ClassificationsAsian Art

Palden Lhamo

Place FoundTibet, China, Asia

Date15th Century

MediumGilt copper alloy, semiprecious stones

Credit LineThe Ester R. Portnow Collection of Asian Art, a gift of the Nathan Rubin-Ida Ladd Family Foundation in honor of Anthony G. Hirschel

Dimensions20 1/16 x 16 9/16 in. (51 x 42 cm)

Object number2001.019.001

Label TextPalden Lhamo, the “Glorious Goddess”, is the sole female among eight main wrathful deities whose function is to protect Buddhism in Tibet from forces – internal or external – that threaten it. As a protector, she wears a garland of fresh human skulls and a live snake around her neck. Perched upon her trademark mule, in her right arm she brandishes a flaming sword, now missing but with its hilt still present. Her left hand, now also lost, would have held a skull cap in which to transform impure substances into nectar. Her saddle is a flayed human skin, said to be her own son, its head visible below her right knee. Surrounding her are fearsome goddesses, all holding skull cups and cleavers to obliterate the poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion – the internal enemies of Buddhism.

This bronze casting was part of one of eight memorial stupas, or reliquaries, at Densatil Monastery. Each towering stupa encased the remains of an abbot and was covered with jewel-encrusted deities arranged in tiers: protectors at the bottom, followed by offering goddesses, buddhas, meditational deities, and teachers. A few precious stones are still visible on this Palden Lhamo.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2004 - December 2013
Golden Visions of Densatil: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, Asia Society Museum, New York, New York, February 19 - May 18, 2014
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, October 27, 2014 - April 4, 2021
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, August 28, 2021 - Present
Published ReferencesSotheby's New York, Indian and Southeast Asian Art (March 20, 1997), lot 116.
Olaf Czaja, Medieval Rule in Tibet: The Rlangs Clan and the Political and Religious History of the Ruling House of Phag mo gru pa, Volume I (Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2013), note 249.
"Fragments of a Monastery, Reunited in Body and Spirit. 'Golden Visions of Densatil' Opens at Asia Society," The New York Times, February 20, 2014.
Olaf Czaja and Adriana Proser, Golden Visions of Densatil: a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery (New York: Asia Society Museum, 2014), 100-01, catalogue 14.

ProvenanceWith Sotheby's New York, March 20, 1997, lot 116. Purchased for MCCM by Robert Wazler [Nathan Rubin - Ida Ladd Family Foundation], Georgetown, Connecticut, from Kapoor Galleries, New York, New York, March-April 2001.

Status

On view

Collections