TIBET, 15TH-16TH CENTURY

This finely cast and richly-gilt image likely depicts either the nirmankaya form of the tathagata, Vairochana, or the historical buddha, Shakyamuni. The figure holds his hands in the teaching gesture associated with Vairochana, but the iconography is complicated by the presence of a vajra on the top of the lotus base. Images of a buddha with his hands in bhumisparshamudra and containing a similarly-placed vajra have been identified as Buddha Shakyamuni at the moment of his enlightenment at Vajrasana (Bodh Gaya). Compare the present work with a smaller gilt-bronze figure of Amoghasiddhi illustrated by U. von Schroeder in Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 428, fig. 112C; both works share the languidly-draped sanghati, delicately modeled hands and fingers, and lithe torso.