Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 10. (Budapest, 1991)

VINKOVICS Judit: A Hopp Ferenc Kelet-Ázsiai Művészeti Múzeum két mongol szobráról

the famous Tibetan historian Taranatha (1575-1634). High Brilliance (Öndör Gegen in Mon- . golian, one of Dzanabadzar's titles) was a man of many talents who enjoyed a long and creative life. A number of his achievements are recorded in the history of Mongolian culture. He founded monasteries;

3 designed the Great Assembly Hall in the Monastery of Gandan;

4 created, in 1686, the soyombo alphabet and the horizontal rectangular writing for transcribing the words of the three sacred languages (Sanskrit, Tibetan and Mongolian) ;

5 wrote religiously-inspired didactic poems (e.g. the sutra Jinglabchogchil) ;

6 copied holy books;

7 painted;

8 but above all, was an eminent sculptor.

9 Unfortunately, in politics he proved less illustrious than his name and art would suggest : it was on his advice that the Khalkha lords submitted to the Manchurian yoke.

10 His biographers explicitly mention several great examples of his sculptures,

11 including (1) a Vajradhara representation which is the prized possession of the Gandan Monastery in Ulánbátor; (2) the five meditation Buddhas, (3) a twenty-onepiece series of the Goddess Tara; and (4) the Eight Sacred Stupas. However, his entire artistic output must have been greatly in excess of this if one believes his biographers, who described on several occasions how he had sent his own sculptures and Buddha-representations to Tibet and China as gifts.

11 (Examples are those taken by an envoy to the Manchurian Emperor Shun-che in 1655, the presents to the Dalai Lama and various Tibetan monasteries in 1671, and the present to the Monastery of Chakyung in Amdo in 1683.) To mark the occasion, he personally made a Vajradhara representation for the Emperor K'ang-hsi when he initiated the Emperor into the mysteries of Guhyasamaja.

12 His virtuosity has also been recorded : he embellished the robe on an Amitayus sculpture presented to the Emperor K'anghsi with a political prophecy,

13 on another occasion, responding to a request from K'ang-hsi, he carved twenty-one Buddha representations from rubin, each measuring about an inch, showing the Shakyamuni Buddha, the sixteen arhats and the four lokapalas.

14 With the help of an essential book written by the Mongolian painter and art historian Nyam-Osoryn Tsultem,

15 we are able to construct a picture of the major works mentioned in the biographies. They are characterized by (1) large size (a height of about 700 mm), (2) natural representation of the human body, (3) rich decoration and especially fine workmanship, (4) a branching central jewel in the diadem that had its origins in India and had-through Nepalese mediation-spread across the entire Lamaist region by the eighteenth century, and finally (5) the recurring motif of the bulging lotus throne-thought to be Dzanabadzar's "signature"-embellished with petals of water lilies. Occasionally we come across photographs and descriptions of his other sculptures in the specialist literature on the subject.

16 In the Mongolian collection of the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Art there are two gilded bronze sculptures which, on the basis of the shape and decoration of the lotus throne, can be associated with the works published in Tsültem's book, although one should bear in mind the existence of some differences (the size, the shape of the diadem, and the degree of embellishment). The first sculpture shows Vajradhara, the Primordial Buddha, embracing his female energy, Pradnyaparamita.

17 According to his biographers, Dzanabadzar made at least two Vajradhara representations : the one in the Gandan Monastery is not a tantric sculpture ;

18 we know nothing about the sculpture made for K'ang-hsi, not even its whereabouts today. The present work follows the rules of iconography perfectly.

19 It is of medium size, with a total height of 190 mm. The central figure, dressed in the garments of an