Transcendent Buddha Vairocana as a Chakravartin

This painting of Vairocana, the supreme wisdom Buddha, is a masterpiece of early Tibetan painting. As one of the five Transcendent Buddhas of Esoteric Buddhism, the crowned Vairocana occupies the center of the cosmic order, where he illuminates all realities with his radiant wisdom. The painting may be assigned to the 12th century on the basis of its clear descent from Indian Buddhist prototypes of Pala-era Bihar and Bengal. The iconography conforms to a text written less than a century earlier at Vikramashila monastery in north India, the Nispannayogavali (Garlands of Complete Yogas), which describes Vairocana as golden in complexion and preaching the Buddhist law (dharma). It is likely that this painting originated at Taklung monastery in Central Tibet and was re-consecrated (according to a one-line inscription on the reverse) by Onpa Lama Rinpoche, after its transfer in 1274 to the newly founded monastery of Riwoche.