Item: King/Chogyal/Emperor - Songtsen Gampo

List of Figures:

1) pad dkar ‘chang dngos srong btsan sgam po, “White Lotus Holder Incarnate, Songtsan Gampo” (Center) 2) ? (Upper center, left) 3) ? (Upper left corner) 4) ? (Upper center, right) 5) Amitabha Buddha (Upper right corner) 6) ? (Center left) 7) bkra shis snga ba sgrol ma “Tara of Auspicious Light” (Center right) 8) ? (Lower center) 9) dpal lha mo, Lakshmi (Lower left) 10) ? (Lower right)

This painting depicts Songtsan Gampo, traditionally considered the 33rd king of the Yarlung Dynasty and the 1st Tibetan Emperor, who brought Buddhism to Tibet. It comes from a set depicting the expanded version of the Dalai Lama’s past lives. In 1680, the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso wrote Sarasvatis Lute, a lengthy poem which describes an expanded list of his previous lives, amounting to seventy eight individuals in total. Many were directly taken from the Kadam Legbam list of Dromton Gyalwai Jungne’s previous lives, and the most important political rulers of Tibet were included as well, such as Songtsan Gampo and later Tibetan emperors. By claiming that the most powerful rulers in Tibetan history and Dromton, the founding father of the Kadam sect, were the previous lives of the Dalai Lama’s, it propagated the idea that the Fifth Dalai Lama was the inheritor of both ancient lineages of secular and spiritual power.

In the iconographic program, there are two shared features among all the paintings in this set. First is that in the center right position, there is one Tara of the Twenty One Taras according to the Suryagupta Tradition. In this painting it is the twelfth “Tara of Auspicious Light” Secondly, the top left corner of each painting depicts lineage holders of the Lamrim teachings, according to a Gelugpa numbering system which absorbed the lineage from the Kadampa school.

Songtsen Gampo’s golden crown is topped by a turban wrapped around the head of Amitabha, which indicates that he himself is an emanation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. The artist’s mastery of brushwork is displayed most clearly in the opulent textile patterns painted in gold. Blooming flower patterns and coiling dragons densely fill the flowing cloth, but the vibrant stone pigment is not outshined, and each of the king's three robes and scarf are clearly delineated. This artist's attention to detail is second to none; he has even gone to the trouble of painting the stitching on the soles of the king's shoes. Compositionally, the natural landscape of the background is dominated by deep blues and greens which help make the shining gold figure of the king and his throne stand out. The trees on the lower left are decorated with silk ribbons and golden necklaces, while waterfalls descend from the snow mountains in the distant background at the top of the canvas.

Nick Dharmadi 9-2026