A gilt-bronze figure of Vajrabhairava Qing dynasty, 18th-19th century | 清十八至十九世紀 鎏金銅怖畏金剛立像

Acquired at auction in Sweden 35 years ago.

35年前得自瑞典拍賣。

Vajrabhairava is the fearsome manifestation of the bodhisattva Manjushri, the Buddhist lord of transcendent wisdom. Clasping his consort Vetali with his principal arms the buffalo-headed deity bellows with open mouth and fangs bared, proclaiming triumph over ignorance and suffering. Multiple arms, heads and legs symbolise mastery over all elements that bind sentient beings to the wheel of existence, the constant cycle of birth and death, passions, desires and fears. The bull’s head signifies the deity’s conquest of the buffalo-headed god Yama, the lord of death in ancient Indian mythology, thus eliminating the conceptual obstacle of death (yama-antaka) through the enlightened Buddhist state of transcendent wisdom.

While the iconography of the sculpture has its origins in the complex systems of Vajrayana Buddhism favoured by Tibetans, the style is evolved from the artistic milieu created around the religious and political contact between China and Tibet during the Qing dynasty, cf. the style with the Qing period Vajrabhairava in the Musées Royeaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Bruxelles, see Ulrich von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 546, pl. 155A

Vajrabhairava is an important deity in the Gelug order pantheon, the court religion of the Qing emperors. Indeed the emperors of China promoted the concept of themselves as earthly forms of the lord of transcendent wisdom. And thus Vajrabhairava, the all-powerful tantric manifestation of Manjushri, is symbolic of the ultimate authority of the emperors. This dynamic statue of Vajrabhairava serves to enforce the imperial mandate while representing the highest ideals of the spiritual path to Buddhist enlightenment.