday existence, the samsara, intoimmaculate planes where there is no dis-tinction between the contingency of exist-ence, the samsara, and the freedom of theabsolute, the nirvana, for they are oneReality.The work of art acts as a field of power.This field has the shape of a mandala. Itis articulated from and about a center as avisible projection of a scheme of the cosmos.This scheme is drawn from inner experi-ence, while presenting an ontology. Anunfolding from the center, it acts at thesame time in the opposite direction andleads to the center through the expositionof its contents in their manifoldness. Thescheme of ontological unfoldment is at thesame time a soteriological diagram, whosedirectional forces lead to the center. Thecentral point is at the place of inmostreality. This inmost reality is "void"(sunya), free from the pull of contraryforces, free from any pair of opposites.Sunyata, the Void, has its symbol in thecenter but is itself beyond and withoutdefinition. It cannot be understood, for itis unoriginated, uncreated, unformed. Itcan only be experienced as the supreme

    reality. In the mandala, the symbol valueof the center is occupied by an embodi-ment of illumination itself in the shape ofBuddha, the Illuminator or Vairocana.In the scheme of the mandala-the frame-work of the cosmos-Buddhahood is fivefold. It is visualized in the center as BuddhaVairocana shining white as a diamond.Thence this light of illumination is refractedin colours which show the qualities of illumi-nation and thereby convey the conscious-ness of illumination. The consciousness ofillumination (bodhi-citta) transcends con-sciousness which has man and the worldfor its object, that is consciousness whichhas any object whatsoever except that ofitself void of object. Worldly conscious-ness, according to Buddhist definition, haslikewise five constituents which correspondto the sensuous-or the contact of the fivesenses with their objects-to feeling, per-ception, volition and awareness (vijiianaskandha). The latter comprises the poten-tiality of consciousness or consciousness assuch. This very basis however is tran-scended by means of the mandala. The fieldof the ego-bound, individual consciousnessis converted into that of an impersonal orcosmic consciousness of the Universal Void(sunyata) -an unconditioned indefinableplenum. It has its symbol in the centerof the mandala to which it is assigned aspure radiance without colour. It is refractedthrough the cosmos, in the four directionsof the magic square of the mandala: blue inthe East, where the Buddha Aksobhya, theImmutable, appears;red in the West wherethe Buddha Amitabha or Infinite Light is anembodiment of inner vision; yellow in theSouth where the Buddha Ratnasambhava isthe embodiment of universal sympathy; andgreen in the North where the BuddhaAmoghasiddhi, the Realizer of the Aim,embodies volition free from attachment.The conversion of human consciousness,attached to the ego and the world, intoBuddha consciousness, free from any at-tachment, has its symbols in the images ofthe mandala.Five-fold Buddhahood is basedon the conversion of human consciousnesswith its five constituents (skandha)-and ofhuman nature with its five fundamentalevils: wrath, passion, pride, envy, and delu-

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    FIGURE . SiddhaikaviraManjusri.Bronze. Nepal,l1th-12th cent.

    sion. It is also based on the five-fold realisa-tion of Gautama Buddha, the Buddha ofthis world age, who meditated in Bodh-gaya, called the earth to witness his qualifi-cation, preached, and vouchsafed the lawin which he is fulfilled. These five suc-cessive aspects of Buddhahood valid evi-ternally are a pattern which supports thepentad and gives to each Buddha image itscognizance: to Amitabha the hands restingin meditation on his lap; to Aksobhya thependant right, calling the earth to witness;to Vairocana, the preaching gesture.Based on the elements of human na-ture and consciousness, supported by thesuccessive stages of Buddhahood, the quin-ary system embraces the components of the

    nature of man, the phases of Buddhahoodand is manifest in the cosmos. This cosmicdiagram is a field in which ultimate realityappears articulated in its central symbol,and the four-fold refraction of the centralfigure itself in its different functions. Inthis magic square the symbols of ultimatereality coincide with their manifestation inextended space, with their sequence in timewithin the Buddha, with their sequence inthe world cycles, and with their basiccorrespondence in the nature of man.The body of man itself was consideredby the Buddhists as a mandala, a field ofpower. In it rage the five fundamentalpassions: wrath (krodha), sexual passion(raga), pride (abhimana), jealousy (irsya)

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    and the total bewilderment (moha) intowhich they throw the human being. Theyare at the same time the effect and themotive forces of nescience. They obstructthe consciousness of illumination (bodhi-citta). For this very reason they may be-come means of illumination or freedom.Yoga, as practised by the Buddhists, usesthe "cakras" or foci of meditative concen-tration and activitation assigned to fivepsycho-physical centers within the humanbody as pivots where the powers experi-enced are transformed into exponents ofthe consciousness of illumination.The mandala painted on cloth charts themanifestation of the ultimate principle inthe cosmos in the same place where it refersto its manifestation within man. The sym-bols and figures of the mandala present theepiphany of the ultimate, the "Void" ascoterminous with the absolute of Buddha-hood and with the possibility of the realiza-tion of the Absolute, the Void, within con-scious beings. This design shows the wayin which the manifold emanates from thecenter and, going in the opposite direction,is resorbed in the center. The way of thereturn is laid out on the surface of themandala. In the human being who followsthe path of the Buddha this return can notbe effected on one level. It requires aleap from the here and there of everydayreality or of the many things to whichhuman consciousness attributes reality, tothe here and now of the timeless presenceof the Void, the Real beyond all contin-gency. Because the mandala is a visibleprojection of a scheme of the universe, a"psycho-cosmogram," a visible equation ofmacrocosm and microcosm, it is unified bythe center and shows the way towards il-lumination and freedom. The coherenceof this diagram makes it the framework andprinciple of nearly all the types of religiouspainting in Nepal and Tibet.The art of painting, according to Tibetandefinition belongs to the intellect and notto intuition. The Tibetan term for "topaint" is "to write gods" [lha bris]. Thewriting must be clearly legible in orderto achieve what it is meant to effect, a"liberation through sight." This is whatpaintings are often called.1 Liberation is animmediate experience of Supreme Realityas pure consciousness without any attribute-the "Void." It is at the same time theessence of every being.

    The geometrical scheme of the mandala,outlined by a quartered circle within asquare, is filled with images of gods. Theirparadigm is the images of five-fold Buddha-hood; any other divinity is similarly en-visaged in its mandala. All these imagesare projections of the mind and experiencesof the Buddhist. In their epiphany he seeshis innermost being revealed to him, hisinnermost being which strives for the in-effable Real beyond form. When thesedivinities appear he knows that they, likeall appearances are not real, that they arephantoms of his as yet unconquered thought.He sees them outlined in the shape of manfor in this shape they are accessible to himin states of mind produced in meditation.In this shape too, he knows the Buddhaand that he assumed this form so that hecould communicate with man.Though all the images of the Buddha arefictions of the mind and phantoms, forordinary man they have the appearance ofa monk, while for the elect, those who bythe power of their ecstasy and by theirpurity have been carried to higher planes,to the "Pure Earths" where the Bodhi-sattvas act, to them the image of the Buddhaappears crowned and bejewelled in glory.The images are mind-made and knownby the heart, consubstantial with the prac-tiser, contents of inner vision and conscious-ness. The images are projected into visual

    form in the light in which they appear,taking the shape of a nimbus and an aureoleedging their bodies if they are gods ofpeace who have come forth from the heart.If they are gods of wrath whose origin isin the brain center their aureoles take theshape of a lambent sea of fire around theirpresence. Whether the images resembleman or woman, whether they appear singleor conjoint as couple they are but reflec-tions of the reality beyond name and form-caught in the act of revealing itself. Thegods come forth in the meditation on thisReality, they represent the powers mobi-lized in meditation. Objectified they canbe faced as helpers on the way. They holdout their hands, which bless or fight untilthe light of Reality or Truth within us isfreed from the obscuring illusion of mindand body, of I and the other, of life anddeath, freed from any of the pairs of oppo-sites by which the mind distinguishes itscontents.The images are grouped in hierarchiesand assemblieswhich originate from and are

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    FIGURE 2. Indra. Bronze. Nepal, 12th cent.

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    co-substantial with the forms of five-fold of all specific contents, an undifferentiatedBuddhahood. Each image is a specific aspect indefinable plenum.of the total reality at the central point of The union of compassion and gnosis prethe imaged Buddhist cosmos. There sented by the figures of man and womarVairocana shines forth in incandescent radi- in embrace is an ever recurrent seal of thance. Above and beyond Vairocana in the truth communicated by Nepalese and Ticenter of the mandala, beyond even the betan paintings. In this world of mercenter of Buddhahood manifest, is the appearances, they are not the only polarprimordial Buddha. He too was beheld ities that fill its structure. The very natur,as image under the name of Vajradhara or of the painted mandala is conceived as aiVajrasatta or Samantabhadra. The para- interpenetration of its dual components, odox of transcendency and image stops short geometrical and figure symbol. The geobefore the Void. metrical order of the surface assigns to thThe consciousness of illumination (bodhi- figures of the gods their places. Thes,citta)-an inner experience whose verifica- figures, moreover, are built according to aition is itself-is mirrored by the mind in the iconometrical geometry adjusted to meanpolarity of the means of attaining the con- ing and function of each god in the totasciousness of illumination and of the state scheme of manifestation and re-integratiorof becoming conscious of Sunyata, the of the mandala.Void. The means (upaya) is also identified The other essential polarity which hawith compassion (karuna) that moves us its images in the mandala is that of the stat.away from our ego so that we do not think of peace (santi) and that of wrath (krodha)of ourselves but of others. Leaving behind These figures occur on the path of conthe bonds of egoism, we approach the state quest of ultimate Reality. There cognizancof becoming conscious of Sunyata. The is taken of identities in man and the cosmofigure of the "means" (upaya) is the image in which lie security and freedom fronof the Buddha, an image of compassioneffecting the deliverance of man. The fig-ure of the state of becoming conscious ofthe Void is Gnosis (prajfia) in her imageof woman. The images interpenetrate.Their embrace is an exposition of Buddha-hood in which the knower and his knowl-edge are made one.Sexual polarity and union are incidentsof the universal polarity of manifestation.It exists in the world and within ourselves.In the practise of yoga the union of theopposites, is of man with the woman withinhim. This is spontaneously realized in thepolarity of right and left, and it is madeconscious in the yoga technique of identi-fying this polarity within the microcosmwith the polarity of the macrocosm whereshines the light of the sun and the moon,two in effect though one in nature. Sexualpolarity and interpenetration having theliving person for their sphere of action ascontents of inner experience are hyposta-sized in the symbol of Buddhahood as "yab-yum" (father-mother) or "yuganaddha,"meaning unity in the apparent duality ofexistence. This interpenetrating unity con-stitutes the wholeness of the Buddha, andguarantees the ultimate merging of samsaraand nirvana, of worldly consciousness andtranscendental consciousness. These lastpolarities are resolved in Sinyata, the Void FIGURE3. Vina. Copper. Nepal, 14th-ISthcent.

    I,

    eeenfeeII

    seesi1

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    FIGURE4.Sarvabuddhadakini.Gilt bronze. Nepal,16th-17thcent.

    fear. Cognizance is also taken of the abysswhen all connections with the mundaneplane are being cut.By a leap across the chasm the peak isreached where the Adibuddha dwells, thecentral point of one's labours and being.All the impulses, all the forces that weredormant up to this final effort of cuttingloose from discriminating consciousness(vijfiana), all these forces now rise up interrifying strength. Held in check by arigorous training and prevented from out-bursts, they persevered, generating an everincreasing impetus, a frantic urge to go on.These terrifying powers within oneself arethe demons now unfettered. They cutloose from precedents. Confronted, theyare seen in their terror. When their task is

    achieved they are known as helpers andsaviours. Helpers and saviours they arethough they drink our blood that givesthem strength, helpers and saviours likethe Buddhas and their active emanations,the Bodhisattvas. In fact, in their polarityto the calm of meditation and to the refrac-tions of the adamantine pure light whichhave their figures in the Buddhas and theiremanations, the Bodhisattvas, these demon-iac shapes are their other side: dark, im-petuous driving urges that fight with theirown darkness, stupor and terror in proteanshapes in a sea of flames. The flames thatsurround the demoniac shapes are the flamesof knowledge-a knowledge gained at theprice of death, a death to the world withits attractions and polarities. This is shown

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    by the skull-bowls full of blood whichthese fierce gods of wrath hold in theirhands. These blood drinking divinitiesbrandish their weapons: the sword whichcuts through the knots of doubt and con-fusion; the axe which cuts off birth anddeath; the skull-bowl which does away withall notions of substance and non-substance.But are not some of these weapons held bythe saviours in their serene aspects too?Their consubstantion is shown by theirattributes. Their polarity breaks throughin the striding, dancing ecstasy of the fierceYidam deities, the gruesome Heruka formsof the Buddhas and those of the Dharma-palas.They are the figures of the "mysteriumtremendum" of the leap over the chasmbetween intellectual consciousness and in-tuitive universal consciousness. In theirecstasy, the fierce, wrathful and blooddrinking gods cut through the fetters ofthought. They destroy its illusions andcategories. The terror which the gods ofwrath express acts only on the plane ofmundane consciousness when this latterloses the deceptive firmness of its conven-tions, in truth, the weapons of these terriblegods are instruments of liberation. Theyare the tools of the will to Freedom or ofthe consciousness of illumination (bodhi-citta). They destroy all mind-made fetters,all that belongs to worldly man. Becausethey destroy the conventions of thought, itsmere rationality, their place of origin isassociated with the brain center whereasthe gods of peace come forth from thecenter of the heart. But all the gods,whether as Lords of peace or of wrath, areborne by lotus flowers; they have no otherfoundation of their origin than that whichis in the lotus of meditation within theactivated centers, imagined and experiencedin the living body of man.The Yidam's are the guarantors of thebond between divinity and devotee. By hiswrath, or jealousy, or passion, or pride, orbewilderment man is assigned to the familyof one of the five Buddhas. He is carried to-wards his assignment not only by his con-scious striving and discipline but also bythe driving power of his particular demonwhose aggressiveness turns towards himselfand cuts him loose by his own weapons.The experience of the driving power ofthe passions-a becoming aware of theirdestructiveness-converts them into defen-sive powers and turns their arms against

    their own nature, that is, against the evilsor dangers of one's own nature. By acti-vating one's defensive forces a divinity be-comes a Yidam. The demoniac will power,striving for an expansion beyond limits andtowards destruction when turned towardsits own destructiveness, destroys the ego,the limited person, man in bondage. Thedivinity who activates these defensive forcesis seen as a Yidam and appears as an image.The conversion of the drives of passioninto their destruction has formed this image.Thus, the Yidam cuts the fetters of worldlyattachment and is the guarantor of the bondbetween divinity and devotee.The mobilisation of the defensive powerof consciousness is a concomitant of liber-ation. But it is not the only one for thereis another called Dakini. Her image may bethat of a young and beautiful woman, orshe is hideous, or she has the head of an ani-mal-the lion, the horse, the mule. She isshown dancing or ecstatically striding, withher skull-cup full of blood and the chopperwhich she wields. This liberatrix lives onthe essence of life out of the skull-cupwherein there is no distinction of substance

    FIGURE. Sarvabuddhadakini.Bronze.Nepal, 19th cent.29

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    SMS

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    alas. Tibetan Painting, 18th cent.

    They overcome the situation in which theyhave arisen. They are detached from suf-fering, dissociated from anguish and anxi-ety. They are impersonal patterns ofdestructiveness, supports for the mind todwell on, for they are viewed with detach-ment and disinterested participation (mu-dita). Their gruesome countenances aredrawn with a calligraphy of sympathy,next, or equivalent to, those of the Buddhaimages.The experiences and concepts which un-derlie and are served by Buddhist art inNepal and Tibet came from India. Theform of sculpture and painting in Nepal isbased on Indian art. In Tibet, much of theform of Indian art came through Nepalbut some also came from India, either di-rectly or through central Asia, where In-dian art, with admixtures of Hellenistic,Iranian and Chinese elements had long

    flourished. Tibet, moreover, directly andrepeatedly drew upon Chinese art formsgrafting them on its own stock.Nepal has ancient and persistent ties withIndia. Legend connects the mandala planof the town of Patan in Nepal with Em-peror Asoka. The four stupas, in the fourdirections outside this city, to this dayappear in the shape in which they couldhave been set up in the third century B. c.The fifth stfpa is in the center of Patan,which is symbolically the center of theuniverse. If Rome is the eternal city towesterners, to the Tibetans Patan is "eter-nity itself" (ye rang).Nothing is as yet known of the sculptureand painting of Nepal during the centuriesfrom the time of Asoka. Indeed, an outlineof the history of sculpture in Nepal rests onprecariously few dated images not anteriorto the fifteenth century.2 The style of the31

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    FIGURE7. Kurukulla. Tibetan Painting,18th cent.earliest known metal images, however,agrees with those from Eastern India ofthe twelfth century, or somewhat earlierwhen traditions also of other Indian centersreached Nepal (Figs. 1, 2). Nepalese sculp-tors were not only in great demand in

    Tibet, they also made their influence feltin China. In the thirteenth century, A niKo, a young Nepalese sculptor came toTibet with twenty-four other artists andworked there before he became inspector ofartists at the court of Kublai Khan (1216-32

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    1294). The plastic quality of Indian sculp-ture continued as a vital force in Nepalesesculpture to the fifteenth century (Fig. oncover, Fig. 3). Its residual finesse and icono-metrical balance of form, its spontaneity andtechnical skill outlasted into the nineteenthcentury (Figs. 4, 5), the earlier perfection.Tibetan metal images of the last two cen-turies almost wholly depend on the virtuesof those from Nepal. An admixture ofChinese elements, together with a lessenedassurance of style and cruder execution,determine, as a rule, a metal image as aTibetan product. In other cases it is a ques-tion more of accent than of the place oforigin which gives away the Nepali or Ti-betan maker. In the eighteenth century,however, lamaistic metal images of Chineseprovenance, added preciosity and finish totheir Himalayan prototypes.The earliest known sculptures, in West-ern Tibet,3 are cut in the living rock in avery low relief. A rigid, plank-like effigycarries such suavity of modelling as it couldassimilate when this was added from Indiato its framework. This upright rigour ofHimalayan art however was soon super-seded by the Indian import. Tibetan andNepalese monasteries shelter, to this day,Indian sculptures, most of which are of thePala and Sena school of Eastern Indiansculpture. An attempt to copy such animage may be seen in a figure of Sakyamunifrom, most probably, a Tibetan monastery.4It reproduces the type of ninth centuryBuddha images from Kurkihar in EasternIndia, of the Devapala period. But thearrest of plastic movement in this copyconforms to the quality of the carved ex-amples just referred to. While the Indianexamples were copied, assimilated and al-most excelled at times by the Nepalesesculptors, the latter were, at all times, themasters among their fellow craftsmen inTibet. Indian traditions of painting alsoreached Tibet through Nepal or fromKashmir. Tibet, on the other hand, beingin direct contact with China, was increas-ingly open to the impression made by Chi-nese painting, and evolved from an Indianiconography and a Chinese setting, a pic-torial style of its own (Figs. 6-9).In Nepal itself, palm leaf manuscripts andtheir wooden covers date from the earlyeleventh century.5 They could have beenpainted in Eastern India-there is hardly adifference in form and feeling. Earlier thanthis, however, specifically "Himalayan"

    transformations of the appearance of divin-ities were found in Tun huang.6 In theirbroadly spreading surface these plank-likefigures have a certain affinity with the lowreliefs of Western Tibet where they tooseem to have originated. Their Indian pro-totypes of the eighth century appear stiff-ened and distended. From the eleventhcentury, however, the sequence of style inNepalese illuminations on palm leaf manu-scripts and on their wooden covers takes anunbroken though narrowing course indated examples into the fifteenth century.7A scroll painting of a Vasudhara mandalafrom Nepal, in the British Museum, is dated15048and equals the style of the painting ofthe same subject in the present exhibition.Another Nepalese scroll painting in the ex-hibition of Mafijusri and Sarasvati is dated15709 and proves the continuity of the Indo-Nepal tradition of painting stemming fromthe Eastern Indian school under the Palaand Sena dynasties. The Eastern Indianschool, after the twelfth century, resorbedform idioms of Western Indian painting;these too came to Nepal and comingledwith those that arrived directly from West-ern and Northern India and, subsequently,from the sphere of Mogul art. At thisperiod, as also before, Nepalese artistsworked in Tibet. They worked in Lhasa(1659) for the fifth Dalai Lama and fromhere two dated "Nepalese" scrolls (1661)derive their wholly Tibetan style.10 Thiswas to remain an episode in Nepalese paint-ing. In the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies the style of Nepalese scrollsowes no other allegiance than to itsown past and to newly integrated Indianidioms which connect painting in Nepalwith that of the Western Himalayan centerof Basohli. In Tibet, the stronghold ofIndian form in its Tibetan version was theschool of Guge in Western Tibet from theeleventh to the seventeenth century. Underthe patronage of the kings of Guge a con-tingent of seventy-five artists from Kashmirarrived in Western Tibet and left a markin bronze and wood sculptures, but pri-marily in wall paintings (Man naii).To this solid basis of Indian form andcontent, the early contacts with Chineseart through the medium of its centralAsian resorption must have added new ele-ments not only Chinese, but also Hellenistic.The latter partly reinforced, through theirown amalgam with Indian tradition aseffected in the paintings of the oases of

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    central Asia, the Indian substratum. Resi-dues of these early contacts (central Asian,8th century) were carried on in a minorgroup of Tibetan paintings, into theeighteenth century. A renewed impactof Chinese form elements was brought byChinese and Mongol artists to central andsouth Tibet (Zalu, Nar t'an and Gyantse)in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuriesand subsided in the fifteenth century.The last but powerful incursion of In-dian painting into Tibet in the early andmid-seventeenth century is witnessed byTaranatha, the Tibetan monk and scholar.He describes in his autobiography the wallpaintings of Te Gtsun (1617-18) and P'untsogs glin.10 These paintings are preservedand throw a new light on Indian paintingitself, on schools of which no trace is leftin India and which support the Mogul Em-peror Akbar's appraisal of its excellence.These paintings following several Indianstyles re-vitalized the sinuous, sensuous flex-ible line and the impetuous movementsseen in some Tankas (Fig. 7). These qual-ities, however, subsided for the school ofEastern Tibet (Khams), steeped in Chineselandscape and full of figured scenes, influ-enced from the eighteenth century, thewhole of Tibetan painting.The painters were monks and laymen.The monks alone devised the composi-tion of the paintings and drew the outlines.The painter's concern was painting prop-erly speaking, the filling of the outlines withcolour. The subtler the sensibility of thepainter the better did he know how toharmonize the colours which iconographicrules had assigned to each of the figures,howxto modulate the strength of adjacentcolours by minute scrollwork coveringentire surfaces in darker tones of the samecolour or by golden tracery. It was theconcern of the monks who devised thecompositions and even drew the outlinesof the figures to build a visual equivalentof their rapture in which the identity ofnirvana and samsara was revealed to themand the reality of the Void was supportedby a precision of design.In Nepal the paintings are called Prabha,they "shine forth" the illumination thatbrought them into being. In Tibet theyare distinguished as Tanka or scroll paint-ings for they are painted on cloth and, whennot in use, are rolled up.12Padmasambhava, the founder of Lama-ism, and the Red Cap school (r N in ma

    pa), who came to Tibet from Uddyana(Kafiristan) about 770, is invoked as the"body of external truth," the "adamantinebody," the "symbolic" and the "magicbody," who "manifested himself as themaster of the canonical sutra and of theesoteric formulas (mantra)," who "reachedthe extreme limit of knowledge, feigning tolearn (as others do), and who later learnedthe potter's art and other crafts from Visva-karman [the master of all work; god ascausa efficiens] and other masters."13 Themaking of a world such as it was experiencedinwardly, had recourse to such corruptiblesubstances as clay or paint whose qualitiesallowed its immediate presence in effectand actual use. Artistic creation resolvedthe paradoxical equation of samsara andnirvana. Thus, it was that with the greatmasters of the "adamantine way," theVajrayana, the responsibility was vested forthe conception and delineation of paint-ings. Buston (1290-1364), who may becompared to St. Thomas Aquinas, inspired,directed the plan and himself drew theoutlines of the wall paintings in Zalu, incentral Tibet in the first half of the four-teenth century, Tson K'a pa the reformer(1417-1478) of the Yellow Cap (d Ge lugspa) school, dictated instructions for muralpaintings in rDsin ji which he had orderedto be made according to the vision whichhe had seen in a dream.14The work of art as solution of the equa-tion of nirvana and samsara is ultimatelyreal. But it is also only a phantom, a tem-porary measure to be dispensed with. Thepolarity of the work of art, being visiblythe Real while actually only an instrumentfor a definite purpose brings about itsform or range of forms. This was deter-mined in India, but forms have their ownlife and works of art their history.The pre-buddhistic constituents of Nepa-lese and Tibetan form were contributed byHimalayan art, that must have preceded

    Buddhist art and continued to guide thehands of the artists. The few post-life fig-ures referred to are not in themselves sig-nificant. But it is their unaccentuated, erectbalance in the vertical plane which seepsthrough in Nepalese art and in Tibet -thinning out the cohesion of modeledshapes in some of the early miniatures fromNepal - and which props up Nepalesebronzes of the fifteenth century when theirIndian modelling was subsiding.Sculpture in metal, generally of gilded34

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    FIGURE 8. Descent of the Buddha at the VaisakaFestival. Tibetan Painting,18th cent.

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    bronze, and discreetly enhanced by smallprecious stones set in the chiseled jewelryworn by the images, adds to its mainlyIndian character-a quality of omission. Thehigh frequency of plastic vibration is low-ered, the viscous emergence of one curvedplane from the next appears more tenuous.Three dimensional tensions are knownmore by memory than they are expres-sively formed in their urgency. The figuresare laid out, placid and assured, the fluidityof their shapes supports a line of candourand grace. With their leisured lyricism,the generalisations of Nepalese sculpturegive moving versions of the primal vision.They are the "primitives" of another's ma-turity which they intensify by simplifyingits traits.Similar features distinguish the treatmentof the images in Nepalese paintings. Here,moreover, they are underscored by power-ful and contrasting colours in the prabhasof the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Astrong Indian red, and indigo blue, pre-dominate; white, yellow, salmon, green andgold increase the compact glow of the sur-face. The single images and figures are partof it. Though they are rounded off by thecurves of their foreshortened and overlap-ping limbs they stay within the opacity ofthe colour surface. Its pattern is dictatedfrom the centre which is occupied by thecentral image. Subsidiary images completethe mandala at their appointed places.The colour symbolism of the mandalais complex. Its scheme is based on thecolours of the Buddhas. These colours,white, blue, red, yellow and green refer tothe elemental plane and to the symboliccolour of the particular element which isassociated with each of the Buddhas: theelement earth with Ratnasambhava; thesymbolic colour of earth being yellow;the element fire with Amitabha, the sym-bolic colour of the element fire is red.Vairocana in the center of the mandala iswhite. It is the colour of the Buddha whois primus inter pares in the five-foldBuddhahood. If however Avalokitesvara,who emanates from Amitabha and is there-fore red, is beheld as the highest Lord, hiscolour is white.The colours assigned to the Buddhascarry with them not only the connotationof the elements but also of the five funda-mental evils in the nature of man. In thisrespect, white - the colour of Vairocana -is associated with delusion or total bewilder-

    ment; blue, the colour of Aksobhya withwrath, red with passion, yellow with prideand green with jealousy. These psycho-logical connotations accompany the coloursymbolism as undertones. They do notexpress the Buddha nature in its pure lightand refractions. The pure light is refractedas the deep blue of undifferentiated con-sciousness, which is the colour of Aksobhya:it is refracted as the red of Amitabha, theBuddha of the Western direction wherethe sun sets in a red glow.The value of the colours meditatively ex-perienced, is assessed as wholly benign oras ambivalent. White is the colour ofwholly benign powers, yellow too, thoughnot always completely. It is the colourof Bhrkuti Tara, the frowning goddesswhereas the ambivalence of red, blue andgreen sustains the appearance of the peace-ful, the fierce and the horrendous gods.The prabha, originally of square format,became a rectangle in the fourteenth cen-tury. Its upper and lower margins, and alsothe sides are filled with small rectangularscenes filed in rows, where each has a storyto tell, an event to illustrate. They are di-rectly or remotely connected with themeaning of the central image which theyframe. These border rectangles subordinatetheir vivid and hallowed spectacles to theepiphany of the central image. They havebeen taken from illustrated books intothe prabhas, where their speckled liveli-ness sets off the large central vision. Thecombination of the main, central composi-tion with compartments of variegated bor-der scenes is familiar to Indian painting(ceiling of the Indrasabha cave, Ellora).The appearance of the gods where theytake part in these scenes descends fromIndian art; the lesser, but far more copious,actors belong to Nepal in their types andexecution. They are outlined with quick,cursive brush strokes, summary in the se-quence of their curves in which the briskand precise movements of the actors arecaught. The samsara is bound up in theframing scenes with the timeless world ofthe Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; five-foldBuddhahood has its images near the uppermargin, while the donors are portrayednear the lower margin. The canonicaltypes of the gods, the varied repertoryof human types meet here on the same level,Yidams, donors, and the "seven jewels," inadjacent compartments.

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    FIGURE9. Ordinationof a Saskya-paLama. Tibetan Painting,18th cent.

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    This organisation of the painted surfaceof the prabha was taken over in westernand central Tibet where, particularly theframing scenes show their change of domi-cile until they disappear together with thefunction of the prabhi as an illuminatedcompact surface. But this came about inthe eighteenth century only with the finalascendancy of the Chinese component inTibetan painting.The main contribution of the Tibetantanka of the eighteenth century to theworld of art is the vision of the imagein cosmic space, above this mountaingirt, green earth, above the waters inwhose midst blooms the lotus of a newbirth and of the knowledge whence thesoaring vision springs. Not infrequentlya diminutive figure, the painter himself orthe donor is seated on this lotus of awaken-ing in the central axis of the painting, inone line with the central vision and partof the cosmic scene, where the images arelaid out on the principle of the mandala.While each image appears within the orbitof its effulgence or surrounded by its"sea of flames" it floats with all the otherimages on one transparent sheet of visionhung up in cosmic space. The earth belowwith its mountains, brooks and valleys isnow alive with birds in flight and roamingdeer, and with movements and meetings ofmen and gods of the lesser hierarchies.Such scenes, together with their style ofpresenting them, have come from Chinesepainting.In certain types of tankas they fill their

    entire extent. The series of paintings whichportray the successive incarnations of theLamas of Tashilunpo or the 84 Siddhas,personalities whose myth unfolds on thisearth, are furthest removed from the schemeof the mandala. The tanka representing theordination of a monk (Fig. 9) shows thetransition from the mandala scheme oftimeless manifestation, suspended in cosmicspace, to the composition of scenes enactedon earth and engaging these figures in theirpassing show.The Nepalese type of the prabha,whether painted in Nepal or in Tibet andTibetan tankas prior to the eighteenth cen-tury, showed their surface saturated withthe presence of the gods who had beenconjured in inner vision and were made tostay, shining forth in their colour withinlines that circumscribed their perfections.The Tibetan tankas of the eighteenth cen-tury project this vision into cosmic space(Figs. 7, 8). Its symbolic colours cominglewith the hues of dawn and the sheen of day.15Although this achievement rests on com-plex foundations, it results in a type ofpainting entirely its own. The grandioseprojection of the mandala or celestial visionfloating in a vertical plane in cosmic spaceis upheld by the knowledge common to allart of the "adamantine path" (vajravana)of Buddhism in India, Nepal and Tibet, theknowledge that the images of the gods "arebut symbols representing the various thingswhich occur on the path, such as the help-ful impulses and the states attained bytheir means."16

    NOTES1. G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, Rome, p. 287.2. D. Barrett, The Buddhist Art of Tibet and Nepal,Oriental Art, Vol. III, 1957, p. 93.3. A. H. Franke, Antiquities of IWesternt Tibet, Vol. I;AMcmoir, Archacological Survey of India, 1914, P1. XXXII.4. C. Pascalis, La Collection Tibetaine, Musee LouisFinot, Hanoi, 1935, PI. V.5. A. Foucher. Etude sutr l'Icolnoraphie Bouddhiquc de'lInde, Paris, 1900. Ms. Add. 1643 Cambridge University,dated 1015.6. Sir A. Stein, Serindia, IV, P1. LXXXVII.7. S. Kramrisch, Nepalese Pailntizgs, Journal of theIndian Society of Oriental Art, I; 1933, pp. 129-147.8. Ibid., Pis. XXXIX and XL.9. Colour reproduction oii P1. I in J. I. S. O. A., 1, 1933and Note on a Painted Banner by P. C. Bagchi, pp. 1-4.10. Archaeological Survey of India. Aiinnal Report,1913-14,11. G. l'ucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, Vol. II, Figs. 62-74.12. Prabhas are painted on relatively coarse cotton clothor a priming of lime and glue, which is burnished. Thecolours are mineral and vegetable colours applied in

    gouache technique within outlines, first traced in charcoaland finally redrawn in Chinese ink. The paintings aremounted above and below on a strip of generally indigoblue, coarse cotton which is attached to a wooden rod,at the top and also at the bottom of the scroll.Tankas are painted on fine cotton cloth, in the sametechnique but with a wider range of colours and withgold. They are mounted on their four sides in Chinese silkbrocade which at times is more ancient than the painting.The two narrow red and yellow silk strips between thepainting and the patterned brocade signify the effulgence ofthe painted vision.The not infrequent use of transfers assures correctnessof iconography, facilitates mass production and lessens thesensitivity of the line.13. cf. Invocation translated by G. Tucci, op. cit. II pp.375-376.14. Ibid. p. 381.15. Coloristic values, of Chinese origin, are given tosubordinate parts of the picture, that is, to all thoseparts which, like the landscape itself, are not canonicallydetermined. From the latter part of the nineteenth cen-tury colours of Western manufacture are garish intruders.16. Sricakrasambhara Tantra, Tantrik Texts, Vol. VII,p. 41.

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