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Mandorla Relief

Clay

Mandorla Relief

CHINA; Yuan dynasty

Made of clay and coated with colored paints, this detached mandorla contains some of the Six Dharma Symbolic Features. The garuda is visible at the very top while a pair of makaras are just below, perched on a Sumeru base and flicking their triple-forked tongues. Further below are some goats and white elephants interspersed among the foliage. Cloud patterns surround the outer rim and there are lotuses around the inner section. The design and presentation of the Six Dharma Symbolic Features seen here became more popular after the Ming dyansty (1368–1644). According to scholarly research, the size and traces of excision fit the damaged portraits on the west wall of Mogao Cave 77.

For more details, go to the Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M, page 680.

Cite this article:

Hsingyun, et al. "Mandorla Relief." Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M, vol. 11, 2016, pp. 680.
Hsingyun, Youheng, Yann Lovelock, Yuan Chou, Susan Huntington, Gary Edson, and Robert Neather. 2016. "Mandorla Relief" In Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M, 11:680.
Hsingyun, Youheng, Lovelock, Y., Chou, Y., Huntington, S., Edson, G., & Neather, R.. (2016). Mandorla Relief. In Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M (Vol. 11, pp. 680).
@misc{Hsingyun2016,
author = Hsingyun and Youheng and Lovelock, Yann and Chou, Yuan and Huntington, Susan and Edson, Gary and Neather, Robert,
booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture G-M},
pages = 680,
title = {{Mandorla Relief}},
volume = 11,
year = {2016}}


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