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Lot Essay
The inscriptions found on the current figure and stand, shang zuo er and er shang zuo er, are likely to be numbering systems for their placement in a specific order and location.
Panjarnata Mahakala is often, but not always, depicted balancing a baton, Gandhi, in the crooks of his arms, from which all other forms of Mahakala are thought to emanate. However, even in the absence of the baton, the single-faced, two-armed wrathful deity holding the kartri and kapala is unmistakably Panjarnata Mahakala, the ‘Lord of the Pavilion’. Panjarnata Mahakala is the special protector of the Hevajra cycle of Tantras in the Sakya School; his iconography and rituals are found in the 18th chapter of the Vajra Panjara Tantra, as well as in chapters 25 and 50 of the Mahakala Tantras.
Although the current figure is not inscribed with a reign mark, it closely relates in style to the imperial gilt-bronze figures of the Yongle and Xuande periods. Compare with a very similar gilt-iron figure of Panjaranata Mahakala with a Yongle mark in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in the Splendors from the Yongle and Xuande Reigns of China’s Ming Dynasty: Classics of the Forbidden City, Beijing, 2012, p.247 no. 133; and another similar gilt-bronze figure of Panjarnata Mahakala from the Yongle period in the Potala Palace, Tibet, illustrated in The Times and the Styles of Statues of Buddha in Chinese Buddhism, Beijing, 2010, p.216, fig. 234.
Compare also to a slightly smaller figure of Panjarnata Mahakala (27.8 cm.), cast with a very similar posture, dating to the Yongle to Xuande period, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 May 2018, lot 2863 (fig. 1), as well as a slightly larger gilt-bronze example, dating to the 17th century, formerly in the Nitta Collection, exhibited in National Palace Museum, The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, Taipei, 1987, Catalogue, pl. 32.
Panjarnata Mahakala is often, but not always, depicted balancing a baton, Gandhi, in the crooks of his arms, from which all other forms of Mahakala are thought to emanate. However, even in the absence of the baton, the single-faced, two-armed wrathful deity holding the kartri and kapala is unmistakably Panjarnata Mahakala, the ‘Lord of the Pavilion’. Panjarnata Mahakala is the special protector of the Hevajra cycle of Tantras in the Sakya School; his iconography and rituals are found in the 18th chapter of the Vajra Panjara Tantra, as well as in chapters 25 and 50 of the Mahakala Tantras.
Although the current figure is not inscribed with a reign mark, it closely relates in style to the imperial gilt-bronze figures of the Yongle and Xuande periods. Compare with a very similar gilt-iron figure of Panjaranata Mahakala with a Yongle mark in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in the Splendors from the Yongle and Xuande Reigns of China’s Ming Dynasty: Classics of the Forbidden City, Beijing, 2012, p.247 no. 133; and another similar gilt-bronze figure of Panjarnata Mahakala from the Yongle period in the Potala Palace, Tibet, illustrated in The Times and the Styles of Statues of Buddha in Chinese Buddhism, Beijing, 2010, p.216, fig. 234.
Compare also to a slightly smaller figure of Panjarnata Mahakala (27.8 cm.), cast with a very similar posture, dating to the Yongle to Xuande period, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 May 2018, lot 2863 (fig. 1), as well as a slightly larger gilt-bronze example, dating to the 17th century, formerly in the Nitta Collection, exhibited in National Palace Museum, The Crucible of Compassion and Wisdom, Taipei, 1987, Catalogue, pl. 32.