On the Origins and History of an Early Tibetan Masterwork

Jane Casey

Green-skinned bodhisattva seated on lotus pedestal and flanked by attendants; enclosed within border of deity portraits — Tara; Reting Monastery, Tibet; ca. 1056–1189; distemper on cloth; 48 × 31½ in. (122 × 80 cm); The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

Tara Who Protects from the Eight Great Fears

Reting Monastery, U region, central Tibet ca. 1056–1189

Tara; Reting Monastery, Tibet; ca. 1056–1189; distemper on cloth; 48 × 31½ in. (122 × 80 cm); The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

Summary

Art historian Jane Casey explores evidence of the origins and early history of one of the finest examples of early Tibetan art. A work remarkable for its presence, elegant composition and aesthetic refinement, its style is closely related to the now largely lost painting of eastern India, where many Tibetans studied, made pilgrimage, and commissioned images.

Key Terms

consecration

In most Asian religious traditions, when an image of a deity is made, it must be made sacred (“consecrated”) by inviting the deity to inhabit it. A variety of rituals can be involved in this, including dotting the image’s eyes, visualizing the descent of the deity into the image, writing mantras on the back of a thangka, or placing sacred texts and mantras inside of a statue.

deity

Different Asian religious traditions posit different types of divine beings. Hindus generally believe in an all-encompassing God-like being, called Brahman. They also believe in a variety of other gods (deva), including Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Early Buddhists denied the existence of a single, all-powerful creator god. Nevertheless, they always recognized a variety of powerful spirits, like gandharvas and nagas. Mahayana Buddhists came to see bodhisattvas as beings of enormous power, and buddhas themselves as cosmic beings with the ability to create entire universes. Buddhist and Bon traditions in Tibet worshiped a variety of other gods (Tib. lha), like the mountain gods, or gods of the land. According to Buddhist tradition, enlightened deities are seen as beyond the cycle of death and rebirth, whereas gods (including Hindu gods) are not.

iconography

In the Himalayan context, iconography refers to the forms found in religious images, especially the attributes of deities: body color, number of arms and legs, hand gestures, poses, implements, and retinue. Often these attributes are specified in ritual texts (sadhanas), which artists are expected to follow faithfully.

lama

In the Tibetan Buddhist and Bon traditions, “lama” is a term of respect for a high monk or religious teacher, often a monastery abbot or a tulku. The Sanskrit equivalent is “guru,” meaning “venerable one” or “teacher.” In some traditions, like the Kagyu, lama is also a person who has completed a three-year retreat practice.

thangka

A thangka is a Tibetan hanging scroll, usually painted on cotton, and then mounted in a silk brocade mount. Thangkas can also be textiles woven or assembled in the appliqué technique. Thangkas are often kept rolled up around a wooden dowel affixed to the bottom end of the silk mounting, which also helps keep the scroll flat when hung. Almost all thangkas show religious subjects. Similar paintings produced in Nepal are called “paubha.”

Tibetan Buddhism

Historically, Tibetan Buddhism refers to those Buddhist traditions that use Tibetan as a ritual language. It is practiced in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Ladakh, and among certain groups in Nepal, China, and Russia and has an international following. Buddhism was introduced to Tibet in two waves, first when rulers of the Tibetan Empire (seventh to ninth centuries CE), embraced the Buddhist faith as their state religion, and during the second diffusion (late tenth through thirteenth centuries), when monks and translators brought in Buddhist culture from India, Nepal, and Central Asia. As a result, the entire Buddhist canon was translated into Tibetan, and monasteries grew to become centers of intellectual, cultural, and political power. From the end of the twelfth century, Tibetans were exporting their own Buddhist traditions abroad. Tibetan Buddhism integrates Mahayana teachings with the esoteric practices of Vajrayana, and includes those developed in Tibet, such as Dzogchen, as well as indigenous Tibetan religious practices focused on local gods. Historically major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk.

, the buddhist goddess of compassion, is the subject of this painting. It is one of the finest examples of early Tibetan art, remarkable for its elegant composition and aesthetic refinement. It has a distinguished, if still somewhat mysterious provenance. Although it has been the subject of a few brief studies, fundamental questions remain about when it was commissioned, and by whom. Analysis of the painting’s , lineage of teachers, inscriptions, and style provides evidence of its origins and early history.

Iconography

The painting presents the beloved goddess within a mountain cave. Tara’s languid body is adorned with an array of jewels. A fine orange gauze gathers on her lap and falls almost undetected along her lower limbs. She sits on a lotus supported by two snake deities, in a natural setting dense with vegetation and inhabited by elephants and other wild animals (fig. 2). At the top of the painting, saintly beings make their way through a forest likewise filled with dangerous predators. The side registers present eight additional images of Tara within smaller mountain caves (fig. 3). In each, the goddess offers an open hand to a supplicant. The iconography of the painting is known as Ashtamahabhaya Tara, “Tara Who Protects from the Eight (ashta) Great Fears (mahabhaya).”

Close view of lotus pedestal featuring acanthus and scrollwork base against blue and green vegetal background; supported on left by crowned deity — Fig. 2 Detail of Tara; Reting Monastery, Tibet; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

Close view of crowned deity at Bodhisattva’s left side and segment of border featuring deity portraits — Fig. 3 Detail of Tara; Reting Monastery, Tibet; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

A text from about the seventh century describing this iconography was composed by the Indian philosopher Chandragomin. His text describes Tara’s setting as “on a lake, in a jewel cavern.” In this form, Tara was patron and guide to traveling Buddhist merchants and pilgrims. The eight perils described in Chandragomin’s account were very real dangers to medieval travelers: attacks by the demons who cause disease or by bandits, stampeding elephants, lions, and poisonous snakes; being caught in forest fires or in floods (perhaps drowning in failed attempts to cross rivers or streams); and false imprisonment in foreign lands.

The Lineage of Teachers

Three historical figures appear in the painting, constituting a lineage of revered teachers who transmitted teachings connected with this form of Tara from one generation to the next. The Indian monk in a red-peaked cap represents Atisha (ca. 982–1054), the celebrated Buddhist master whose presence in Tibet between 1042 and 1054 helped to establish a firm foundation for the practice of (fig. 4). Tara was Atisha’s tutelary , and he and his Tibetan disciple Naktso translated Chandragomin’s text on the Eight Great Fears Tara into Tibetan in the eleventh century. On the other side is Atisha’s chief Tibetan disciple Dromton (1005–1064), dressed in the robes of a lay practitioner because he was never ordained as a monk. The painting’s patron appears in the lower left corner (fig. 5). The monk wears the uniquely Tibetan short-sleeved yellow vest under the red robe, indicating he was a Tibetan. A lineage of teachers can be helpful in assigning dates to Tibetan paintings, for they are sometimes continuous to the period of the painting’s patron. If that were the case in this painting, the patron would be a disciple of Dromton, who founded Reting Monastery north of in 1056 and died in 1064.

Close view of green-skinned Bodhisattva flanked by crowned deities, enclosed in red and blue nimbus — Fig. 4 Detail of Tara showing the lineage of teachers; Reting Monastery, Tibet; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

Close view of orange-robed figure seated in architectural feature on left, facing ritual objects on right — Fig. 5 Detail of Tara showing the patron; Reting Monastery, Tibet; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph by John Bigelow Taylor

The Inscriptions

Two Tibetan inscriptions appear near the top on the back of the painting. One states, “Reting Deity,” an indication that the painting was once associated with Reting (fig. 6). Dan Martin, a leading historian of Tibet, understands the inscription to be a mark of “ownership” by Reting and acknowledges “it could have become a part of that impressive thang-ka collection any time since the monastery’s founding in 1056.” The second inscription, written in a different hand, states (in part) that the painting is “the ‘high aspiration’ [tukdam] of Jatson Druwo” and that it was “consecrated by Sechilpuwa (1121–1189) of Chekhawa.” The second inscription indicates that at some point, the painting was associated with Jatson Druwo (dates unknown), who deemed the painting his “high aspiration”; this too is in some sense an indication of ownership (fig. 7). Leaving aside the ambiguities in the second inscription, one can confidently state that the painting was [re-]consecrated no later than 1189, the year Sechilpuwa died.

Close view of beige, textured surface with short line of Tibetan script at center underneath horizontal seam — Fig. 6 Back of Tara showing an inscription; Reting Monastery, Tibet; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph courtesy John and Berthe Ford

Close view of beige, textured surface with long line of Tibetan script at center underneath horizontal seam — Fig. 7 Back of Tara showing an inscription; Reting Monastery, Tibet; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; John and Berthe Ford Collection; F.112; photograph courtesy John and Berthe Ford

These inscriptions shed light on the painting’s early history, but their implications are open to interpretation. Martin interprets the statement that the painting is the “high aspiration” of Jatson Druwo as evidence that the latter had commissioned the painting. While this is possible, it is by no means a certainty. Paintings accrue inscriptions over time. This painting’s visual lineage, which may indicate the painting was commissioned by a disciple of Dromton, and the first inscription stating “the Reting Deity” may indicate that the painting was first at Reting, where it was commissioned, and that it later came into the hands of Sechilpuwa, who reconsecrated it sometime before his death in 1189.

In support of this interpretation is evidence in paintings (1, 2) associated with . Thirty-eight twelfth- and thirteenth-century Taklung paintings bear an inscription stating they were consecrated by Sanggye Won (d. 1296), interim fourth abbot (1272–1273) of Taklung. Of these paintings, perhaps only a quarter were also commissioned by him. The great majority were reconsecrations of earlier paintings. Moreover, six Taklung paintings bear an inscription asserting that they are the “high aspiration [tukdam]” of Sanggye Won. Of these paintings, five are certainly older paintings inherited by Sanggye Won; only one painting bearing this inscription may have been commissioned by him. In the Taklung paintings, the tukdam inscription appears on paintings that were inherited from a teacher, a teacher’s teacher, and sometimes, a teacher’s teacher’s teacher.

Tara’s Connection with Atisha and Reting Monastery

While in Tibet, Atisha had a vision of Tara, which he described to his disciples: “Jowo said, ‘I visualize Tārā even in dreams with the idea she is a mother. The Jomo is clearly in this, and she will be my witness [to the truth of this].’ They asked him where the Jomo [Holy One, in feminine form] was and he replied, ‘She is in a of Eight Fears Tārā. This is the one.’ That thangka is even now to be found in Reting.” A descriptive catalog of Reting Monastery describes an abbot of Reting, Neljor Chenpo Jangchub Rinchen (1015–1078; abbot 1065–1078), who was sent to India to commission a painting of the Eight Fears Protector Tara. He presented it to Atisha, then residing at Netang Monastery, who performed consecrations of the painting.

Style and Summary

The style of the painting is closely related to eastern Indian art of the period. Around the turn of the eleventh century, Tibetan Buddhists looked to eastern India, the Buddhist homeland, as a crucial source of Buddhist culture. For over two centuries, they apprenticed themselves to tantric masters and enrolled as students in the great monastic universities of eastern India such as Nalanda, Odantapuri, and Vikramashila. While there, they experienced the ritual use of Buddhist images and were inspired by the art and architecture of Buddhist India. They also commissioned and otherwise procured perhaps thousands of sculptures and paintings, which they brought back to Tibet. The aesthetic and iconographic canons of eastern India formed the foundation of one of the two major artistic styles in central Tibet from the eleventh until the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Some early Tibetan paintings so closely resemble Indian art that scholars have begun to explore whether any of the surviving early Tibetan paintings, like this Tara, might in fact have been commissioned in India. Aside from observing the aesthetic and iconographic norms of eastern India (such as the proportions of figures, the architectural and iconographic forms, the jewelry and costume design, and the tropical jungle references, all of which find antecedents in the art of eastern India), this painting is remarkable because it has presence. The central figure of Tara expresses a gentle, transcendent presence. Her fine, tapering fingers hold the stem of a lotus on her left, while her right hand offers a gracious gesture of renunciation (shramana ). Note the poise of her right hand, its ringed finger raised slightly as she presents an open palm, and the fall of the gem-encrusted gold pendants of her girdle over her left calf, observing the fall of gravity. A diaphanous shawl, now just barely evident across her upper arms and chest, bears an elegant circle motif. Her form is languid, poised, relaxed, but alert. All of these aspects suggest an artist of exceptional skill and sophistication. Regardless of the uncertainties surrounding its early provenance, the painting remains one of the great masterworks of Tibetan art, one that will richly reward additional investigation.

Footnotes

Martin Willson, In Praise of Tara: Songs to the Saviouress (London: Wisdom, 1986), 340. See also Eva Allinger, “The Green Tārā in the Ford Collection: Some Iconographical Remarks,” in South Asian Archaelogy, 1995: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, Cambridge, 5–9, 1995, ed. F.Raymond Allchin and Bridget Allchin, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Science Publications, 1995), 666–71; Miranda Eberle Shaw, Buddhist Goddesses of India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 318–22.

Ārya Tārā aṣṭabhaya trāta nāma sādhanaṃ (Tib. ’Phags ma sgrol ma ’jigs pa brgyad las skyob pa zhes bya ba’i sgrub thabs). In D. T. Suzuki, ed., The Tibetan Tripitaka, Peking edition, Bstan ’gyur rgyud ’grel, 1955–61, vol. 81, 74 1.1–5.4, DU 373a–375a, as cited in Eva Allinger, “The Green Tārā in the Ford Collection: Some Iconographical Remarks,” in South Asian Archaelogy, 1995: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference of the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, Cambridge, 5–9, 1995, ed. F. Raymond Allchin and Bridget Allchin, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Science Publications, 1995), 666–71, 667. English translation in Martin Willson, In Praise of Tara: Songs to the Saviouress (London: Wisdom, 1986), 337–42. Dan Martin notes that they translated the text while at the Jokhang in Lhasa; Dan Martin, “Art in the Life of Atiśa with Emphasis on the Question of 11th-Century Pāla Art in Tibet,” Lecture, Hong Kong, May 13, 2018, 13n14.

See David P. Jackson, Mirror of the Buddha: Early Portraits from Tibet, Exhibition catalog, Masterworks of Tibetan Painting Series 3 (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2011), https://issuu.com/rmanyc/docs/mirror_of_the_buddha_96, 104–31; David P. Jackson, The Nepalese Legacy in Tibetan Painting: Early Beri to Ngor, Exhibition catalog, Masterworks of Tibetan Painting Series 2 (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2010), https://issuu.com/rmanyc/docs/nepalese_legacy_96, 23–49; and Jane Casey, Taklung Painting: A Study in Chronology (Chicago: Serindia, Forthcoming).

Reting became the seat of the Kadam order and is located in Penyul valley about thirty-seven miles (sixty kilometers) north of Lhasa.

Ra sgreng ba’i lha. Transliterations of the inscriptions appear in Steven M. Kossak and Jane Casey Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, Exhibition catalog (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 54–59; photographs and transliterations appear in Dan Martin, “Painters, Patrons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art,” in Embodying Wisdom. Art, Text, and Interpretation in the History of Esoteric Buddhism, ed. Rob Linrothe and Henrik H. Sørensen (Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 2001), 139–84, figs. 3, 4.

Dan Martin, “Painters, Patrons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art,” in Embodying Wisdom. Art, Text, and Interpretation in the History of Esoteric Buddhism, ed. Rob Linrothe and Henrik H. Sørensen (Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 2001), 18.

Bya brtson ’grus ’od kyi thugs dam se phyil phu ba’i {mchad kha ba’i} rab gnas bzhugs spyil phu ba’i chos skyong la gtad do. Other inscriptions on the verso, of less relevance to the present discussion, are discussed in Steven M. Kossak and Jane Casey Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, Exhibition catalog (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 57–59; Jane Casey Singer, “An Early Tibetan Painting Revisited: The Ashtamahabhaya Tara in the Ford Collection,” Orientations 10, no. 29 (October) (1998): 67–73; Dan Martin, “Painters, Patrons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art,” in Embodying Wisdom. Art, Text, and Interpretation in the History of Esoteric Buddhism, ed. Rob Linrothe and Henrik H. Sørensen (Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 2001), 139–84. Dan Martin corrects my mistaken identification of Jatson Druwo.

See Dan Martin, “Painters, Patrons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art,” in Embodying Wisdom. Art, Text, and Interpretation in the History of Esoteric Buddhism, ed. Rob Linrothe and Henrik H. Sørensen (Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 2001), 19–22, for various interpretations of the consecration inscription. Martin notes my translation, above, as a possible interpretation in Dan Martin, “Painters, Patrons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art,” in Embodying Wisdom. Art, Text, and Interpretation in the History of Esoteric Buddhism, ed. Rob Linrothe and Henrik H. Sørensen (Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 2001), 139–84.

Jane Casey, Taklung Painting: A Study in Chronology (Chicago: Serindia, Forthcoming).

Dan Martin, “Art in the Life of Atiśa with Emphasis on the Question of 11th-Century Pāla Art in Tibet,” Lecture, Hong Kong, May 13, 2018, 14–15. See a different version of this episode, recounted in Tsuklak Trengwa’s chapter on the Kadampas, in Jane Casey Singer, “Painting in Central Tibet, ca. 950–1450,” Artibus Asiae 54, no. 1–2 (1994): 108n60.

See Dan Martin, “Painters, Patrons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art,” in Embodying Wisdom. Art, Text, and Interpretation in the History of Esoteric Buddhism, ed. Rob Linrothe and Henrik H. Sørensen (Copenhagen: Seminar for Buddhist Studies, 2001), 139–84, for additional information on other early paintings of Tara commissioned by eleventh- and twelfth-century Tibetans.

For further discussion and specific comparisons with eastern Indian art, see earlier discussions by Jane Casey Singer, “An Early Tibetan Painting Revisited: The Ashtamahabhaya Tara in the Ford Collection,” Orientations 10, no. 29 (October) (1998): 65–73; Steven M. Kossak and Jane Casey Singer, Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, Exhibition catalog (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 54–59. See also Susan L. Huntington and John C. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India (8th–12th Centuries) and Its International Legacy (Dayton, OH, and Seattle: Dayton Art Institute in association with the University of Washington Press, 1990), 318–20; Pratapaditya Pal, Tibetan Paintings (Basel: Basilius Press, 1984), appendix.

Chak Lotsawa and other Tibetan pilgrims to eastern India describe images that speak, cry, and impart wisdom. See George N. Roerich, The Blue Annals, 2 vols. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, (1949) 1979), xx, 92–93; Dpa’ bo gtsug lag phreng ba, Chos ’byung Mkhas Pa’i Dga’ Ston [Scholar’s Feast of Religious History], ed. Lokesh Chandra (New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture, 1545), 290.

Jane Casey Singer, “An Early Tibetan Painting Revisited: The Ashtamahabhaya Tara in the Ford Collection,” Orientations 10, no. 29 (October) (1998): 65–73, 68–73; David Weldon and Jane Casey Singer, The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet: Buddhist Art in the Nyingjei Lam Collection, Exhibition catalog (London: Laurence King, 1999), 54–55; Jane Casey Singer, “The Cultural Roots of Early Tibetan Painting,” in Sacred Visions: Early Paintings from Central Tibet, ed. Steven Kossak and Jane Casey Singer, Exhibition catalog (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 3–24, 12-13.