
Gilt copper alloy
Lobsang Chokyi Gyaltsen, the Fourth Panchen Lama, was the first to be awarded that title by the Mongolian leader Gushi Khan. An eminent writer and teacher, his successive rebirths have born that title since and it was extended by courtesy to three predecessors. His image is sharply individualized, with an enlarged back of the skull, a small protrusion on his forehead, a sharp chin, high cheekbones and a prominent adam’s apple. He wears monastic garb, with a heavy mantle falling in rhythmic vertical folds down the back, and his right hand touches the ground in bhumisparsa (earth-touching) mudra.
For more details, go to the Encyclopedia of Buddhist Arts: Sculpture A-F, page 354.