Artwork Page for The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

Details / Information for The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

天龍八部羅叉女衆

1454

China, Ming dynasty

(1368–1644)
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Medium
hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
Measurements
Painting: 140.2 x 78.8 cm (55 3/16 x 31 in.); Overall with knobs: 226.5 x 120 cm (89 3/16 x 47 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund 1973.70.2
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
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Did You Know?

The Naga is on the lower right dressed as a king with gold dragons on his blue robe.

Description

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.

This scroll represents the Eight Hosts of Celestial Nagas and Yakshis as described in the Lotus Sutra. Together with CMA 1973.70.1, it belongs 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 decoration intact and unfaded, both paintings share a remarkable state of preservation.
Colorful, vertically long hanging scroll depicting mostly human-like beings floating among fluffy, swirling pink and yellow clouds and wearing ornate green, red, and blue robes that swirl around them. Between the central four beings with gold halos stands a being with blue skin and a beak. The being on the center left entwines with a snake, baring gorilla-like fangs. Four more beings with almost white skin tones and black hair line up above.

The Eight Hosts of Deva, Naga, and Yakshi

1454

China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)

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