Four-circle Hevajra Mandala - Reflections of the Buddha

Four-circle Hevajra Mandala
Four-circle Hevajra Mandala
Tibetan; 15 th -16 th century
Thangka; ink and colors on linen (with cotton intertwined with the linen
threads)
Painted for the Sakya Order; perhaps from the Ngor Monastery, Tsang,
Tibet
H. 53.3 cm (21 in.)
W. 44.5 cm (17 ½ in.)
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum,
Purchase through the Paul Bernat Fund, 1967.8
Photograph by Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of Harvard College
This vibrant thangka—a portable Tibetan icon, either 1) woven of silk in tapestry weave or embroidered
with silk thread on a silk ground, or 2) painted with vegetal and mineral pigments on a cotton or linen
cloth coated with a wash of lime and then burnished to provide a smooth white ground to showcase the
brilliant colors—centers upon four manifestations of the Vajrayāna deity Hevajra, 1 one of the principal
ista-deva, or tutelary deities, of the Sakya order of Tibetan Buddhism. 2 This deity’s strikingly simple
name, which consists of a syllable of forceful exclamation (he) and the word for “indestructible” or
“adamantine” (vajra) is glossed in the Hevajra-tantra, the foundational text for the deity’s cult, as an
embodiment of the unity of compassion—symbolized in he—and wisdom—symbolized in vajra. At
upper-left is his most common form, the eight-faced, sixteen-armed, four-legged manifestation known
as Kapālī Hrdaya-Hevajra, in ecstatic embrace with his consort Nairātmyā; at upper-right is the six-armed,
three-faced Citta Hevajra, in embrace with his consort Vajraśrṅkhalā; at lower-right is the two-armed
Kāya Hevajra with his consort Nairātmyā; and finally, at lower-left is the four-armed Vāg Hevajra with his
consort Vajravārāhī. 3 Each manifestation is depicted holding cups made from half-open human crania,
often termed skull cups; the bearing of such cups rather than weapons indicates that this painting was
produced for the practice of rites based on the Hevajra-tantra, 4 one of the Anuttarayoga-tantras, or
1 See D. L. Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study, (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), vol 1., p. 47.
The deity’s very name serves as an instantiation of one of the primary goals of worshipping Hevajra—namely,
realizing the unity of compassion and wisdom in oneself.
2 Thangkas traditionally were mounted as scrolls, the scroll ensemble including cloth-fronted borders and a veil of
cloth to protect the work when not in active ritual use. Because this thangka has been cut from its mounting and
now is presented in the format of a large album, it lacks its original cover and cloth-fronted borders.
3 These manifestations are described in Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, vol 1., pp. 58-59 and 110-111, though they
are not named. I relied on the iconographic descriptions in Lokesh Chandra, Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography
(New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2002), vol. 5, pp. 1397-1421, to
identify and name the deities. The deities are also described in Tianshu Zhu, “Hevajra Tantra,” in John C.
Huntington and Dina Bangdel, The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art (Columbus and Chicago: Columbus
Museum of Art and Serindia Publications, 2003), pp. 455-456.
4 The iconography for the weapon-bearing manifestations of Hevajra is derived from the Sāmputa-tantra.
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“Highest Yoga Tantras,” of the Sakya school. The Highest Yoga Tantras are one of the four types of
tantras in Vajrayāna Buddhism, 5 the tantras being systems of practice, usually based on specific texts,
that are meant to enable the practitioner to attain Buddhahood through meditative engagement with a
particular tutelary deity. The Highest Yoga Tantras are believed to allow attainment of Buddhahood in a
single lifetime. They demand that the practitioner follow a teacher’s instructions in performing radical
inner transformations—for example, visualizing his body as a particular arrangement of deities both
male and female, and further visualizing himself as neither different from nor the same as those deities.
These tantras particularly emphasize the simultaneous unity of and difference between wisdom and
compassion. Because wisdom is considered a female attribute in Buddhist thought and compassion a
male attribute, sexual metaphors and imagery are used extensively. In contemplating such metaphors
and imagery, “desire is converted to bliss, hatred to radiance, and delusion to awareness, and the union
of male and female is transformed into the nondual state of compassion and wisdom of a Buddha.” 6
Importantly, as can be seen in this thankga, the deities depicted in ecstatic, sexual embrace are
profoundly wrathful ones. They all bear various weapons, some trample upon corpses, and others wear
garlands of skulls. Vajrayāna practitioners understand the fearsome appearance of these deities to be,
in fact, an outward manifestation of their compassion. By directing their wrath against the obstacles
that hinder worshippers’ progress along the path to awakening, these deities display their compassion
for their followers. They manifest, in essence, “benevolent wrath.” 7
These four manifestations of Hevajra are depicted at the center of a mandala—an array of deities
positioned within a palace-like architectural setting, meant to be envisioned as a fully three-dimensional
space. Mandalas are usually created in accompaniment to meditative practices in which the practitioner
visualizes himself in union with—or as—those deities. 8 While the deities depicted within a mandala may
vary, and while stylistic differences may always be identified, the basic structure of mandalic
compositions remains generally constant across all periods and places of Vajrayāna Buddhism. The
structure of each of the four mandalas depicted on this thangka might be best understood by taking a
5 The four types are Kriyā-tantra (Action Tantra), Caryā-tantra (Performance Tantra), Yoga-tantra (Yoga Tantra),
and Anuttarayoga-tantra (Highest Yoga Tantra). A brief introduction to the different types of tantras may be
found in Dina Bangdel and Aviana P. Maki, “Related Esoteric Tantras,” in Huntington and Bangdel, pp. 422-423.
6 Ibid., p. 423.
7 For more on the notion of “benevolently wrathful” deities, see Rob Linrothe, “Protection, Benefaction, and
Transformation: Wrathful Deities in Himalayan Art,” in Rob Linrothe and Jeff Watt, Demonic Divine: Himalayan Art
and Beyond (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2004), pp. 3-43.
8 Mandalas are often described as “visualization (or meditation) aids.” The texts that prescribe the creation of
mandalas, however, never explicitly describe how the worshipper is to interact with mandala, even though such
texts often tell the worshipper to create a physical mandala according to precise instructions and then to construct
an identical mandala in his mind. Thus, while the creation of the physical mandala may help practitioners to
familiarize themselves with the deities that they envision during meditative practice and to focus their mind on
those deities, it cannot be asserted with absolute certainty that a mandala is explicitly used during actual
meditative practice. This is not to say that physical mandalas do not serve any precise ritual faction. Indeed,
during some consecration rites (Sanskrit: abhiseka), a mandala may be laid out on a raised altar, onto whose
deities each new initiate into the practices associated with the mandala tosses a flower petal, taking as his tutelary
deity the figure onto which the flower petal falls. The Kamakura-period (1185-1333) Womb World Mandala also
on display in “Reflections of the Buddha” could have been used in such a way, though as David Snellgrove points
out, given that mandalas like this Four-Circle Hevajra Mandala focus on only a single presiding deity, it is unlikely
that they would have been used in a similar consecration ritual. See David Snellgrove, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism:
Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), p. 180.
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narrative approach to them, following the lead set by worshippers whose visualization practices involve
the use of mandalic configurations.
We should first imagine approaching one of the four circular mandalas from outside its outermost
boundary. We thus first encounter a wall of five-colored flames (red, blue, yellow, white, and green),
here rendered in almost vegetal or foliate manner, which serves as the first marker of our entry into a
more sacred realm. This sacred realm is further sealed within the wall of flames by a narrow red band,
within which are rendered in gold very schematic vajras—hand-held ritual implements, derived from
ancient Indian weapons, with sharp, curved prongs at each end. Although depicted as a flat band of
colorful, scrolling forms, and although juxtaposed with other flat zones of decoratively enlivened color,
this seemingly flat representation of flames is to be imagined as a vertical, three-dimensional form;
conversely, the surrounding bands, including that of the vajra belt, may be read as top-down
topographic representations. This juxtaposition of contrasting modes of representation is typical of
mandalas and of pre-modern maps more generally.
The first zone within the circular vajra belt is occupied by the eight charnel grounds (Sanskrit: śmaśāna),
terrifying places for the contemplation of terrifying, wrathful deities. Each is governed at its center by a
particular deity, who is surrounded by attendants, impaled bodies, corpse-devouring animals, funerary
pyres, and mortuary stūpas—a type of Indian funerary monument consisting, in its simplest form, of a
semi-spherical mound surmounted by an umbrella, constructed to enshrine the remains of a particularly
honored person, especially religious leaders like the Buddha Śākyamuni. In multiple passages in the
Hevajra-tantra, such disturbing sites are specified as the appropriate place for contemplation of the
wrathful Hevajra; further, it is even specified that the colors used in painting his mandala be made from
things like “charcoal of the cemetery,” “ground human bones,” and “cemetery bricks,” while a certain
drawing aid is to be made of “cemetery thread”—actually, “a thread made from the guts of a corpse.” 9
Bordering the charnel grounds, which are represented as though the viewer were standing among the
figures depicted, are a series of multi-colored lotus petals viewed from above, thus signaling our
stepping slightly upward. With this ascent, we come to stand on the same plane as the palace of the
manifestation of Hevajra himself, a structure that assumes a square form. Each wall of the palace is
depicted as though viewed in profile, and each is pierced at its center by an elaborate gate, composed of
four horizontal slabs—colored, from bottom to top, red, blue, green, and gold—supported by two
columns on each side; the form seems to be vaguely inspired by that of the torana, an elaborate postand-lintel
gateway often placed around a stūpa at each of the four directions. A trefoil arch adorns the
front face of the slabs, which are surmounted by a small stūpa-like form bordered on each side by
kneeling deer. The gates are bordered on each side by the gaping mouths of red makaras, hybrid sea
monsters seen throughout pan-Asian Buddhist sites as gate protectors. From their mouths spew vivid
foliage, colored appropriately to the direction that they guard; hence, at top we see yellow foliage,
indicating the west; at right, the green of the north; at bottom, the bluish-black of the east; and at left,
9 Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, vol. 1., p. 51. Although the Hevajra-tantra frequently refers to cemeteries, it
does not precisely describe the eight cemeteries depicted in mandalas such as this. It seems that it is only in
commentarial literature that they are more fully described. See the discussion of charnel grounds in “Himalayan
Art,” a major online database of Himalayan Buddhist painting and related iconographic information maintained by
the Rubin Museum of Art in New York (“Subject: Charnel Grounds & Cemeteries,” n.d., ). See also Jeff Watt, “Mandalas and the Eight Mahasiddhas,” August 2009 <
http://www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=2106>.
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the red of the south. 10 The directionality of the color scheme employed in a thangka may give some
indication of how it was originally hung in a monastic space. 11
Within the gates lies a narrow red band running along the four sides of the palace, on which are
depicted tiny, seated figures, whom I have yet to identify. This narrow band is followed by a much
broader, foliated band, colored again in accordance with the four directions. On this band may be found
eight dakinīs (also called, more generically, yoginīs—that is female practitioners of yoga), female
attendants to Hevajra, who dance atop corpses lying upon red lotuses. These female deities are all
specifically named and described in the Hevajra-tantra. 12 Interspersed among them are vases, common
accoutrements to consecratory rituals. Finally, at the center of the palace, the manifestation of Hevajra
himself stands atop a lotus pedestal, again rendered from a top-down view, thus indicating the deity’s
occupying the highest point of this generally pyramidal mandala. Each manifestation of Hevajra is
depicted in the ardha-paryaṅka pose, dancing atop one or more corpses. The four legs of the sixteenarmed
Hrdaya-Hevajra, for example, trample four corpses, understood to signify the four Māras, or
demonic obstructions, to one’s progress on the Buddha’s path. 13
10 For the correlation between colors and directions in Hevajra mandalas, see Zhu, “Hevajra Tantra,” in Huntington
and Bangdel, pp. 454-456, and Catalog Entry #143, “Hevajra Mandala,” in ibid., pp. 461-464. This correlation is
somewhat different from the more common system based on the Five Wisdom (or Jina) Buddhas of the Vajradhātu
(Diamond World), each of whom symbolizes a particular aspect of enlightenment. This system identifies red with
Amitābha, the Buddha of the West; green with Amoghasiddhi, Buddha of the North; blue with Aksobhya, Buddha
of the East; yellow with Ratnasambhava, Buddha of the South; and white with Vairocana, the Cosmic Buddha of
the Center. For more on this system, see Amy M. Livingston, “Goal of the Transformed Mind: Enlightenment
Symbolized,” in ibid., pp. 90-92. Mandalas based on other tantras make use of yet other correlative systems;
Kalachakra mandalas, for example, identify blue with east, red with south, yellow with west, white with north, and
green with the center. See Rebecca L. Twist and Dina Bangdel, “Kalachakra Tantra,” in ibid., pp. 475-479, esp. 478.
Although the directional correlations vary depending on the text, the five basic colors remain the same. These
principal colors have been grouped together since the earliest days of Buddhism and are mentioned in the Dīrgha
Āgama (Chinese, Chang Ahan jing 長 阿 含 經 ), a collection of early Theravada texts translated into Chinese in 413.
For background information on the Five Colors (Sanskrit, pañca-varnā), see “ゴシキ| 五 色 ” in Mochizuki Shinkō 望
月 信 亨 , Bukkyō daijiten 佛 教 大 辞 典 , vol. 2 (Tokyo: Bukkyō daijiten hakkōjo, 1931-1963), 1189-1190. At least one
scholar has suggested that because of their vibrancy, ancient Indian religious practitioners were prohibited from
using these five colors for their robes. See “ 五 色 ” in Nakamura Hajime 中 村 元 , Bukkyōgo daijiten 佛 教 語 大 辞 典 ,
vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tōkyō shoseki, 1975), 363.
11 Directionality is perhaps most clearly embedded in the Diamond and Womb World Mandalas (Japanese:
Kongōkai mandara 金 剛 界 曼 荼 羅 and Taizōkai mandara 胎 蔵 界 曼 荼 羅 ) employed in Japanese Shingon 真 言 and
Tendai 天 台 Buddhism. The mandalas are hung facing each other, with the Diamond World on the western wall
and the Womb World on the eastern wall. All of the deities in these mandalas, many of whom are associated with
a particular direction, are placed in accordance with the directional scheme implied by the hanging of the
mandalas. Thus, in the Diamond World Mandala, Amitābha, the Buddha of the West, is always depicted at the top
(i.e., west) of a group of deities, while in the Womb World Mandala, he is always depicted at bottom. For an
introduction to these mandalas, see Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred
Geography (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999), pp. 33-95.
12 See Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, vol. 1, pp. 111-112. A convenient chart may also be found in Zhu, “Hevajra
Tantra,” in Huntington and Bangdel, p. 456.
13 Zhu, “Hevajra Tantra,” in Huntington and Bangdel, p. 455.
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These four primary mandalas are surrounded by a variety of other figures, both monks and deities;
unfortunately, the lack of accompanying inscriptions makes identifying many of the figures rather
difficult. The figures are, however, arrayed in a systematized way. At the center of the thangka sits the
large figure of a monk in full lotus position (Sanskrit: padma-āsana) attended by two male deities
(perhaps bodhisattvas), all three of whom are framed by a blue niche. The central figure makes the
dharmacakra-mudrā, the gesture of teaching, while holding the stalks of two lotuses, which rise to his
shoulders, with his fingers. Unfortunately, the lotus blossoms do not support any attributes that might
allow us to identify the figure, leaving us to speculate that the figure may represent an eminent monk
revered by the donor of the painting, perhaps the recently deceased abbot of a temple. In front of these
three main figures are lotus flowers in a vase, presumably an offering.
Above, to the left, and to the right of this central niche are figures that may be identified as
mahāsiddhas, particularly revered, almost mythical monks, who, in this case, are among the earliest
members of the lineage from which the Sakya order understood themselves to be descended. 14 At top
is Virūpa; at right, Dombi Heruka, a disciple of Virūpa who received from him initiation into the practices
of Hevajra and who is identifiable by his act of embracing a consort while riding a tiger. 15 At left we see
a blue male figure who is being approached by a white female figure; although I have not been able to
identify this mahāsiddha conclusively, because he is grouped with Virūpa and Dombi Heruka, it seems
likely that he is Kānha, the second disciple of Virūpa to receive the Hevajra teachings. I have not been
able to identify the monks above, to the left, and to the right of this central figure; each is attended by
two to three wrathful deities, whom I also have yet to identify.
The three deities interspersed at the lower boundaries of the two lower mandalas can be identified as a
white manifestation of the sixteen-armed Hrdaya-Hevajra and his consort Nairātmyā at center; an
independent Nairātmyā, dancing on a corpse and holding a skull cup and dagger, with the khatvāṅga, or
staff, resting against her shoulder; and a red Kurukullā, a four-armed female deity again dancing on a
corpse and drawing a bow and arrow and carrying a hook and a red lotus in her remaining two hands.
The presence of Nairātmyā 16 and Kurukullā 17 perhaps may be explained by their being described in the
Hevajra-tantra. Nairātmyā is, of course, omnipresent in the text as Hevajra’s consort, yet the text also
makes her the focus of an independent mandala; meanwhile, Kurukullā is described as a particularly
powerful being, meditation upon whom “brings the threefold world to subjection.” While it is relatively
common to depict duplicate forms of the principal deity of a mandala in the thangka’s interstitial spaces,
I have not found an explanation of why this is done.
14 For an extensive discussion of the depictions of lineages in Tibetan thangkas, see David P. Jackson, The Nepalese
Legacy in Tibetan Painting (New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2010), esp. pp. 23-51.
15 In attempting to identify deities, I relied primarily on the identification of figures in mandalas published in John C.
Huntington and Dina Bangdel, The Circle of Bliss: Buddhist Meditational Art (Columbus and Chicago: Columbus
Museum of Art and Serindia Publications, 2003); Marilyn M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, Worlds of
Transformation: Tibetan Art of Wisdom and Compassion (New York: Tibet House in association with the Shelley
and Donald Rubin Foundation, 1999), esp. pp. 280-311; Marilyn M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, Wisdom and
Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991), pp. 199-235; and the online database
“Himalayan Art,” . After determining a possible identity for the figure, I then consulted
any relevant entries in Lokesh Chandra, Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography (New Delhi: International Academy of
Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2002), which, unfortunately, does not include entries on most monks or
mahāsiddhas.
16 See, for example, the description of the mandala devoted to Nairātmyā in Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, pp.
73-78.
17 See, for example, ibid., p. 87.
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The composition of this thangka is bounded at top and bottom by a register of figures depicted in
arcaded niches. Such a compositional device seems to be unique to, and ubiquitous in, Sakya-school
painting from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. 18 Stylistically similar arches—composed of
the same gilt, vase-like columns, supported by lotus pedestals and supporting semicircular arches,
among which are depicted gilt lozenges surrounded by red and green leaves—may be found in a
fifteenth-century Bhūtadāmara Mandala from a central Tibetan Sakyapa 19 monastery, now held in a
private collection. 20 The thangka from the private collection, however, appears to have been painted
with even greater care than the Harvard thangka: the lines are stronger and more even, the colors have
been applied more smoothly, and the forks of the foliated flames are finer. Despite the differences in
the fineness of the execution of the two thangkas, they share many stylistic similarities, perhaps giving
further support to the recent re-attribution of the Harvard mandala from the seventeenth or eighteenth
century to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. 21 The lack of any cloudforms or landscape elements in the
Harvard mandala—motifs that appear rarely, if ever, in mandalic thangkas prior to the seventeenth
century—seems to preclude the possibility that this work dates from a later period. 22 Indeed, the work
possesses all of the elements that Pratapaditya Pal enumerates as hallmarks of the Sakya painting style
from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries—namely, “(i) the ubiquitous use of red…; (ii) strictly
linear definition of form; (iii) employment of elaborate shrines with ornate columns from which spring
foliate arches … carrying mythical creatures such as makara, garuda, [and] nāga …; (iv) registers of
figures both at the top and the bottom, generally clearly separated by miniature shrines of arches and
columns; (v) and a profusion of subtle, densely packed stylized scrollwork in the background.” 23
The figures in the upper arcade of the painting constitute a schematic portrait of the lineage of Sakyapa
patriarchs. It begins at far left with the Ādi-Buddha Vajradhara, the primordial being whom the Sakyapa
consider the progenitor of all things, identifiable by his blue body, as well as the vajra and bell that he
holds in his crossed hands. Vajradhara is followed by Nairātmyā, the second in the Margapala lineage of
18 For an overview of Sakyapa painting, see Pratapaditya Pal, Tibetan Paintings: A Study of Tibetan Thankas,
Eleventh to Nineteenth Centuries (Basel: Ravi Kumar/Sotheby Publications, 1984), pp. 61-96.
19 The common Tibetan suffix -pa nominalizes the word that it modifies; hence, “Sakyapa” can be understood to
signify “one of the Sakyas.” Consequently, “Sakya” and “Sakyapa,” or “Gelug” and “Gelugpa, ” are usually used
interchangeably in English.
20 See ibid., plate 33.
21 Information conveyed by Robert D. Mowry, Alan J. Dworsky Curator of Chinese Art, Harvard Art Museums, in
personal conversation, May 2011.
22 See Pal, Tibetan Paintings, 121-148. Seventeenth-century Hevajra mandalas that include such landscape
elements are included in ibid., pl. 81-82. A nineteenth-century Four-Circle Hevajra Mandala with even more
extensive landscape features is pictured in Pratapaditya Pal, Divine Images, Human Visions: The Max Tanenbaum
Collection of South Asian and Himalayan Art in the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada,
1997), p. 115.
23 Pal, Tibetan Paintings, 62-63. A fifteenth-century Four-Circle Hevajra Mandala is also included in Giuseppe Tucci,
Tibetan Painted Scrolls (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1949), plate 214; however, the quality of the image prevents
close examination of stylistic details. Jackson, The Nepalese Legacy, esp. pp. 81-97, describes the stylistic features
of Sakyapa painting with even greater precision. However, Jackson argues that analysis of the depictions of
lineages in many thangkas that were assumed to be Sakya works reveals that they were sponsored by other
schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He suggests that from the mid-fourteenth to mid-fifteenth centuries, Tibetan
Buddhist shared a universal idiom of painting, known as the Beri style, which derived from Nepalese sources.
Consequently, he urges that greater caution be used when specifically identifying works in the Beri style as “Sakya”
thangkas. Given the number of deities closely associated with Sakya school that are included in the Harvard
Hevajra mandala, I am confident that we can identify it as a Sakya work.
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teachings passed down from Vajrdhara to the members of the Sakya order. Nairātmyā is succeeded by
twelve monks, presumably of the Sakya order, paired as though engaged in debate. While the colors of
their robes and skin, as well as their facial features differ, they almost all make the dharmacakra-mudrā,
a gesture of teaching, fitting for patriarchs.
More eclectic is the array of figures depicted in the lower arcade. At lower rights sits another monk,
wearing the same red robe adorned with golden flower petals as many of the other monks in the
painting. He holds two lotuses in his hands, which form the dharmacakra-mudrā. One lotus bears a
vajra, and the other, a chopper (?)—both ritual implements commonly used in Vajrayāna rites. In the
niche to the monk’s right are arrayed a variety of other ritual implements, included drums, cymbals,
bowls, and a conch shell (?). Such a display of ritual implements or of offerings can often be found in the
niche next to that which depicts the donor of a thangka, as is likely true here. The next four deities
depicted are all deities of protection and wealth commonly venerated by the Sakyapa. First is the
Śrīdevī Dhūmāvatī, a female deity of protection, who, in her Sakyapa form, bears a sword, skull cup,
spear, and trident while riding a donkey. She is the consort of Mahakala, one of the most widely
venerated deities in Tibet. In the form commonly worshipped by the Sakyapa, he holds a curved knife
with a vajra-like hilt and a skullcup; this form, known as the Panjaranata Mahakala, is specified as the
protector of practitioners of Hevajra rites in the eighteenth chapter of Vajrapanjara-tantra, a text
translated into Tibetan in the eleventh century that explains practices related to the Hevajra-tantra. 24
The close association of this deity with Hevajra guaranteed his high place in Sakya practice. Next can be
seen a Yellow Jambhala, a god of wealth identifiable by the jewel-spewing mongoose that he holds; and
a white figure of Prajñāpāramitā, the female deity of wisdom. 25 Finally, the remaining eight dancing
dakinīs, each of whom tramples and a corpse and, with the exception of the rightmost, bears a skullcup
in her right hand, are the same dakinīs that appear in the four Hevajra mandalas above.
The mandalic composition extends to the reverse of the thangka, as well. There, a three-syllable mantra
consisting of the Sanskrit syllables “Om ah hum” transliterated in Tibetan letters has been repeatedly
inscribed, each mantra aligning with the position of each figure on the thangka’s verso. More precisely,
each of these syllables can be understood to align with the head, mouth, and heart of each figure.
These inscriptions might be seen as empowering the figures with supramundane strength, a practice
reminiscent of the installment of slips of paper inscribed with mantras inside of sculptures such as the
Japanese Kamakura-period (1185-1333) Shotoku taishi nisaizō and the Chinese Yongle-era (1402-1424)
Green Tārā also on display in “Reflections of the Buddha.” 26
24 Linrothe and Watt, pp. 266-269.
25 The page on Panjarnata Mahakala included in “Himalayan Art” asserts that White Prajñāpāramitā is very
important to the “Hevajra system of practice” and suggests that the textual source for this is the Vajrapanjaratantra.
(See Jeff Watt, “Mahakala [Buddhist Protector] – Panjarnata [Lord of the Pavilion],” April 2001 [updated
December 2009], .) Unfortunately, I have been unable to
consult a copy of the Vajrapanjara-tantra and have yet to find other sources to verify his claim. Watt’s entry on
the Yellow Jambhala similarly asserts the importance of this deity in the Hevajra-tantra, though I have been unable
to find any references to Jambhala in the translation of the tantra that I have. (Jeff Watt, “Buddhist Deity:
Jambhala, Yellow [Main Page],” August 2011 .)
Presumably he only appears in commentaries to the tantra. Nevertheless, I have observed that these deities
frequently appear in Hevajra Mandalas and in Sakya-school paintings more generally.
26 I thank Luo Wenhua 羅 文 華 , a researcher in Tibetan art at the Palace Museum, Beijing, for his help in translating
and interpreting these inscriptions.
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Four-circle Hevajra Mandala 8
Despite the iconographic precision of this work, it can, like many thangkas, be seen as a highly personal
production. Further, the smallness of this densely packed painting may be said to belie the great variety
of functions that it can be understood to have served. On the one hand, the mandala conforms closely
to the textual descriptions of such mandalas in the Hevajra-tantra 27 ; further, it is a very close tangible
analogue to the mental mandalas evoked in the text, 28 and it seems possible that it may have been able
to be used in rituals prescribed in the commentarial literature that accrued around the Hevajra-tantra.
On the other hand, the inclusion of a great variety of protective deities associated with the Sakyapa—
and especially the inclusion of so many monastic figures, who, it is likely, do not appear in any of the
commentarial literature—define this thangka as a work meant for the visualization practices of a
particular patron. This patron both paid homage to his teachers by depicting them in the mandala and
perhaps used these same depictions as means of making a claim to a particular lineage of teaching. In a
sense, it is a work that was fashioned by the patron while it simultaneously fashioned that same patron.
While we may not be able to recover the fully the original context from this thangka came, the
personalized pantheon diagrammed in this image provide clues sufficient to allow us to imagine
something of its origin.
Phillip E. Bloom
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture
Harvard University
Pulitzer Foundation Graduate Student Research Assistant
Harvard Art Museums
27 For example, Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, vol. 1, p. 51, mentions the use of a mandala focused on a sixteenarmed,
snake-trampling Hevajra in a rain-producing ritual.
28 The mental mandalas are described in ibid., pp. 56-69.
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Reflections of the Buddha

Four-circle Hevajra Mandala 9
Publication History
Unpublished
Works Consulted
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Culture and Aditya Prakashan, 2002.
Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis. Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography. Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, 1999.
“Himalayan Art Resources.” Maintained by the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation.
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and Chicago: Columbus Museum of Art and Serindia Publications, 2003.
David P. Jackson. The Nepalese Legacy in Tibetan Painting. New York: Rubin Museum of Art, 2010.
Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter et al. The Silk Route and the Diamond Path. Exh. cat. Los Angeles: Frederick
S. Wight Art Gallery, University of California at Los Angeles, 1982.
Rob Linrothe and Jeff Watt. Demonic Divine: Himalayan Art and Beyond. Exh. cat. New York: Rubin
Museum of Art, 2004.
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1931-1963.
Nakamura Hajime 中 村 元 . Bukkyōgo daijiten 佛 教 語 大 辞 典 . 2 vols. Tokyo: Tōkyō shoseki, 1975.
Pratapaditya Pal. Divine Images, Human Visions: The Max Tanenbaum Collection of South Asian and
Himalayan Art in the National Gallery of Canada. Exh. cat. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada,
1997.
--. Tibetan Paintings: A Study of Tibetan Thankas, Eleventh to Nineteenth Centuries. Basel: Ravi
Kumar/Sotheby Publications, 1984.
Marilyn M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman. Wisdom and Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet. Exh. cat.
San Francisco and New York: Asian Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991.
--. Worlds of Transformation: Tibetan Art of Wisdom and Compassion. Exh. cat. New York: Tibet House
in association with the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, 1999.
David L. Snellgrove. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: Indian Buddhists and Their Tibetan Successors. Boston:
Shambhala, 2002.
David L. Snellgrove. The Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Giuseppe Tucci. Tibetan Painted Scrolls. Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1949.
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Reflections of the Buddha