TIBET, 14TH CENTURY

The present work would likely have been part of a set of five paintings depicting the Five Tathagatas, of which Amoghasiddhi is one. Such sets of paintings were a visual development of tantric texts codified in Northeastern India during the Pala period that describe the Vajradhatu mandala, with the Five Tathagatas as patriarchs of the Five Families of Transcendent Buddhas. As the principle deity, Vairochana occupies the center of the realm, with the other four inhabiting their respective directions (Amoghasiddhi is associated with the North). The five-painting set to which this work belonged was thus a visual deconstruction of the single Vajradhatu mandala composition. The Tathagata of each quadrant is depicted as the primary focus of a painting, and the associated deities found in his quadrant of the mandala are carried over to this form of the painting as well. Hence, the door guardian Vajravesha, the female deities offering deities Nrtya and Gandha, and even the individual bodhisattvas found in this composition are all associated with the North and would have been found in Amoghasiddhi's quadrant of a single painting composition.