The subject of this superb gilt copper alloy image is Kalacakra, The Wheel of Time. Kalacakra is one of the principal deities of the Anuttarayoga tantras, the final phase of Esoteric Buddhist literature that arose in north India during the medieval period. The highly complex literature associated with the practice of Kalacakra dates to around the end of the tenth century, and was first translated into Tibetan in the early eleventh century. Kalacakra is meant to be visualised as in this work: a male figure with twenty-four arms, embracing the eight-armed Visvamata, both clasping emblems of their transcendent powers. These two stand at the centre of a vast mandala described in texts and sometimes depicted in paintings, consisting of seven hundred twenty-two deities.
This beautifully cast and finished sculpture is closely related to Qianlong period (1736-96) paintings and sculpture. The faces, hands, and feet are painted gold, in contrast to the more highly polished fire gilding that appears on the torsos, limbs and lotus base. Jewellery, faces and limbs may be compared, for example, with Qianlong paintings, including that of Samantabhadra in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco and others in a set of Buddhist paintings commissioned under imperial patronage. Lotus petals are close in design and execution to those on sculpture bearing the Qianlong imperial mark.
