A PAUBHA DEPICTING A CHAKRASAMVARA MANDALA NEPAL, 16TH CENTURY |

blue Chakrasmavara with twelve arms and four heads standing in alidhasana in union with his consort Vajravarahi at the centre of the mandala palace, with concentric circles extending to the limits of the square palace ground, filled with gods and goddesses of the cycle and divided into red, green, yellow and blue segments, surrounded by the eight charnel grounds and bound by a ring of fire, multi-armed meditational deities in the four corners, including Hevajra, Kalachakra and Buddhakapala, a vajracharya performing homa puja below left, and members of the donor family to the right Himalayan Art Resources item no. 18348.

Good overall condition. Wear, rubbing and accretion overall, consistent with age. Colors vibrant with visible degradation to green and white pigment, as expected. Additional wear to outer edges of painting.
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A similar composition is seen in a Chakrasamvara mandala in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is inscribed with a date corresponding to 1490, see Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Nepal, Los Angeles, 1985, p. 69, cat. no. P. 19. Compare also a 1534 Chakrasamvara mandala in the Newark Museum, see Pratapaditya Pal, The Arts of Nepal: Painting, Leiden, 1978, pl. 101. In both these paintings the deities in the cardinal points outside the mandala palace are presented in the same orientation as the viewer, in contrast to the present example where the deities in each corner face into the centre from the cardinal points, in the same way as many Tibetan mandala. The painting appears to be a little later in style than the LACMA and Newark examples, and probably dates to the sixteenth century while adhering to the same stylistic traditions of Kathmandu Valley painting. Chakrasamvara in union with his prajna Vajravarahi are the most popular meditation deities of Newar Buddhist initiates, and are the principal deities of the secret agam shrines in many of the Kathmandu Valley Buddhist Monasteries.