Bronze with fire gilding. Nepal, 19th cent. With inscription

This very elaborate and splendid bronze consisting of three pieces offers the rare special form of the bodhisattva manjushri called Dharmadhatuvagishvara-Manjushri. Vagishvara means “Lord of Speech” and Dharmadhatu the “World of Law”, the laws of existence, or the cosmos. Manjushri has many different appearances and in this rare form he has four heads, eight arms and holds the attributes of sword and lotus with his upper hands and bow and arrow, lasso and rod in his lower hands along with vajra and ghanta (bell) in his main hands.Manjushri is sitting in vajrasana on a lotus pedestal and has a female bodhisattva or goddess sitting on his lap whose hand position indicates that she might possibly be a tara sitting in lalitasana. Particularly impressive are all the very carefully crafted details. All heads show eminently beautiful, noble facial features, the fine hands with their attributes are delicate and the entire robe is splendidly constructed. The two fully-plastic elephants depicted on the front of the equally elaborate open-work lower base symbolically evoke Manjushri as the patron of wisdom and scholars, since, in Hinduism, the elephant-headed Ganesha is the god of wisdom. On the back and of the lower base and sides is a long inscription. The decorated nimbus has a curved shape and forms a “flaming pearl” in its uppermost part. Apart from the sword, very well and completely preserved with all attributes; splendid gilding. The sculpture was made in three separate parts: halo, figure and base. Ulrich von Schroeder has reproduced two pieces which are very similar in style and of about the same height on page 392 (no. 108B and 108C) of his book INDO-TIBETAN BRONZES. He titles them sadbhuja (= six-armed) Manjushri; both pieces have an inscription and are dated 1836 and 1853. These comparable pieces may be from the same workshop as the bronze featured here.
19.5 CM
搚慹曺戭忈⚃椾㔯㬲⁷ˤ⯤㱲䇦炻19ᶾ䲨ˤ檀19.5⍀䰛ˤ䩳昞䏔⚳䥩 Ṣ冲啷ˤ