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Four Mandalas of the Vajravali Series
This painting portrays a sequence of mandalas described in the Vajravali (Garland of Vajras) manual of tantric liturgy and iconography. Practitioners visualized the mandalas in the text to aid in spiritual attainment. Three are nearly identical except for the color of Vajravarahi, the tantric goddess at their center, whose emanations radiate outward in concentric rings. A circular panel at center features two Sakya school preceptors, while the peripheral spandrels depict the eight charnel grounds, presided over by their respective directional guardians and inhabited by wild animals and mahasiddhas (tantric adepts). Executed by itinerant Newari artists, this painting is the seventh in a series of fourteen Vajravali works commissioned by Ngorchen (1382–1456), the abbot of Ngor monastery, as an offering to his late teacher Sazang Phagpa.
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