Buddhist Iconography

Contents : Vol. 1 : I. Introduction: 1. The pantheon of the Mongolian Kanjur. 2. The Narthang pantheon. 3. The Bhadrakalpika-sutra pantheon. 4. The Astasahasrika pantheon : 46 corrections to the index. 5. The three hundred icons. 6. Significance of Tibetan pantheons for the history of Buddhist art. II. Literature cited. III. Concordance of the old numbers of the NTMP 1-7 with the new numbers of this book. IV. Concordance of the new numbers of this book with the old numbers of the NTMP 1-7. V. Plates: 1. The pantheon of the Mongolian Kanjur. 2. The Narthang pantheon. Vol. 2 : 3. The Bhadrakalpika-sutra pantheon. 4. The Astasahasrika pantheon. 5. The three hundred icons. Index. Karchag to the editions of Din-ri-ba Chos-kyi-rgyal-mtshan of La-stod Sel-dkar rdzon.

"The outstanding deities of the Lamiast Pantheon have been studied in the learned works of modern scholars. Pander, Oldenburg and Clark have published three autocthon iconographic collections which have proved to be of importance in identifying deities of the enormous pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism. Besides the above three pantheons, we have the Rin-hbyun which has come to be well known in research works as the five hundred Gods of Nathang. It has been a major source for the iconographic studies of A. Gruwedel and F.D. Lessing. Isolated pictures have been published by them. In the present work, we have reproduced this pantheon of 500 deities and teachers, besides four others. The vast iconographic material preserved in Tibet is thus made accessible to modern scholarship. The present work is a sine qua non for Buddhist studies Tibetology, Mongolistics, history of art, Indian art and so on.