Offerings to Mahakala

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Offerings to Mahakala

Central or Eastern Tibet, early 18th century
Paintings
Mineral pigments and gold on cotton cloth
36 5/8 x 22 1/8 in. (93 x 56.2 cm)
From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase (M.81.8.5)
South and Southeast Asian Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

...
This painting is most likely the central portion of a much larger offering thangka that would have been kept in the gonkhang (Houses of the Protecters shrine) of a Tibetan monastery. At the center is a sacrificial offering cake (torma) bearing Mahakala’s primary attributes of a magical cleaver over a skull-cup. A flayed human skin hangs over the torma at the top of the painting, immediately below it two scavenger birds, messengers of Mahakala, fly towards the center. On the left, a fierce form of the Bodhisattva Vajrapani dances amid violently flaring flames. To the right, two skeletons (citipati) dance around a Tibetan stupa (chorten). Below the torma, six fierce, fanged horses gallop in a danse macabre around corpses in a cemetery. Vultures are devouring a corpse in the lower left. The torma is used in most Tibetan religious ceremonies. Torma differ in shape, color, and size according to the rite in which they are used and to which particular deity they are offered. In general, torma offered to wrathful deities have straight, sharp outlines with sides covered with decorations representing clouds of smoke and flames. See also M.90.42.1a-d and M.2005.94.1.
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Bibliography

  • Rosenfield, John.  The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya.  The Art of Tibet.  New York:  The Asia Society, Inc., 1969.
  • Rosenfield, John.  The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya.  The Art of Tibet.  New York:  The Asia Society, Inc., 1969.
  • Beguin, Gilles. Dieux et Demons de l'Himalaya: Art du Bouddhisme Lamaique.  Paris: Grand Palais, 1977.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya.  Art of Tibet.  Los Angeles; Berkeley, CA:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art; University of California Press, 1983.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya; Dehejia, Vidya; Slusser, Mary Shepherd; Fisher, Robert E.; Brown, Robert L. Arts of Asia 15 (6): 68-125 (November- December 1985).
  • Pal, Pratapaditya. Art of Tibet. Expanded edition. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1990.
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