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Lot Essay
This ornate image of the goddess of long life offers blessings with her proper-right hand, and holds a blossoming lotus in her proper-left hand. Her dhoti is decorated with the ubiquitous lotiform motif, underscoring her power to unearth vitality from a bed of mud. The artist has achieved a lifelike suppleness that evokes the liturgical language which describes Tara as radiating with the beauty of a young woman.
The heavily ornamented style of this silvered sculpture matches the seventeenth-century figure of White Tara from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society, New York (acc. no. 1979.52). The present sculpture is inscribed with the following, written in Uchen script around the lower portion of the lotus base:
Homage to the bestower of life and wisdom, powerful, immortal one, with her two legs resting on a lotus. May myself and others achieve happiness as enjoyed by the supreme gods and asuras, by the virtue of erecting this in order to fulfill the intention of the victorious teacher, the beholder of perfect wisdom, to perfect the mind of the mother goddess.
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24460.
The heavily ornamented style of this silvered sculpture matches the seventeenth-century figure of White Tara from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection at Asia Society, New York (acc. no. 1979.52). The present sculpture is inscribed with the following, written in Uchen script around the lower portion of the lotus base:
Homage to the bestower of life and wisdom, powerful, immortal one, with her two legs resting on a lotus. May myself and others achieve happiness as enjoyed by the supreme gods and asuras, by the virtue of erecting this in order to fulfill the intention of the victorious teacher, the beholder of perfect wisdom, to perfect the mind of the mother goddess.
Himalayan Art Resources (himalayanart.org), item no. 24460.