EASTERN TIBET, 17TH CENTURY

This group of three paintings almost certainly derive from a larger set of twenty-eight paintings depicting the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas, each depicting three mahasiddhas per composition, along with a single painting of Vajrahdara. The compositions are designed based on an eleventh-century text ascribed to Vajrasana, an epithet for an abbott of the monastery of the same name at Bodhgaya in Northeastern India. Another important, and possibly earlier, text describing the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas is ascribed to Abhayakara Gupta, and is known as the Abhayadatta system. The present set can be identified as belonging to the former first and foremost due to the presence of Atisha in one of the compositions – Atisha is not included as one of the mahasiddhas in the Abhayadatta system. Additionally, inscriptions on the back of each painting correspond to the Vajrasana text, and the compositions of the present paintings also match other known sets ascribed to the Vajrasana system.
The three compositions in the present group depict Asanga, Natapa, and Lingbupa; Shantipa, Tantipa, and Jalandhara; and Kantopa, Naropa, and Atisha. Interestingly, the Vajrasana system does not list the mahasiddhas in chronological order, nor does it ascribe extra importance to any of the figures. Atisha, the tenth-eleventh century monk who brought Buddhism to Tibet, is included in the set but listed as the twenty-second mahasiddha, despite being the latest historical figure in the group. There seems to be some variation or inconsistencies in the names, depictions, and corresponding inscriptions in many of the known Vajrasana mahasiddha paintings, probably a result of the use of epithets instead of actual names, and because many of the mahasiddhas had similar iconographic attributes. In the present group, the inscription corresponding to the depiction of Kantopa should, in the Vajrasana text, be dedicated to one of the two Shantipas; the inscription, describing a mahasiddha winnowing grains of rice, clearly doesn’t align to the present depiction of Kantopa, who is seated in a yogic posture with visions of jewels. The inscription corresponding to Lingbupa, the Flute-Player, mentions includes a location identified as Otantayi, a possible misspelling of the monastery of Odantaburi in Bihar. Such ‘errors’ are not atypical for Tibetan paintings and indicate that there was both some fluidity in the depictions of the mahasiddhas and confusion by the artists, who were distanced both in time and location from the original text.
Stylistically, the present paintings align closely with a style of painting developed by the fifteenth-century artist Khyentse Chenmo of Gongkar Chode Monastery, known as the Khyenri style. Famed for his fine and naturalistic depictions of his subjects and for his radical rejection of the prevailing, classic Indian and Nepalese-inspired styles with formal red backgrounds, Khyentse Chenmo enthusiastically replaced them with the vibrant greens and blues of Chinese landscapes. Khyenri paintings are also known for their exquisite attention to detail, including in the faces of the subject and attendant figures and in the accompanying flora and fauna, and for particular representations of aureoles and halos, the latter of which in mahasiddha paintings are usually perfectly circular and semi-transparent. In the present paintings, all of these indicators abound: the mahasiddhas are rendered with idiosyncratic facial depictions backed by semi-transparent circular halos and sit amidst rockwork carried out in the blue-and-green palette of Yongle arhat paintings, surrounded by a menagerie of small animals, insects, and plants, all detailed with minute precision.
Although the pure Khyenri style grew less popular by the early seventeenth century, it was integrated and redeveloped in a number of other styles, including the Karma Gar-ri style of the Karma Kagyu schools and the Palpung style developed by Situ Panchen Chokyi Jungne. While the present paintings display some aspects that can be found in these later styles, particularly the Karma Gar-ri style, with its resplendent use of Yongle-style blue-and-green rockwork, they seem to derive from a purely Khyenri source, probably a fifteenth or sixteenth-century Eighty-Four Mahasiddha Vajrasana system painting set. There are only a few known Vajrasana mahasiddha painting sets in the Khyenri style: the collection of the Rubin Museum of Art includes a painting of Kamala, Suvarnadvipa, and Viraya (acc. no. C2004.14.2), illustrated and discussed by R. Linrothe in Holy Madness: Portraits of Tantric Siddhas, New York, 2006, p. 270, cat. no. 40, and illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item no. 65349, that appears to be the finest and possibly earliest of the known sets of paintings. The National Gallery in Prague has three paintings, originally from the Josef Martinek Collection (inv. nos. Vm 2757, Vm 2926, and Vm 2927), illustrated on Himalayan Art Resources, item nos. 57614, 57620 and 57621; two of the Prague paintings have identical compositions to the present paintings, indicating they belong to a separate discrete set. Other Khyenri Vajrasana system mahasiddha sets are known but as of yet unpublished. The dating of all of these works have been variously attributed to as early as the fifteenth century to as late as the eighteenth century, but the consensus seems to lean towards the seventeenth century.
The verses inscribed on the backs of the paintings are derived from the Supplication Prayer of the Eighty-four Siddhas composed by Vajrasana between the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and can be translated as:

(Painting of Asanga, Natapa, and Lingbupa):
"Practicing asceticism in a forest,
He had a vision of Maitreya and composed a treatise.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Asanga."

"Circumambulating Mount Sriparvata,
He practiced austerities while residing in Uddiyana.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Natapa."

"In the vihara of Otantayi,
He was blessed by Hevajra.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as The Flute-Player."

(Painting of Shantipa, Tantipa, and Jalandhara):
"Of ksatriya caste, and after his actions were perfected,
He maintained his vows while attaining yogic accomplishment
through secret practices.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Shantipa."

"Of outcast origin, the weaver,
Together with his consort, attained yogic accomplishment.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Thagapa [Tantipa]."

"Having received Vajravarahi's blessing,
He became proficient in the four classes of tantra.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Jalandhara."

(Painting of Kantopa, Naropa, and Atisha):
"Of ksatriya caste, he performed humble activities.
He gained yogic accomplishment while winnowing grains of rice.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Kantopa."

"The Brahmin, in the company of his young consort.
Thrusted [his] vajra into the ground while pounding.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as Naropa."

"Adorned by [his] superior knowledge of the five classes of sciences,
He does not discriminate between self and other.
I prostrate to the lama,
Known as [Atisha] Dipamkara."