Kashmir’s Visual Legacy in the Western Himalayas

This tall, elegantly detailed and proportioned brass (not bronze, as is commonly assumed) (figs. 1 and 2) sculpture is inlaid with silver and copper, enhancing its impressive presence at the center of a shrine in western Tibet near the village of Khartse. It is locally known as the Khartse Jowo (revered Lord) and is believed to have been commissioned in 998 by one of the most famous personages in western Himalayan history, the Great Translator (Lotsawa Chenpo) Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055). Datable to the early eleventh century, it retains its original base as well as the unusual full-size nimbus. Although the nimbus was uniquely built for this work, the original outline is now solidly backed or filled in. In some photographs, a canopy, indicating auspiciousness, is suspended overhead, but it is probably not original. The head and torso face forward, but the hips sway to the standing figure’s right, while the left arm moves away from the body. This active movement is accommodated only somewhat successfully by the symmetrical body nimbus. Six feet (nearly two meters) in height, the figure with its backdrop is “the largest known [metal] statue cast in the Kashmir style to have survived.”1 “Technical accomplishment,” so clearly manifested here, “is unanswerable.”2

Legendary Origins

According to a biography of Rinchen Zangpo written after his death, the sculpture was made at his expense for a fee of five ounces of gold he brought from his home in western Tibet.3 He is said to have traveled to Kashmir at least twice, once at the behest and with the support of the Royal Lama Yeshe Wo (947–1019/1024), ruler of Guge. During that yearlong period of study in Kashmir, the Great Translator commissioned an artisan in Kashmir whose name is recorded as Bhidhaka. The sculpture was then consecrated by Shraddhakaravarman, “one of his earliest and main teachers and co-translators,”4 who also received five ounces of gold, for the formal ritual animation of the sculpture.5 Later, it was brought to and installed in the Gokhar Shrine in Khartse, western Tibet, a Buddhist sanctuary that Rinchen Zangpo is said to have founded,6 where it (hopefully) remains today. According to some of the biographies of Lochen (the “Great Translator,” as Rinchen Zangpo is often called), it takes the form of Avalokiteshvara known as Mahakarunika, or “The Great Compassionate One.” The bodhisattva, beloved in Tibet, has a small image of Amitabha in his crown and a fully open lotus blossom at his left shoulder. The identification as Avalokiteshvara is therefore certain, as these are among his key attributes, even though a stupa sits at the pinnacle of his nimbus. When a stupa-reliquary appears in the crown of a bodhisattva, it generally signifies Maitreya, but here it apparently contributes an alternative significance, possibly a reminder of the commemorative function of the work. 

Some versions of Rinchen Zangpo’s biographies state that while he was in Kashmir, he had this sculpture made on hearing, or recalling, the passing away of his father.7 His sorrow and gratitude to his parent prompted him to make a tributary image of his late father. It was not so much a portrait likeness as a kind of idealized memorial token, and purportedly matched the height of his father. The Great Translator then sent or brought it back with him to Khartse, the ancestral home of his family.8  According to the biographical narrative, on the way back from Kashmir, the sculpture hit a rock and the ring finger of the right hand broke off. In 1994, Thomas Pritzker and his son David saw the sculpture at Khartse and confirmed its “missing ring finger.”9 The left hand is complete, its long, elegantly tapered fingers finished with fingernails either inlaid with copper or bearing an applied reddish pigment. 

Bringing such a major work of metal sculpture from Kashmir to western Tibet, over a number of Himalayan passes exceeding sixteen thousand feet, involves a considerable degree of difficulty. Naturally, one wonders if it could not instead have been made by a Kashmiri sculptor in western Tibet, like the Mulbekh sculpture in Ladakh. This is especially relevant, since another famous episode included in the Great Translator’s biographies states that when he returned to western Tibet from Kashmir, he brought with him thirty-two Kashmiri artists in order to fill the shrines which he is said to have founded—rather fantastically, 108 of them, an auspicious number not to be taken literally. Most scholars accept that the imposing Khartse sculpture was indeed made in Kashmir and was certainly not made by Tibetan artisans either inspired by Kashmiri art or even trained by the latter. But could it have been made in western Tibet by a Kashmiri artist who traveled there? After considering the matter closely, the art historian Christian Luczanits concludes the following:

Despite its large size, the Khartse Avalokiteśvara is the best example of a commission that was produced in Kashmir and brought to Western Tibet, as suggested by the story associated with this work. In my reading of the art, a Kashmiri origin for the sculpture is plausible.10

Comparison with an Inscribed Sculpture from Kashmir

Support for this conclusion may be found in its similarity with another sculpture that was most definitely made in Kashmir, now in a major monastery of Ladakh known as Hemis.11  The fact that the Hemis sculpture has an inscription on its base in Proto-Sharada script, in use in Kashmir, means that it would only have been crafted in Kashmir to be read by a Kashmiri sponsor, not a Tibetan-speaking one. To be sure, Kashmiri works eventually were “collected” by religious figures and institutions in the western Himalayas, especially after Buddhism died away in Kashmir.12 Several important works of art were made in Kashmir and later brought to the western Himalayas, so what is most distinctive about the case of the Khartse Avalokiteshvara is the known Tibetan sponsor and the relative simultaneity of the making and the transporting, as well as the purported textual documentation. 

The Hemis sculpture (fig. 3), which also depicts the two-handed Avalokiteshvara, is nearly identical in terms of posture, gestures, jewelry and adornments, inlay on the dhoti (wrap-around skirt worn by males in India), and the stupa-reliquary at the pinnacle of the back nimbus. Even the shape of the lotus on which the bodhisattva stands is comparable. However, it is slightly over a third of the size of the figure (17¾ inches, or 45 centimeters, versus 51 inches, or 129.5 centimeters), though the even more elaborate aureole extends relatively higher, for a total height of just over 35 inches, or nearly 90 centimeters (compared with the Khartse’s 72 inches, or 183 centimeters). One of the distinctive features of both of these forms of Avalokiteshvara is the fact that the head of the antelope skin he wears as a kind of shawl hangs between his left arm and the ribcage in both examples. Another is the similarity of each level of the hourglass-shaped base below the lotus on which he stands. In the case of the Khartse sculpture, the narrowed middle section is solid and plain, while in the Hemis sculpture it is perforated with recumbent animals carved on it. Below is the Proto-Sharada inscription, which gives the so-called consecratory verse (the pratityasamutpada-giti), and the following dedication: 

This is the pious gift (and) that was ordered to be made by the Śākayabhikṣu Puṇyajaya. Whatever merit (was made) here, that should go to Śrī Vasantarāja together (with) all beings.13

In other words, it too was commissioned by a Buddhist monk, but probably a Kashmiri rather than one from western Tibet.

Both of the dhotis, as already mentioned, are inlaid with copper and silver. In addition, the Khartse sculpture has inserted black niello, a silver sulfide that sets off the metal colors. The skirt is decorated with stripes of different motifs, including pearl-bordered roundels, diamond-shaped lozenges, alternating upward- and downward pointing triangles, and a curling tendril vine pattern. The kneecap protrudes visibly beneath the cloth-covered right leg in a subtle mastery of volume and bodily structure. On both sculptures, the dhoti extends below the knee on the right leg and ends at the thigh on the left. The long strands of hair painted blue lie over the upper shoulders, and the scarves tying the crown to the head stand out horizontally above the ears. The mouth is small but pursed, the chin prominent, and a reverse widow’s peak marks the hairline at the middle of the forehead. The upper chest of the smaller Hemis sculpture is disproportionately inflated. The feet, however, are placed in the identical splayed positions, the left foot’s toes just barely extending beyond the edge of the lotus-calyx base. The two metal sculptures could have been made in the same workshop. The Khartse sculpture, however, surpasses its Hemis cousin—and most if not all other known Kashmiri sculptures in Tibet and the western Himalayas—in its scale and plausible historical associations.