A PAUBHA DEPICTING AMOGHAPASHA NEPAL, CIRCA 15TH CENTURY |

the white eight-armed bodhisattva standing within a shrine at the centre of the mandala, with Tara and Bhrikuti standing and Sudhanakumara and Hayagriva kneeling at either side, the Eight Bodhisattvas Gaganaganja, Khagarbha, Kshitigarbha, Maitreya, Manjugosha, Samantabhadra, Vajrapani, Vishkambin seated in the surrounding lotus, four dakini outside the lotus at the cardinal points, sixteen further deities within the palace gates, the whole set on a lotus flower ringed by multi-coloured flames, deities seated in shrines amidst charnel grounds at the cardinal points, with narrative scenes above and below, seven Buddhas in the upper register including the Five Tathagatas, and Ganesha dancing to music in the lower register, the donor family either side with a vajracharya performing the homa puja Himalayan Art Resources item no. 18346.

Sotheby's New York, 5 December 1992, lot 32. 

Considerable loss and accretion to the left third of the painting.the right two thirds of the painting in very good condition for the period, but minor losses, creases and accretion throughout. No restoration.
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The paubha depicts the mandala of Amoghapasha, Lord of the Unerring Noose, a popular form of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in the Kathmandu Valley. Rows of narrative scenes above and below relate legends of this form of the bodhisattva. It is likely that the painting was commissioned as part of the performance of the Buddhist ashtami vrata ritual, in which a devotee, or group of devotees, vows to perform a series of pilgrimages in the Kathmandu Valley over a period of one year, sometimes culminating in the ritual consecration of a paubha, as portrayed in the lower register of the painting.