Vajrapani (700s): Art, History and Details

Vajrapani (700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The name Vajrapani means “he who holds (pani) the thunderbolt (vajra)” in Sanskrit. Adopted by Buddhists as a protector not only in India and the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet, Vajrapani also was incorporated into art of China, Korea, and Japan. The attributes of the thunderbolt and the club were derived from images of Zeus and Hercules that travelers from the Mediterranean world brought to the region as early as the 320s BC. This rare, early bronze image of Vajrapani visually conveys his power to overcome fear and obstacles to enlightenment, and for this reason he is invoked by Buddhist practitioners. He sits on a pedestal in the form of a rocky mountain populated with wild lions, and he has tamed poisonous snakes to use as ornaments.

Object facts

• Title: Vajrapani
• Date: 700s
• Culture: India, Kashmir
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze with silver overlay and gum tempera
• Dimensions: Overall: 22 cm (8 11/16 in.); Base: 12.8 cm (5 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1971.14

A detail from the museum

A hole on the back once held a halo behind his head.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1971.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 59, no. 1 (January 1972): 3–46.
• Pal, Pratapaditya. "Bronzes of Kashmir: Their Sources and Influences." Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 121, no. 5207 (October 1973): 726-49.
• Pal, Pratapaditya. Bronzes of Kashmir. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1975.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.