In Hinduism and then Buddhism, a mandala is a mystical diagramme used as a support for meditation. It is dominated by a principal divinity surrounded by its pantheon according to an elaborate organisation.
This one, probably consecrated between 972 and 974 according to what we can deduce from the name of the donor’s deceased parents at the bottom of the painting, was first identified as a mandala whose sovereign is the Vairocana Buddha, particularly venerated in the 8th century in China and Indonesia. He may be surrounded by four other Buddhas (Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi) with whom he forms a group of five cosmic buddhas or Jina, that none of their meditation gestures allow to distinguish. Their round breast is upheld by a “breastplate” recalling the flowery yoke of the garment of nuns or the deceased featured in the Mogao caves and on several Dunhuang portable paintings. So instead they may be female figures, like offering deities, featured in pairs on lunar discs, with a tuft of hair at the top of their tiara. So this mandala may not directly represent the five Jina, but mystical formulas associated with them. Offering deities may be the female counterparts of the bodhisattvas embodying ritual offerings (love dance, wreath, song and dance, then incense, flower, torch, and scent).
The esoteric subject, the Himalayan and beyond that the Indian aspect, apparent in the modelling in concentric lines, the thrones, the haloes with radiating waves, and the deities’ diadems, just as the ribbons enveloping their attributes and the three-branched chandeliers, show the effects of the period of the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang. On the other hand, the arched hairdo of the deceased women, the rugs, or the flower held by the commissioner’s defunct father, point to the influence of Central Asia and particularly the Turfan milieu.
The sumptuary use of gold applied in cut-out sheets recalls Manichean manuscripts and Turfan paintings, while the cold tone of the blues evokes lapis-lazuli, the use of which at this late date is attested by several paintings and that may have been brought to Dunhuang by refugees from Khotan.
