The head-dress consists of a gilded circlet with a ball over the forehead supporting the Dhyāni-buddha’s figure, and behind this of a tall cylindrical piece in dark pink and green surmounted by what may be meant for a topknot of hair but is now almost effaced. The rich jewellery is set with stones of bright scarlet, blue, and copper green, and hung with strings of pearls. A large greenish disc wreathed with scarlet flames forms a nimbus. Open lotus flowers are seen floating down in the air. The Chinese inscription in the left top corner describes the painting as the gift of a son in memory of his father, without recording the date of its dedication.
PLATE XXI
AVALOKITEŚVARA STANDING
XXI
The figure of Avalokiteśvara which this Plate shows us on the scale of one-third of the original silk painting (Ch. liii. 005), well preserved except for the extreme top and bottom, shares with the Bodhisattvas of ‘Indian’ style characteristic features of physical type, pose, and dress. But the air of grace and gentleness which the Chinese painter has here infused into the formality of their conventions invests the figure with a peculiar charm and raises it well above their average level as a work of art.
We see Avalokiteśvara standing with the slender-waisted body inclined from the left shoulder and its weight thrown on the right hip in characteristic Indian pose. But the stiffness of this attitude, just as that of certain traditionally fixed details in the dress, is transformed by sweeping Chinese brush lines. The figure stands slightly to the left, with the eyes gazing down and the hands holding the usual attributes of the willow spray and the flask. The face is short and round, the mouth slightly larger than usual, with a tiny moustache and a tuft of beard indicated below by a small curl. The eyes are wide apart and almost level, but with a finely recurved line added to the eyelids. The flesh is white shaded with red.
Over a long orange skirt, draped in conventional folds, the Bodhisattva wears a short and tight over-skirt of Indian red, sprinkled with blue and white rosettes. Over it is festooned a narrow cord-like band hanging in loops and streamers by the sides. The costume is completed by an olive-green girdle, a red scarf across the breast, and a narrow stole of dark chocolate colour descending from about the arms to the feet. The richly jewelled ornaments agree in general type with those seen on the four ‘Indian’ Bodhisattvas of Plate [xvi], but the Dhyāni-buddha is absent from the tiara. The slate-blue outer border of the nimbus is ornamented with a ring of ‘enclosed palmettes’ in blue and white, as often seen elsewhere in Bodhisattva haloes.
PLATE XXII
TWO AVALOKITEŚVARA PAINTINGS WITH DONORS
XXII