This adorned monastery door is thought to be from either the renowned Kathok Monastery, a Nyingma monastery founded in the Kham region in 1159, or the Dzongsar Monastery, a Sakya monastery founded in 746, destroyed during the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1958, and rebuilt in 1983.
The brilliantly painted door enhanced with raised gesso (kyungbur) and gilding is divided into two main panels with a smaller dividing panel. The upper panel is embellished with a bearded dragon with streaming locks of hair and holding a conch shell and sacred jewels. It is flying through dense multicolored cloud banks. The dividing panel is graced with a mythical animal, the zipac, which is a Tibetan apotropaic symbol resembling the Indian "Face of Glory" (kirttimukha) and the Chinese gluttonous creature (taotie). Its paws are outstretched in a seizing gesture. It is set against the field of scrolling foliage. The lower panel depicts an ancient legendary creature of Tibet, the snow lion (Tibetan: gangs seng ge). It was a powerful guardian symbol of the Imperial Tibetan Empire (618–842) prior to the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet in the 7th century. It is a national emblem of Tibet and in Buddhist belief symbolizes fearless joy and spiritual purity and transformation. This snow lion unusually has a cranial protuberance symbolizing transcendental wisdom (ushnisha) in the snow-covered hemispherical form of the sacred Mount Kailash. In Buddhist cosmological thought, Mount Kailash is regarded as Mount Meru, the cosmic world-mountain connecting heaven and earth. It is a major Buddhist pilgrimage site. It is flanked on the left by a pair of birds perched on a tree trunk, a common motif in Chinese painting. On the right is an orange mountain and above is an orange Sun. A knothole below the snow lion’s tail is worn by the fingers of many devotees seeking blessings. The painted decoration on the back of the door is heavily abraded, but features a scrolling pattern in the upper panel, a flowering plant in the dividing panel, and a tortoise shell diaper pattern in the lower panel.
See David Kamansky, ed., Wooden Wonders: Tibetan Furniture in Secular and Religious Life (Pasadena: Pacific Asia Museum and Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2004), pp. 326-327, no. 147.
