Mahakala, the Excellent One

This bronze of Mahakala presents him as the Excellent One (Tib: Gonpo Lekden), a wrathful deity wearing a heavy coat and boots and holding a large sandalwood club in both hands in front of the body. He is extremely fierce and raging with blazing hair. This form of Mahakala derives from the Nyingma School treasure tradition. In some cases there are three identical manifestations of this deity, each of them ruling one of the three realms of the universe to tame gods and demons.

This figure relates stylistically to the great religious and artistic center Densatil Monastery, founded in the 12th century in central Tibet. The monastery is famous for its monumental reliquary stupas, built successively in the 13th to 15th century, which were elaborately and richly ornamented with gilt bronze statues inlaid with semiprecious stones. The Italian scholar Giuseppe Tucci documented this monastery on an expedition in 1948. It was completely destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), and fragments of its great artistic heritage were scattered to public and private collections around the world.

A substantial metal flange on the back of this sculpture suggests it could have been once anchored to a Densatil stupa, most likely located on the western side of the sixth tier of a tashi gomang stupa. As with other sculptures associated with Densatil, it is inlaid with turquoise and lapis lazuli.