The "Terrible Protective Deity" from the Bon Tradition - Welse Ngampa (tib. dBal gsas rNgam pa)

Estimated Value:

2.000 € - 3.000 €

Schätzpreis:

6.000 €

Description:

Tibet or Nepal/ Dolpo, 19th c.
104 x 64,5 cm R.
Tempera on cotton fabric. The wrathful deity, of dark blue color, is invoked as the destroyer of all unwholesome demons. She is usually depicted together with a green dakini named gTum-mo bde-gro-yum. The deity has nine heads, eighteen arms and four legs. Nebesky-Wojkowitz describes that from its eyes come red lightnings, the roar of thunder is heard from its ears, black winds come out of its nose and the great hail falls from its tongue. The mighty deity - so D. I. Lauf describes the deity in his text - steps with her feet on the right on a green and on the left on a yellow man. She wears as clothing a tiger skin, and as jewelry the chain from human heads. The deity stands on a lotus throne with the symbolic animals: Dragon, Elephant, Horse, Lion, Garuda. The new heads of the deity have dark green hair and and are grouped in the bottom row as three human heads with three eyes each. Her left face is red, the right white and the middle blue; above in the middle is the wrathful face of a lion, the left is a leopard head and the right a tiger head. Above in the middle is the head of the great Garuda, on the left is the head of the Makara and on the right is that of a dragon. The earrings are made of coiled snakes. In the eighteen arms the powerful god holds various weapons for the destruction of demons. With the first pair of hands, the deity holds a dagger (phur ba) and also enclosed the dakini. The remaining eight hands on his right side hold a human skin and the victory banner, sword, axe, arrow with ribbon, an arrow, the head of Garuda on an arrow, a tiger, and in the ninth hand a blue hexagram made of meteorite iron. With the eight remaining hands of her left side, the deity carries human skin and arrow with bow, the noose, the iron hook, a pair of pliers, a chain, a flat bell, a wolf, and finally in the ninth hand a piece of rock. The green dakini has a head with red hair, she carries a bowl with offerings in her right hand and a consecration vessel in her left hand. She is usually dressed in a leopard skin or as here in the picture with a chain apron. Framed under glass.
Important German private collection, collected in the 1970s and 80s, mainly acquired at Schoettle Ostasiatica, Stuttgart
Publ. Per Kvaerne, The Bon Religion of Tibet - The Iconography of a Living Tradition; London, 1995, p 77-80, pl. 27, 28, 29; (detailed analysis of the present thangka)
Cf. D. I. Lauf, On the Iconography of Some Deities of the Tibetan Bon Tradition; Ethnologische Zeitschrift Zuerich, (EZZ) I, 1971: 29f.
Wear, traces of age

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