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The ruby red Amitayus, the Boundless Life Buddha, sits on a jewelled throne wrapped in lotuses, beautifully arrayed in cool robes and surrounded by numerous miniature visionary scenes of various kinds, all executed in fastidious and delightful detail with pleasing green and pastel colors. The style seems to derive in large part from the Eastern Tibetan Situ Panchen tradition of landscape, with overlapping planes, subtly nuanced washes, and alert, tiny figures. However, this tangka has considerably more detail and more emphasis on the luxuriant richness of floral forms, features found in the painting of Amdo as well.
Amazing comic events take place in minute scale around the monumental central figure. At the top center is Amitabha’s Pure Land of Bliss within a rainbow orb, Amitabha flanked on his left and right by Avalokiteshvara and Mahasthamaprapta. To the left and right at this top level are the buddhas of the ten direction, standing on clouds with willowy postures. Below on the right side is a monastic roof shrine, where a Nyingma lama is conducting a ritual of propitiation of the great Nyingma master, Longchen Rabjampa (1308-1362). The offering cakes on the table in front of the master emit rainbow light-rays, which rise up the right side and reveal in a rainbow globe the venerated master himself. He in turn emanates seven Guru Rinpoches, who appear around him in smaller rainbow orbs. Further down the right side is a representation of Mt. Meru with Green Tara in top and tiny universes ranged around it.
On the upper left side is a large lake with ducks. From it spring five lush lotuses in the center of which sit the blue and white Samantabhadra buddha-couple. They are surrounded by four transcendent buddha-couples of the four primary colors and directions, white for the west, and green for the north. Above them is another rainbow arch and clouds with dakinis. Below this scene sits the wealth god, Vaishravana, with jewels raining down, and the next scene below is a Padma Sambhava figure facing forward. Across the bottom, from the left are a scene of a stupa with four fierce female deities riding on animals in a cloud of smoke; a buddha inside a stupa with yellow, red, white, and green prongs of a vajra cross and an unusual star-configuration with thirteen visible points projecting from behind it; a cluster of figures, including several fierce deities and a green lama; and in the right corner, a pavilion with a Guru Rinpoche figure performing rituals, surrounded by his consorts and attendants.
With the subtle and refined use of space and landscape, the figures seem to float back and forth on the plane. Spaciousness and animation are achieved within this Situ Pancehn style thangka, creating on of the Amitayus blissful realm of boundless life.
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