Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines 42 (2011) Variati

Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines 42 (2011) Variations tibétaines, Et autres... ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Avertissement Le contenu de ce site relève de la législation française sur la propriété intellectuelle et est la propriété exclusive de l'éditeur. 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Référence électronique Rob Linrothe, « Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art », Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines [En ligne], 42 | 2011, mis en ligne le 20 décembre 2011, consulté le 19 novembre 2012. URL : /index1803.html ; DOI : 10.4000/emscat.1803 Éditeur : CEMS / EPHE http://emscat.revues.org http://www.revues.org Document accessible en ligne sur : /index1803.html Document généré automatiquement le 19 novembre 2012. La pagination ne correspond pas à la pagination de l'édition papier. © T ous droits réservés Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 2 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art “Go into this great tower containing the adornments of Vairocana and look–then you will know how to learn the practice of enlightening beings…” Then Sudhana respectfully circumambulated the enlightening being Maitreya and said, “Please open the door of the tower, and I will enter.” Then Maitreya went up to the door of the tower containing the adornments of Vairocana, and with his right hand snapped his fingers; the door of the tower opened, and Maitreya bade Sudhana to enter. Then Sudhana, in greatest wonder, went into the tower. As soon as he had entered, the door shut. (Cleary 1989, p. 365) 1 The thresholds of the eastern and western towers of the Buddhist complex at the agricultural village of Mangyu bear an uncanny resemblance to the one described in the quoted text. This essay explores the possibility that the resemblance was intentional on the part of the 12th- century builders in Ladakh, on the far western reaches of cultural Tibet. It also examines the inevitable divergences in the effects of a Buddhist sūtra (composed in Sanskrit but translated into Tibetan) and the architectural structure. The sūtra, with its frequent references to the simultaneity of past, present, and future, succeeds in unhinging customary linear temporal experience as preparation for greater insights. The eastern tower as built is approximately 2 x 2.2 x 4.96 meters, dominated by a single, 4.5-meter high sculpture of a bodhisattva, with intricate narrative scenes painted on the bodhisattva’s dhotī (skirt) and a dense program of icons on the other three walls. 1 Physical entry into the space suddenly delivers an intensified experience of spatial self-consciousness. With its disruptions and deconstructions of normative scale and proportion, the phenomenological experience of the pilgrim is, like Sudhana’s, creatively disorienting. Inspired by the narrative and affective power of the Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra (hereafter: GS), the tower’s designers and artists may have attempted to convey to the ordinary pilgrim a finely tuned correlation in sensory form of the paradigmatic pilgrim’s attainment of enlightenment beyond ordinary consciousness. This alone perhaps has the power to explain both the eastern tower’s highly unusual configuration of building, sculpture, and painting (distinctive to ca. 12th-century sites in Ladakh), and the specific iconographic program of the bodhisattva’s dhotī. Until now, this building type has not been accounted for, nor has the narrative on the dhotī been fully identified. 2 The village of Mangyu where the complex of shrines was built is located near the more famous site of Alchi in the ancient kingdom of Ladakh. At Mangyu, there are two adjacent main shrines with sculptures and maṇḍala paintings, and at either end, two towers of slightly different sizes housing bodhisattvas. (See figs 1-6). Nearby, are two entrance chörtens (stūpas). These are all found on the northern edge of a small village on top of a ridge overlooking a tributary to the south bank of the Indus River. 2 The artwork can be classed among what has been termed the “Alchi group of monuments.” This group of paintings and sculptures has been dated to the 12 th and early 13 th centuries, and are closely related to artists working in a Kashmiri style. The artists may even have themselves been Kashmiri, though the donors and patrons, depicted at each site, were undoubtedly local Ladakhi-Tibetans. 3 Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 3 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 1. Front façade of the main Mangyu complex; eastern tower on the right, with entrance from the porch Courtesy of Gerald Kozicz Fig. 1a. Cross-section of the main Mangyu complex; eastern tower on the right, with height of entrance indicated with broken lines Courtesy of Gerald Kozicz Fig. 2. Plan of the main Mangyu complex; eastern tower on the right Courtesy of Gerald Kozicz Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 4 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 3. Axonometric drawing of the main Mangyu complex, with western (left) and eastern (right) towers Courtesy of Gerald Kozicz Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 5 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 4. Mangyu eastern tower from in front of the entrance to the main complex Photo: Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 6 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 5. Axonometric drawing of the eastern tower with the four-armed Maitreya sculpture Courtesy of Gerald Kozicz Fig. 6. Doorway to the Mangyu eastern tower Photo: Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 7 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 3 The eastern tower of the Mangyu complex, on the right while facing the entrance to the two side-by-side shrines, is dominated by a sculptural four-armed bodhisattva (fig. 7). Painted on the wall flanking the bodhisattva are the Thousand Buddhas of the Bhadrakalpa (present virtuous age) surrounding panels enclosing images of the four-armed Mañjuśrī on the main sculpture’s proper right (figs. 8-9) and a four-armed Avalokiteśvara on the left (figs. 10-11). On the wall opposite the sculpture is a third painted panel depicting Kaśmīri-style stūpas (fig. 12), badly marred by water drips from the open window. The standing figure, like the Alchi Sumtsek four-armed two-story Maitreya sculpture, wears a five-Buddha crown (fig. 13) and has been identified as Maitreya. 4 The presence nearby him of the painted stūpas, an attribute often associated with Maitreya, helps support this identification, as do the representational scenes on the dhotī and the close overall resemblance to the monumental Maitreya sculpture at the Alchi Sumtsek whose identity is not in doubt. 5 Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 8 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 7. The four-armed Maitreya sculpture in eastern tower Photo: Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 9 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Figs. 8-9. Four-armed Mañjuśrī painted on wall next to Maitreya He bears the sword in an upper right hand, an arrow in the second right hand, a bow in the upper left hand, and the stem of a blue utpala-lotus in the lower left hand Photos: Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 10 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 10-11. Four-armed Avalokiteśvara painted on wall next to Maitreya He is in the standard cross-legged pose and makes the añjali mudrā at center, holds a rosary in the second right hand, and the stem of a pink lotus blooming at his shoulder in the second left hand Photos: Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 11 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 12. Kaśmīri-style stūpa, one of three painted on wall opposite Maitreya sculpture Photo: Rob Linrothe Skirting the Bodhisattva: Fabricating Visionary Art 12 Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines, 42 | 2011 Fig. 13. Detail of head of Maitreya sculpture Photo: Peter van Ham 4 The focus of discussion here is the dhotī and the themes represented on it (figs. 14-15). The sky-blue ground, mottled and pale except at the edges and crevices, wraps around the front of both legs, with garment folds indicated by ropelike three-dimensional additions. The effect is a very complex series of intersecting planes, especially in the central area between the legs. The upper edges of the painted garment at the hips, just below the right knee, between the legs, and along the left shin, are demarcated with narrow hemlike borders. 6 These are painted with the uploads/Management/ bodhisattva-fabricating-visionary-art.pdf

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