Amitayus Buddha Surrounded by One Hundred Buddhas
18th-19th century
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor and gold (as a watercolor) on cotton
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Image: 86.6 × 53.5 cm (34 1/8 × 21 1/8 in.); Cloth: 89.8 × 56.5 cm (35 3/8 × 22 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Tibet
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Gift of Margaret Walbank
- 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
This thangka depicts the Buddha Amitayus surrounded by one hundred smaller identical buddha figures. Amitayus, whose name means "Boundless Life," has one face and two hands and displays a peaceful expression. He is depicted in the celestial (sambhogakaya) form, wearing rich and flowing garments and adorned with jewel-studded earrings, crown, necklaces, and other ornaments that stand in contrast to depictions of the Buddha in monastic garb, free from adornment. Although Amitayus is usually red in color, he is here represented with a golden body. He is seated in the (vajrasana) posture with hands folded in meditation (dhyana mudra) and holds a vase of long life. The presence of the vase is the key attribute that distinguishes Amitayus from Amitabha, another closely related Buddha.
The other deities depicted in this thangka are a group of one hundred repeated Buddha figures. These figures appear in the same form as the central figure of Amitayus, but with the more common red body, rather than the gold of the central figure. These one hundred buddhas do not represent a specific iconographic grouping; rather, they are an example of the "thousand buddha motif," an artistic convention…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
