Open full image Pin

The Bodhisattvas of the Ten Stages in Attaining the Most Perfect Knowledge; The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

Unknown

1454

unspecified

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Ming Painting Renaissance Renaissance Religious

Dominant colour

The Bodhisattvas of the Ten Stages in Attaining the Most Perfect Knowledge; The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi is a 1454 unspecified by Unknown, a Ming Painting work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Unknown
When & what style?: 1454 · Ming Painting
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

You see two long scrolls filled with rows of colorful figures—gods, spirits, and heavenly beings—floating on clouds or standing in neat lines. These scrolls were made for a week-long Buddhist ritual called the Water-Land ceremony. The paintings were hung in temples to guide the souls of the dead. Only a few sets like this survive from the Ming dynasty. To see more art from this time, look up china, ming dynasty (1368–1644).

The story of this work

Overview

The grandest of the Buddhist mortuary rites is the Water-Land ( shuilu ) ritual. This esoteric ceremony is conducted for the salvation of “all souls of the dead on land and sea.” The ostentatious ritual was performed for imperial ancestors and high officials from the Song (960–1279) to the Ming dynasties and drew large crowds. On the second day of the weeklong ceremony, paintings are hung in the inner altar. These two scrolls belong to a set of 36 Water-Land ritual paintings that are the finest works of their types known from the Ming period. With their bright, opaque color and fine-line gilt…

Read the full account in the museum source.