A wrathful form of Vajrapani rendered not in paint but in Chinese silk embroidery. Tibetan Buddhism held a prominent place at the courts of the Mongol Yuan and early Ming dynasties, and imperial ateliers produced Tibetan Buddhist art in distinctly Chinese media. Here a fourteenth-century Tibetan composition has been re-created in embroidered silk: Tibetan lotus-and-vase columns bearing garuda, naga, and makara are set among Chinese-style clouds, each carrying a disk that presents Vajrapani's mantra — Om Vajrapani Hum — in Tibetan script. Small coral beads and seed pearls are stitched into the central deity's ornaments. The work is a rare survival of the Tibeto-Chinese textile thangka tradition of the Yuan and early Ming periods.
