A MONUMENTAL THANGKA OF ASANGA, ONE OF THE SIX ORNAMENTS AND TWO EXCELLENT ONES FROM THE SOUTHERN CONTINENT, EASTERN TIBET, 18TH-19TH CENTURY

Published: Jeff Watt, Himalayan Art Resources, item number 10819 (identified as Asanga).

Distemper and gold on cloth, mounted within a frame. Finely rendered, the monk seated in ardhapadmasana atop a radiant sun disc and a multicolored lotus pedestal, a bejeweled reliquary to one side. His right hand is raised in abhaya mudra, while the left rests above the lap in dhyana mudra. He is dressed in voluminous monastic garments and wears a high-peaked pandita hat, its lappets cascading over his shoulders. His serene expression is characterized by sinuously lidded eyes and softly pursed lips forming a calm, contemplative smile. The figure is attended by a donor and his collared dog, all set against a dramatic mountainous landscape with cloud-capped peaks.

Provenance: Sotheby’s New York, 19 September 1996, lot 63. The Richard C. Blum and Senator Dianne Feinstein Collection of Himalayan Art, acquired from the above. Bonhams New York, 24 March 2024, lot 711, upper estimate USD 50,000 or approx. EUR 44,000 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing). The late U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (1933-2023) and her husband Richard C. Blum (1935-2022) were married in 1980 and are widely known for their illustrious careers in politics and finance. Feinstein was the first female mayor of San Francisco and a United States Senator from 1992 until her death in 2023. Blum was an American private-equity investor and the Chairman and President of Blum Capital. A longtime advocate for human rights in the Himalayas, he founded the American Himalayan Foundation in 1981 and the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. He also served as Co-Chairman of the World Conference on Religion and Peace. The couple were held in great esteem for their philanthropy as well as their close connection and support for the Tibetan diaspora which was particularly informative when establishing their collection.
Condition: Good condition with expected wear, minor creasing, light soiling, little flaking to pigments, small areas with old touchups.

Dimensions: Image size 196 x 215 cm, Size incl. frame 243 x 222 cm

Mounted and framed.

Asanga was one of the most important spiritual figures of Mahayana Buddhism and the founder of the Yogachara school. Along with his half-brother Vasubandhu, he is traditionally regarded as a major classical Indian Sanskrit exponent of Mahayana Abhidharma, Vijnanavada thought, and the Mahayana bodhisattva path. In his record of travels through India, the Chinese monk Xuanzang (fl. c. 602–664) wrote that Asanga began as a Mahishasaka monk but soon turned toward Mahayana teachings. After years of intensive meditation and study under various teachers, Asanga, according to the 6th-century monk Paramartha, remained unsatisfied. Paramartha recounts that Asanga used his meditative powers (siddhis) to travel to Tushita Heaven, where Maitreya instructed him on emptiness, and that he continued to receive teachings from Maitreya on the Mahayana sutras. Xuanzang, who journeyed to India to study the Yogachara tradition founded by Asanga, recorded a similar account: “At night he went up to the place of Maitreya Bodhisattva in Tuṣita Heaven to learn the Yogacarabhumi-Sastra, the Mahayana-Sutra-Alamkara-Sastra, the Madhyanta-Vibhaga-Sastra, etc.; in the daytime, he lectured on the marvelous principles to a great audience” (see Li Rongxi, The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions, Berkeley, 1996, p. 153).

Modern scholars disagree on whether the Maitreya of these accounts was Asanga’s human teacher or a visionary experience in meditation. Whatever the case, his experiences led him to travel widely across India to propagate the Mahayana teachings. According to Taranatha’s History of Buddhism in India, he founded 25 Mahayana monasteries, including the renowned Veluvana in the Magadha region of what is now Bihar. There, he personally selected eight disciples, each of whom would become notable in their own right and help spread the Mahayana. Asanga went on to compose key treatises (shastras) of the Yogachara school. Over time, many works came to be attributed to him—or to Maitreya, with Asanga as transmitter.

This large thangka probably originates from Amdo in eastern Tibet, where paintings of this scale were conventional. It is from a set depicting the Six Ornaments and Two Excellent Ones of the Southern Continent, a name given to the most important Indian Buddhist scholars of the Mahayana tradition according to a Tibetan Buddhist assessment. All eight figures are also included in the group known as the Eighty-Four Mahasiddhas. The two foremost are Nagarjuna, founder of the Madyamaka Tradition, and Asanga, founder of the Yogachara tradition. Their two principal students were Aryadeva and Vasubhandu respectively, followed by Dharmakirti and Dignaga. These six constitute the Six Ornaments. The Two Excellent Ones are Gunaprabha and Shakyaprabha. The Southern Continent refers to India, or the human continent of Jambudvipa in the Buddhist cosmological system where there are four continents that surround the central mountain (Sumeru) of a small world system.

Literature comparison:
Compare two closely related large thangkas from the same series, dated 18^th-19^th century, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 20 March 1997, lot 87, and illustrated by Jeff Watt on Himalayan Art Resources, item numbers 10974 and 10973. Interestingly, the Sotheby’s catalog mentions the present lot and notes it is “from the same series” as these two thangka. Compare a related smaller eastern Tibetan thangka of an Indian teacher, dated ca. 1800, 64.1 x 49.5 cm, in the Art Institute of Chicago, object number 1996.84, illustrated by Pratapaditya Pal, Tibet: Tradition and Change, 1997, p. 15, no. 7.