17th Dec, 2024 11:00
Fine Asian Art Holiday Sale
464
A BRONZE VAJRAGHANTA, LONTJENG, JAVA, 12TH CENTURY
Sold for €910
including Buyer's Premium
Indonesia. The domed bell gently tapering towards the raised shoulder surmounted by a vajra handle rendered with concentric ridges centered by a compressed globular section incised with a lozenge pattern and terminating in a four-pronged half-vajra issuing from makara heads.
Provenance: The collection of The Zelnik István Southeast Asian Gold Museum. Institutional art collection in Belgium, acquired from the above. Dr. István Zelnik, President of the Hungarian South and Southeast Asian Research Institute, is a former high-ranking Hungarian diplomat who spent several decades in Southeast Asia, building the largest known private collection of Asian art in Europe.
Condition: Good condition with wear and casting irregularities. Tiny nicks, encrustations, signs of weathering, and surface abrasion. One prong reattached. The clapper lost.
Weight: 975 g
Dimensions: Height 29.5 cm
“Many kings in the islands of the Southern Ocean admire and believe Buddhism. In the city I visited, Buddhist priests number more than 1,000, whose minds are bent on learning and good practices.” So reported a Chinese Buddhist monk when he stopped at the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the 680s on his way home from visiting India’s holy sites (see Junjiro Takakusu’s 1896 translation of A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago by the monk Yijing).
For the next five hundred years Buddhism in its Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions flourished in parts of Indonesia, particularly the island of Java. In fact, Java produced, particularly in the 800s, some of the most complex, ambitious, and beautiful Buddhist monuments of all time.
A vajraghanta is a bell with a handle in the shape of a vajra and is the most sacred of bells. The vajra seen at the top of the bell is similar to those found in Tibet and used by high-ranking priests. The great care taken with the production of Javanese bronze bells suggests they were highly important to religious life. Javanese bells were used in both Hindu and Buddhist rituals.
The vajra represents the thunderbolt and the diamond. The thunderbolt harkens to the lightning strike experience of enlightenment of the historical Buddha while meditating under a bodhi tree, while the diamond indicates indestructibility. In combination with a bell, symbolic of the womb, the vajra bell signifies the indestructible rooting out of ignorance.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related prayer bell, Central Java, 12th century, 16.8 cm high, in the Kyushu National Museum. Compare a closely related prayer bell, Central Java, 12th century, in the San Antonio Museum of Art, object number 97.11.91.
Indonesia. The domed bell gently tapering towards the raised shoulder surmounted by a vajra handle rendered with concentric ridges centered by a compressed globular section incised with a lozenge pattern and terminating in a four-pronged half-vajra issuing from makara heads.
Provenance: The collection of The Zelnik István Southeast Asian Gold Museum. Institutional art collection in Belgium, acquired from the above. Dr. István Zelnik, President of the Hungarian South and Southeast Asian Research Institute, is a former high-ranking Hungarian diplomat who spent several decades in Southeast Asia, building the largest known private collection of Asian art in Europe.
Condition: Good condition with wear and casting irregularities. Tiny nicks, encrustations, signs of weathering, and surface abrasion. One prong reattached. The clapper lost.
Weight: 975 g
Dimensions: Height 29.5 cm
“Many kings in the islands of the Southern Ocean admire and believe Buddhism. In the city I visited, Buddhist priests number more than 1,000, whose minds are bent on learning and good practices.” So reported a Chinese Buddhist monk when he stopped at the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the 680s on his way home from visiting India’s holy sites (see Junjiro Takakusu’s 1896 translation of A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago by the monk Yijing).
For the next five hundred years Buddhism in its Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions flourished in parts of Indonesia, particularly the island of Java. In fact, Java produced, particularly in the 800s, some of the most complex, ambitious, and beautiful Buddhist monuments of all time.
A vajraghanta is a bell with a handle in the shape of a vajra and is the most sacred of bells. The vajra seen at the top of the bell is similar to those found in Tibet and used by high-ranking priests. The great care taken with the production of Javanese bronze bells suggests they were highly important to religious life. Javanese bells were used in both Hindu and Buddhist rituals.
The vajra represents the thunderbolt and the diamond. The thunderbolt harkens to the lightning strike experience of enlightenment of the historical Buddha while meditating under a bodhi tree, while the diamond indicates indestructibility. In combination with a bell, symbolic of the womb, the vajra bell signifies the indestructible rooting out of ignorance.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related prayer bell, Central Java, 12th century, 16.8 cm high, in the Kyushu National Museum. Compare a closely related prayer bell, Central Java, 12th century, in the San Antonio Museum of Art, object number 97.11.91.
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