Padmasambhava, Pema Jungne; From a Pelpung set of The Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava

The Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava (gu ru mtshan brgyad) are eight names of the legendary tantric master and yogin, who is said to have defeated the hostile spirits of Tibet while converting the land and its gods to Buddhism in the eighth century. The names became standardized and assumed iconographic forms now known as the Eight Manifestations of the Guru. This depiction as Pema Jungné (padma ‘byung gnas) is Padmasambhava as a young scholar when he studied in India.

This painting is from an important set from Pelpung Monastery depicting the Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava in nine paintings. The biographies of the great patron and artist Situ Penchen (1700–1774) refer to at least two instances of him commissioning this subject. In his autobiography an event for 1770 he mentions supervising paintings of the Eight Manifestations of the painter Gyatsen (rgya tshan lha bzo) from from Dzatö (rdza stod), Chamdo. A second reference is to painting(s) painted by an artist from Jétö in western Kham in 1769, which scholar David Jackson suggests was probably Tséwang Drakpa (rje stod tshe dbang grags pa), a great painter and scholar that Situ worked with repeatedly in the 1740s and 1750s. Five other compositions have been identified as part of this set of Situ’s Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava.

Another copy of this composition found in the Rubin Museum collection (C2006.66.459) contains inscriptions identifying each of the narrative scenes around him. Vibrantly colored rainbows emanate out of the upraised skull cup to Dhanasamskrita seated at top left on a rock outcropping with an offering cake (torma) on a tripod. At upper right, the Indian scholar Shantarakshita (Śāntarakṣita; 725–788) wearing a red pandita hat appears to be advising the enthroned Tibetan emperor Tri Songdetsen (khri srong lde brtsan; 742–800) to invite Padmasambhava to Tibet before a gilt sculpture of the Buddha. At lower left, at Padmasambhava’s foot, the Tibetan emperor worships him and holds up a golden offering mandala of the universe. Standing behind him in a white robe is Padmasambhava’s consort Yeshe Tsogyel (ye shes mtsho rgyal) holding up a large incense brasier shaped like a lotus flower. A peacock canopy, an ancient Indic symbol of royalty, marks their exalted status. In the bottom-left corner, Lang Palgyi Yeshe (rlang dpal gyi seng ge), one of Padmasambhava’s main disciples who participated in the Buddhist subjugation of Tibetan gods. He brandishes a ritual dagger (phur ba) and bell while performing a ritual based on Padmasambhava’s teachings to subdue negative spirits employing a triangular ghost trap. An inscription on the back of this painting reads: “May the great scholar Sambhava, born from the lotus, bestow the good fortune [just as] the lamp of the Buddha’s teaching Pacifies the darkness of the world.”