Arhats (Elders) Bakula, Chudapantaka, Pantaka, and Gopala, from a Seven-Part Set Portraying the Sixteen Arhats

19th century

Medium: Opaque watercolor on cotton
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: Image: 43 × 29.5 cm (16 15/16 × 11 5/8 in.); Overall: 108 × 63.5 cm (42 9/16 × 25 in.)
Culture: Tibet
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
Credit line: Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed

About this work

This thangka features four of the sixteen arhats, early Indian disciples of the Buddha Shakyamuni. From the top, Bakula holds a mongoose, Chudapantaka forms the gesture of meditation (dhyana mudra) and is accompanied in the foreground by a tiger, Pantaka holds a book in one hand, and Gopaka holds a book in two hands. Surrounding the arhats are scenes referencing hagiographic narratives associated with them. The group of seven thangkas to which this work belongs would normally be hung together, placed in a row with a central thangka and three thangkas flanking it on each side. This thangka’s composition and the orientation of the figures directs the viewer’s attention to the right, where the central thangka would normally be placed. The Tibetan inscription on the back of the hanging bar specifies that it is the “second on the right,” indicating that it is to be placed as the second one out to the proper right (viewer’s left) of the central thangka (1923.968). The thangkas in this set of seven have been preserved with their traditional cloth mount and protective silk curtain.

Arhat sets typically contain twenty-five figures in all, centering on Shakyamuni surrounded by his close…