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Tantric Buddha Vairochana as Vajrasattva
c. 1150–1200
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on cloth
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 111 x 73 cm (43 11/16 x 28 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Central Tibet
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The seated Buddha dominating the composition is identified as Vairochana because of his hand gesture, the mudra communicating supreme enlightenment in which the index finger of one hand is grasped by the fingers of the opposite hand. His golden color and the tiny vajra—a six-pronged ritual object representing a thunderbolt—balanced on top of his finger suggest that he is in the guise of Vajrasattva, the summation of all enlightened beings. In his crown is the image of a monk, who is probably the guru of the donor, the small monastic figure at the lower right next to the lotus pedestal.
