Amitabha, the Transcendent Buddha of Immeasurable light, having a peaceful deity appearance, is red in color and seated in meditation with his hands folded in his lap. Although Amitabha is usually depicted in nirmanakaya form wearing the humble patchwork robes of a religious mendicant and devoid of ornaments, here he is adorned with sambhogakaya jewelry, his head surmounted by a crown, and his hair drawn up in a jatamukuta with tresses flowing over the shoulders. When in such princely appearance, Buddha Amitabha is called Amitayus, the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, identifiable by an overflowing vase cradled in the upturned palms. The presence of the ornaments with concomitant absence of the vase may indicate that the artist intentionally conflated Amitabha and Amitayus to fit within the set of five paintings to which this thangka belonged, or that the Buddha is shown as if in the process of transformation from the nirmanakaya (created body), which manifests in time and space, to the sambhogakaya, the bliss body composed of pure light. The artist has masterfully manipulated the pigments to endow the regal figure with a radiant appearance that simultaneously conveys immeasurable luster and immeasurable life.
The iconography of the Transcendental Buddha Amitabha is described in Mahayana sacred texts, with greatest attention given in the two Sukhavativyuha Sutras, and further forms of the deity prescribed in the Tantras. According to tradition, a monk named Dharamakara once made a series of forty-two vows, the eighteenth of which promised that after he had obtained buddhahood, all who had faith in him and who called his name would be reborn in his paradise and would reside there in bliss until they too had attained enlightenment. Having accomplished his vows, Dharmakara reigned as the buddha Amitabha in the Western Paradise, called Sukhavati, or the Pure Land. Amitabha is associated with the western direction, and accordingly he resides in the western quarter of the Maha Vairocana Mandala as it is described in the Sarvadurgati Parishodhana Tantra.
This painting of Amitabha belongs to a set of five paintings depicting the Tathagatas Amitabha, Ratnasambhava, Vairocana, Amoghasiddhi, and Akshobhya each in an individual painting accompanied by deities associated with their respective directions and surrounded by a field of miniature Buddhas replicating the main subject's mudra. Amitabha is flanked by attendent bodhisattvas. Stylistically the work draws upon multiple sources to convey the interactions between Pala India, Newar Nepal, and Tibet during a period of efflorescence in Buddhist art. For further discussion of possible Pala connections, see J. C. Huntington and D. Bandel, The Circle of Bliss, 2003, p. 104, cat. no. 15, and J. C. Huntington, "Early Tibetan Painting and the Bengal Connection," Orientations, 2003, pp. 32-40. A similar composition as sold recently at Sotheby's New York, 21 March 2023, lot 117.
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