Alchi and the Drigung School
Departing from the identified Drigung Kagyü School lineage depicted on the third floor of the Alchi Sumtsek, I focused on early Drigung paintings and their identification. Thereby, the main arguments revolve around the relationship of the Alchi murals to other early paintings of this school. More recent publications considerably expand on and refine the results of earlier ones.
Scholars who maintain an eleventh-century date for Alchi dismiss the lineage on the top floor of the Sumtsek as a later addition because its appearance differs from that of all other murals. In my discussion of the first example in “Dating Tibetan Art”, first published in 2003 and republished in 2011, I tried to demonstrate that the unusual appearance of the teachers in the lineage stems from the integration of a Central Tibetan depiction with its distinct conventions. I have not come across any response to this argument.
Another body of work centres on the depiction of the teacher in the Tashi Gomang Chörten, which is directly comparable with Central Tibetan Drigung School paintings of the time. First described in detail in “Alchi and the Drigungpa School …”, the argument is developed further in “A First Glance on Early Drigungpa Painting”, which situates it within the development of related compositions datable to the period between Alchi and the mid-fourteenth century. Thereby, the distinct arrangement of the eight great adepts (mahāsiddha) flanking the main subject serves as an identifying marker for relevant paintings.
Expanding on this first study, “Beneficial to See: Early Drigung Painting” identifies further markers of Drigung School affiliation, including a distinctive representation of eight plus mahasiddhas and the combination of the superior cloth painting (paṭa) in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa with the seven Tārā from a vision of Drigungpa.
Relevant Publications
- Luczanits, Christian. 2014. “Beneficial to See: Early Drigung Painting.” In Painting Traditions of the Drigung Kagyu School, edited by David P. Jackson, 214–59. New York: Rubin Museum of Art.
- Luczanits, Christian. 2006. “A First Glance on Early Drigungpa Painting.” In Studies in Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Art. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Tibetan Archaeology & Art, Beijing, September 3–6, 2004, edited by Xie Jisheng, Shen Weirong, and Liao Yang, 459–88. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House.
- Luczanits, Christian. 2006. “Alchi and the Drigungpa School of Tibetan Buddhism: the Teacher Depiction in the Small Chörten at Alchi.” In Mei Shou Wan Nian - Long Life Without End. Festschrift in Honor of Roger Goepper, edited by Jeong-hee Lee-Kalisch, Antje Papist-Matsuo, and Willibald Veit, 181–96. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
- Luczanits, Christian. 2002. “The Wanla bKra-shis-gsum-brtsegs.” In Buddhist Art and Tibetan Patronage Ninth to Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter and Eva Allinger, 115–25. PIATS 2000: Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000, vol. 2. Leiden: Brill.