Item: Teacher (Lama) - Dalai Lama I, Gendun Drub

List of figures:

1) thams cad mkhyen pa dge ‘dun grub, “The Omniscient Gendun Drub” (Center) 2) ?(Upper center, left) 3) ?(Upper left corner) 4) ?(Upper center right) 5) “Usnisavijaya” (Upper right corner) 6) ?(Center left) 7) sgrol ma ngos grub byung ma “Tara the Source of Attainments” (Center right) 8) “White Tara” (Lower center) 9) dmag zor rgyal mo dpal ldan lha mo “Queen Who Repels Armies Palden Lhamo” (Lower left) 10) seng ge gdong ma “Lion Faced Dakini” (Skt: Simhamukha Dakini) (Lower right)

This painting depicts Gedun Drub, the 1st Dalai Lama, and 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’s previous lives, establishing the Dalai Lamas as direct incarnations of Dromton and thereby claiming the authoritative pedigree of the Kadam tradition.

The set to which this painting belongs depicts an abbreviated list of the Dalai Lama’s previous lives based on Sarasvati’s Lute. This painting in particular is important because it depicts the First Dalai Lama, which confirms that it is a Dalai Lama incarnation set, rather than a set depicting only kings.

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 twentieth “Tara the Source of Attainments.” 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.

This is a masterwork of the Menri painting tradition, specifically a style from Lhasa favored by the court of the Fifth Dalai lama and his regent Desi Sangye Gyatso in the late 17th and early 18th century. The central figure Gendun Drub sits on a throne with a gentle smiling expression accentuated by subtle shading of the face. His monk’s robes and heavy cloak are richly decorated with gold textile patterns, demonstrating the artist’s unparalleled brushwork. The artist has also innovated by showing the female protector deity Magzor Gyalmo Palden Lhamo in profile looking up towards the Dalai Lama, rather than a frontal or three-quarters view which is how wrathful deities are typically painted. Other details which demonstrate the aesthetic intelligence of the artist include the dragon’s talons carefully gripping the gems and stems of large flowers which bloom around the throne, and the individualized faces of the severed heads worn by the wrathful deities.

Nick Dharmadi, 9-2026