A polychrome wood figure of Chitipati, Mongolia, 18th century or later

Acquired in Holland, 1998.

This extraordinary sculpture depicts the dancing Chitipati, fierce protectors of tantric practitioners in Vajrayana Buddhist imagery and ritual. In the Tantric context, the charnel ground is both a literal and metaphorical arena for Buddhist practice – a potent reminder of the impermanence of life; the mental constructs of aversion and impurity; and the craving for a human body and future rebirths.

Chitipati are associated with the eight great charnel grounds (astamahasmashana) of the Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini mandalas, and invoked as the skeletal protectors of Tantric practitioners. Chitipati are typically depicted completely denuded of flesh, with a third eye, wearing a five-leaf or five-skull crown, holding kinkara-danda (skeleton clubs) or other ritual implements aloft, and with knees intertwined. The ghouls and spirits of the charnel ground, including the kinkara, are governed by the Chitipati.

Another polychrome wood figure of dancing Chitipati figures is in the Tibet Museum, Gruyere, catalogued as Mongolian, 18th century, is illustrated in Etienne Bock, Jean-Marc Falcombello and Jenny Magali, Buddhist Art of Tibet. In Milarepa’s Footsteps, Symbolism and Spirituality, Paris, 2022, ABS302. See also a bronze figure of the dancing Chitipati in the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, iconographically close to the current lot, illustrated in Barbara Lipton and Nima Dorjee Ragnubs, Treasures of Tibetan Art: Collections of the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, New York, 1996, pl. 89. See also a large gilt-bronze figure, probably depicting an individual Chitipati, sold in these rooms, 3rd October 2017, lot 3144.

此屍陀林像，相對起舞，躍然如生。屍陀林為勝樂金剛與金剛亥母壇城中八大寒林之護法神，多乾枯無肉，三眼，著五葉或五骷髏冠，手持法器，兩膝交錯，寒林中的鬼神，均為屍陀林所掌管。

參考紐約雅克馬歇西藏藝術博物館藏屍陀林對舞銅像，圖見 Barbara Lipton 及 Nima Dorjee Ragnubs，《Treasures of Tibetan Art: Collections of the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art》，紐約，1996年，編號89。另見一尊鎏金銅屍陀林像，雖形單隻影，靈動可畏，售於香港蘇富比2017年10月3日，編號3144。