The Medicine Buddha Bhaishajyaguru With His Mandala Retinue
14th century
- Medium
- Pigment and gold on cotton
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 104 × 82.7 cm (41 × 32 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Tibet
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Kate S. Buckingham Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Bhaishajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha, presides with his entourage in this portable scroll painting (thangka), which is painted in a central Tibetan style that combines Newar, Western Tibetan, Indian, and Central Asian styles. The Medicine Buddha as patron of healing gained particular popularity in Tibet, but in a broader sense, he is a manifestation of the metaphor of the Buddha as the master physician who seeks to eliminate suffering and root out the three poisons of desire, aversion, and ignorance. He appears here with a brilliant blue body and the physical appearance and robes of a Buddha, qualities reflected in his title, the Healing Master with Lapis Lazuli Radiance. The blue of lapis lazuli is said to resemble the sky and prayers to the Medicine Buddha associate his color with wisdom and compassion "as vast as the sky." His left hand rests in his lap in the gesture of meditation (dhyana mudra) while his right hand holds a medicinal myrobalan plant, his distinctive attribute. He is flanked on the left and right by the red Suryaprabha and the white Chandraprabha, bodhisattvas of the sun and moon, respectively.
Surrounding figures include, in the top row, the goddess…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
