Dancing Ganapati

This metal sculpture is striking for its contrasting dark copper and gilt patinas, elegant fan of twelve arms, sensitively modeled elephant head, and fine inlays of turquoise and garnets. Ganapati dances on his vehicle, a large round gilt rat spitting a jewel and squatting on a comparatively narrow gilt double lotus pedestal. The sculpture is cast in three parts, with each of the implements Ganapati holds made separately, a number of which are now lost. His elephant face is painted with cold gold, and his garments are decorated with parcel-gilt patterns. The lotus base is still sealed with a copper plate with a crossed-vajra pattern.

It was previously thought that the use of different alloys and turquoise inlays, as well as the accuracy of the depiction of the elephant head, signaled the work of a Nepalese craftsman, as Tibetans were unfamiliar with elephants and thus tended to depict them schematically.

More recently, Eric Tzu-yin Huang, curator of Himalayan art at the National Palace Museum, has suggested this might be a product of the Ganden Podrang state-run Zhöl Village goldsmith and metalwork workshops (zhol ’dod dpal) at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. He writes, “My attribution is based on a comparison with a piece in the Palace Museum, Beijing, which bears a tag stating it was a gift from the Dalai Lama [an image of White Manjushri 白文殊菩薩 with a tag dated 58th year of the Qianlong reign; 1793]. I believe that piece serves as a benchmark for the 雪堆白作坊 [the Zhol workshop]. The lotus base (derived from Pala India) and the floral engravings on the dhoti are highly comparable to your [the Rubin Museum’s] Ganapati. While the Beijing piece lacks inlays, turquoise inlays are not uncommon in other Gelug court-style works (e.g., in the Potala or Norbulingka). In my view, this sculpture represents seventeenth- to eighteenth-century Gelug court production, and this Ganapati is a particularly unique subject within that tradition.”

In a Buddhist context, the famous Indian elephant-headed god is called Ganapati, “Master of Hosts,” hindering demons. This form of Ganapati is regarded as an emanation of Avalokiteshvara. The twelve-armed form of Ganapati belongs to a set of three powerful deities known as the Three Great Red Ones [of Power] within the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, along with the goddess Kurukulla and the protector Takkiraja, “the King of the Desire Realm.” In this form Ganapati functions as both a remover of hindrances and as powerful wealth-bestowing deity, creator of favorable conditions.

Comparing the corresponding painting of Red Ganapati (C2005.11.1), this charming sculpture translates the dynamic qualities of the Ngor tradition of painting into sculpture. While the body of the deity is quite similar to that in the painting, the relative proportion of the lotus and the rat under the feet differs considerably.