Three Hundred and Sixty Buddhist Deities [Photo gallery]
These plates originate from the publication "Two Lamaistic Pantheons" (1937) by Walter Eugene Clark; From Materials collected by the Late Baron A Von Stael-Holstein. The present publication gives a complete reproduction of the 360 figures of the Chu Fo P’u-sa Sheng Hsian Tsan.
In the year 1928 Baron A. von Stael-Holstein brought from Peiping to Cambridge and presented to the Harvard College Library materials for the study of four Lamaistic Pantheons. Only one of these Pantheons has ever been fully described and published in the West.
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The third represents a complete set of photographs of a unique manuscript which is entitled Chu Fo P’u-sa Sheng Hsian Tsan and is ascribed to an unnamed Chang Chia Hutuktu. Stael-Holstein believes that this Pantheon is to be ascribed to the same Lalitavajra who composed the Pantheon of three hundred figures. This manuscript now belongs to the National Library of Peiping. When the photographs were made the volume was still owned by a Chinese bookseller of Peiping. It contains 360 figures accompanied by 360 eulogies in Chinese. The figures are classed into twenty-three divisions and the figures in each division are numbered.
The Tibetan and Chinese names of the divinities are given below and above; the Mongolian and Manchu names are given at the two sides.
The book seems to have been the original from which was made a certain type of Lamaistic plaque which is found in large numbers in Peiping and in western museums, and which was manufactured during the reign of Ch’ien-lung. Stael-Holstein has verified this fact by a comparison of a large number of such plaques with the figures in the book. He has also found in Peiping curio shops over a hundred of the bronze moulds which were used in making the plaques. This Pantheon was not made by adding sixty figures to the Pantheon of Three Hundred referred to above. Many of the figures among the three hundred are omitted and many new ones are added.
For a description and discussion of this manuscript see Staël-Holstein, “Remarks on the Chu Fo P’u-sa Sheng Hsian Tsan,” in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Library, Vol I (1928).
Gallery: 360 images
Click each photos to see detailled description, exif-information and high-resolution:
