Silver Jug, Tibet, 9th–10th century, based on earlier Sogdian or Uyghur prototypes; hammered silver with gilding; height approx. 31 1/2 in. (80 cm); Jokhang temple, Lhasa; image after von Schroeder 2001, 793, fig. 190A
Silver Jug
Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, Tibet9th–10th century, based on earlier Sogdian or Uyghur prototypes
Silver Jug, Tibet, 9th–10th century, based on earlier Sogdian or Uyghur prototypes; hammered silver with gilding; height approx. 31 1/2 in. (80 cm); Jokhang temple, Lhasa; image after von Schroeder 2001, 793, fig. 190A
Summary
From the seventh to mid-ninth century, the Tibetan Empire ruled the multiethnic caravan routes of Central Asia. Lively dancers and figures in drunken revelry adorn this remnant of that cosmopolitan age. Tibetologist and art historian Amy Heller compares this jug from the Lhasa Jokhang Temple to other images and objects from the period, revealing networks of trade, tribute, and craftsmanship that reached from China to the Mediterranean.
Buddhism is founded on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived sometime between the sixth and fourteenth century BCE in northern India. Buddhists believe that sentient life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, but that if one achieves a state of awakening or nirvana, it is possible to escape this cycle. Buddhists refer to the Buddha’s teachings as the Dharma. There are many different traditions or denominations of Buddhism, including Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Scholars also discuss regional traditions, such as Indian Buddhism, Newar Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and so on.
The kirtimukha is a symbolic element in South Asian art—a mask-like face of a fanged beast. Kirtimukhas are usually placed above other elements, such as upper portions of the carved portals, throne backs, or as a row adorning the upper portions of the painted walls.
“Silk Roads” is a term broadly used to describe the long-distance trade routes across Central Asia that connected the Indian Subcontinent with East Asia and the Mediterranean world. These trade routes were highly important in transmitting both art and ideas across the Asian continent, including the Buddhist religion. There were many “silk roads”—some crossed the deserts of Central Asia, other maritime routes also connected Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South, Southeast, and East Asia.
The Sogdians were a historic Central Asian people who originated in the region of present-day western Tajikistan and surrounding areas of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The Sogdians spoke a language related to Persian and were major players in the medieval Central Asian caravan trade, forming crucial contacts between Persia, China, and Tibet. They were important conduits of artistic traditions and material culture, including Sasanian metalwork and Central Asian silk weaving. After the Arab conquest of their homeland in the eighth century, the Sogdians mostly disappeared from history, although the Sogdian language is still spoken by a few thousand people in the mountains of Tajikistan.
In the early seventh century, a line of kings from the Yarlung Valley united disparate people on the Tibetan Plateau into a powerful, centralized state. With their capital at Lhasa, these kings proclaimed themselves emperors, or tsenpo. Their armies conquered much of the Himalayas, Central Asia, and western China. Tibetans developed a written script for the Tibetan language and Buddhism was adopted as a state religion. The conversion to Buddhism was contested by an indigenous group of ritualists called Bon, creating political turmoil. After the assassination of emperor Langdarma in 842, the Tibetan empire fragmented and collapsed. Nevertheless, the myths and memories of the empire continue to be a central part of Tibetan identity.
Turkic languages. The Old Uyghur Empire was a semi-nomadic Buddhist and Manichaean state that ruled in modern-day Mongolia between roughly the 740s and 840s CE. After the destruction of the Uyghur Empire by the Kyrgyz, many Uyghurs fled to the oasis city-states of eastern Central Asia, including Dunhuang. These Uyghurs played an important role in the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, when they provided scribes for the imperial administration. Much later, the word “Uyghur” came to refer to the Turkic-speaking Muslims who live in what is now Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of China.
Today, this silver jug stands in a wooden frame in a chapel of the Lhasa Jokhang, one of the oldest temples in Tibet. The tall ewer was hammered from silver sheets, cut and assembled in four parts, with two hemispherical sections joined at the diameter of the circle, and a long thin neck surmounted by an animal head with round mouth from which liquid can be poured. At the nape of the neck, a necklace is formed of small metal circles in repoussé, each with a square cut out at the center, their shapes adapted from Tang Chinese coins. The jug weighs seventy-seven pounds (thirty-five kilograms) when full of liquid, and monks fill it daily with offerings of chang, Tibetan barley beer. The jug’s upper bowl features raised designs in gilded heart-shaped medallions, and the lower bowl presents three scenes representing Central Asian people. These figures, two lively solo dancers (figs. 2 and 3) and three men in drunken revelry (fig. 4), reflect Tibetan familiarity with their neighbors’ appearance and customs. The animal head of the jug has variously been identified as a horse, a camel, a sheep, or a deer. The Kings’ Chronicle (Gyelpo Katang), written in about 1345, described ten silver chang jugs hidden in the Jokhang in ancient times, of which three had camel heads and seven had duck heads, while the Fifth Dalai Lama’s account of the Jokhang refers to the jug as “the great silver vessel with a horse head.”
Fig. 2 Detail of dancer, Silver Jug; Tibet; 9th–10th century, based on earlier Sogdian or Uighur prototypes; hammered silver with gilding; height approx. 31 ½ in. (80 cm); Jokhang Temple, Lhasa; image after von Schroeder 2001, fig. 190B
Fig. 3 Detail of dancer, Silver Jug; Tibet; 9th–10th century, based on earlier Sogdian or Uighur prototypes; hammered silver with gilding; height approx. 31 ½ in. (80 cm); Jokhang Temple, Lhasa; image after von Schroeder 2001, fig. 190C
Fig. 4 Detail of drunk revelers, Silver Jug; Tibet; 9th–10th century, based on earlier Sogdian or Uighur prototypes; hammered silver with gilding; height approx. 31 ½ in. (80 cm); Jokhang Temple, Lhasa; image after von Schroeder 2001, fig. 190D
Imperial Treasures as Symbols of Power
Reputed to be associated with the Tibetan emperors, particularly Songtsen Gampo (ca. 605– 649), the first Tibetan ruler of historical record, this ewer is conserved in the chapel that bears his name. This sovereign is traditionally revered for his foundation of the Jokhang Temple, although he is better known for his numerous military campaigns to unify Tibet and expand Tibetan territory, which proved crucial to the establishment of the in Central Asia. During the more than two centuries that the empire lasted, it carried on communications and trade with the outside world via the lucrative and multicultural threading between China and the Mediterranean world. These conquests are important to consider because they help explain the foreign connections and inspirations formative to Tibetan art and civilization during the imperial period, which this ewer reflects. Notably, the Sasanian Persian aesthetic had a profound impact on Tibetan art and culture. In , , and the Silk Road oases, Tibetans encountered the populations of Sogdian colonies—merchants, weavers, or artisans of silver and gold—who emulated Sasanian models of design for armor, metalwork, and textiles, leading Tibetans to import textiles and silver with animals, birds, and hybrid creatures in Iranian styles. The Tibetan aristocracy even adopted the customs and vessels of the Iranian wine banquet, such as wine bowls, rhytons with animal heads, decanters, cups, and animal-headed ewers, with the help of a partially gilt-silver rhyton, wine decanter, and cup (fig. 5) inscribed with Tibetan letters (fig. 6).
Fig. 5
Decanter, Cup, and Rhyton; Tibet; mid- to late 7th or 8th century; partially gilt silver; decanter height 9 in. (22.9 cm), cup, height 4 in. (10.2 cm), diam. 4 in. (10.2 cm); rhyton, height 12 in. (30.5 cm); Cleveland Museum of Art; decanter, purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund; 1988.67.1; cup, Severance and Greta Milliken Purchase Fund; 1998.67.2; rhyton, Gift of Mrs. Clara Taplin Rankin; 1988.67.3; CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication; https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1988.67
Fig. 6
Tibetan inscription on base of cup; Tibet; Cleveland Museum of Art; Severance and Greta Milliken Purchase Fund; 1998.67.2; CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication; https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1988.67.2#
Tibetan trade and diplomatic missions were important corollaries of these conquests. According to the Chinese Tang Annals, Tibet made the spectacular gifts in 641 of a goose-shaped golden ewer seven feet high, capable of holding almost sixteen gallons (sixty liters) of wine, and in 648, a miniature golden city decorated with animals and men on horseback. The tribute continued, including in 658, a large bowl or basin of gold; in 727 hundreds of silver and gold vessels to be exhibited outside the imperial palace in ; in 728, a vase, a bowl, a duck, all in gold; in 824, a yak, a sheep, a bull, and a rhinoceros of silver. Were these creations of Tibetan goldsmiths or imports via the Silk Road? Comparison with Tibetan artifacts may help us to understand their provenance as well as inform an assessment of what Tibetan artisans then produced.
Techniques and Materials
By their techniques and materials, these artifacts, a banquet set with ewer, decanter, and plate (fig. 7), clearly show the workmanship of a single atelier. Aesthetically, they are characterized by a spacious composition emphasizing the brilliance of pure gold, embellished by large-scale decorative motifs of birds and/or fantastic creatures. Each creature has raised sections of gold into which the turquoise was inset, with the bodies outlined in beads of gold granulation. The prominence of the bird designs was linked to the ancient Sasanian and Sogdian political and religious concept of the bird as a symbol of royal power, particularly royal charisma, in Sogdian ; when later incorporated into , the bird acquired connotations as a symbol of rebirth. The plate has four ducks framing a central medallion of a , an ancient Indian motif that found its way to the Sogdian world as well as Tibet and Nepal. Since the insignia of rank in Tibet attributed gold and turquoise exclusively to the sovereign and his immediate family, it is understood that these gold artifacts reflect the highly sophisticated taste of the Tibetan court. The ewer and plate both have brief Tibetan inscriptions as well as small punched circle marks indicative of the weight of gold. According to David Pritzker’s research, the vessels with their “sleek linear forms . . . point to a Sogdian master goldsmith.” Although no vessels like these have been found in the Sogdian world, he suggests that they “were fashioned by a Sogdian craftsman in western Central Asia and subsequently imported to Tibet in an undecorated state to be embellished locally, probably under direct imperial commission.” Indeed, several plain gold decanters of similar dimensions have been excavated from the royal Azha tombs in , tending to support his analysis.
Aesthetics
Rather than animals or birds, the bowl of the Lhasa silver jug has three figural scenes in gilt repoussé, separated by thick scrolls with a heart in the center of the scrollwork. An inert hefty man with thick eyebrows, long beard, mustache, and curly hair is carried by two younger men, in a state of drunken revelry (fig. 8). Their hair, long curls, and beards might indicate Central Asian or Mediterranean ethnic groups. The man being carried wears a short cape over his robe, whose long sleeves hang far beyond the wrist. Such attire was already represented among Tibetan costumes in Dunhuang. The other two scenes, in gilt silver, show men wearing long-sleeved robes of thick fabric performing the dance known in China as the Sogdian whirl (figs. 2 and 3). Each dancer holds above his head a large lute recalling (fig. 9), celestial musicians, and musicians in the divine orchestra painted on Tibetan coffins, as well as in murals of Dunhuang and . According to the Tang Annals, a caravan set out from in 718 for Xi’an, carrying carpets, brass, precious rings, mats, lions, and dancers—female performers of the Sogdian whirl. The dance was so fully assimilated to China that a dancer performs the Sogdian whirl in ’s paradise in Yulin Cave 25 (ca. 820). Painted coffins from Tibetan tombs consistently illustrate musicians and the dancer of the Sogdian whirl in their vision of the paradise for the deceased, revealing Tibetan adaptation of the foreign motifs.
Fig. 8
Inebriated man wearing a short cape over a robe with very long sleeves, detail of Silver Jug; Tibet; Jokhang Temple, Lhasa; photograph by David Pritzker
The aesthetic motifs of this ewer show complex cross-cultural relations. Perhaps the most telling evidence is a drawing by the German archaeologist Alfred Grünwedel copying a mural of about the ninth century he observed in the palace in Gaochang (near present-day , China). He drew two grandiose ewers, with elongated necks, one with a bird-head finial and one with a celestial deer (fig. 10). These were the models that may have inspired the shape of the silver jug now in Lhasa, while the motifs have multiple origins. An alternative interpretation attributes the manufacture of the Lhasa silver jug to “Sogdian or other foreign silversmiths from Western Central Asia about in the 8th century.” Most probably it was made far from Lhasa, in the realms of the Tibetan Empire in Central Asia.
Fig. 10. Alfred Grünwedel; Birdhead Ewer and Qilin (Celestial Deer) Ewer, detail of mural in Idikut Palace, Gaochang (near Turfan, China), ca. 1906; image after Grünwedel, Altebuddhische Kultstätten in Chinesisch-Turkistan, Berlin: G. Reimer, 1912, pl. 665 Footnotes
1
Roberto Vitali, Early Temples of Central Tibet (London: Serindia, 1990), 84n4.
2
Tsongkapa, founder of the Gelukpa monastic school (see https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Tsongkhapa-Lobzang-Drakpa/8986), fortuitously discovered the hidden silver jug and offered it as homage to Songtsen Gampo in the Jokhang, according to the Fifth Dalai Lama’s history of the Jokhang, cited by Hugh E. Richardson, “The Jokhang ‘Cathedral’ of Lhasa,” in High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, ed. Hugh E. Richardson (London: Serindia, 1977), 254.
3
Amy Heller, “Two Inscribed Fabrics and their Historical Context: Some Observations on Esthetics and Silk Trade in Tibet, 7th to 9th century,” in Entlang der Seidenstrasse: Frühmittelalterliche Kunst zwischen Persien und China in der Abegg-Stiftung, ed. Karel Otavsky (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1998), 95–118.
4
See A.Souren Melikian-Chirvani, “Iran to Tibet,” in Islam and Tibet, ed. Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett, and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011), 97–101, for discussion of characteristic Iranian vessels.
5
See A.Souren Melikian-Chirvani, “Iran to Tibet,” in Islam and Tibet, ed. Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett, and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011), 101–3, for discussion of the cup, decanter, and rhyton, 103–4 for discussion of the Lhasa silver jug.
6
Heather Karmay, Early Sino-Tibetan Art (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1975), 3–4, citing Paul Demiéville, Le Concile de Lhasa (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France, Presses Universitaires de France, 1952), 203.
7
These dates and objects are quoted from the 1961 translation by Paul Pelliot of the Jiu Tang shu compiled in 945, complemented by the Xin Tang shu, completed in 1060: Paul Pelliot, Histoire ancienne du Tibet (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1961) 1-78, 79-144.
8
One may refer to Edward Schafer, cultural historian par excellence of the Tang dynasty, who wrote about Tibet as a formative influence on China during this period: Edward Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), 250–57.
9
Comparable in technique to two pectorals of parrots and flowers attributed to Sogdian artisans in Tibet, seventh to eighth century: Amy Heller, “Preliminary Remarks on Birds and Deer in Shang Shung and Early Tibet,” in Ancient Civilization of Tibetan Plateau: Proceedings of the First Beijing International Conference on Shang Shung Cultural Studies, ed. Tsering Thar Tongkor and Tsering Dawa Sharson, vol. 1 (Xining: Qinghai Ethnic Publishing House, 2018), figs. 8, 9.
10
Boris Marshak, “La thématique sogdienne dans l’art de la Chine de la seconde moitié du Vie siècle,” in Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, séances de l’année 1 (Paris: Academie des Belles-Lettres, 2002), 254.
11
David Pritzker and Wang Xudong 王旭东, Sizhou Zhi Lu de Wenhua Jiaoliu: Tubo Shiqi Yishu Zhenpin Zhan 丝绸之路上的文化交流—吐蕃时期艺术珍品展 [Cultural Exchange along the Silk Road: Masterpieces of the Tubo Period (7th–9th Century)], Exhibition catalog (Beijing: Zhingguo Zangxue chubanshe, 2020), 216; David Pritzker, “Banquet Set with Ewer, Decanter and Plate,” in Masterpieces from the Al Thani Collection, ed. Stéphane Castelluccio and Amin Jaffer (Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine, 2021), 156–59.
12
Tong, pl. 3-2-40, illustrates two plain gold decanters, 7 3/4 in. (19.7 cm) and 8 in. (20.2 cm) high, as well as fragments of a gilt-silver reliquary (pl. 6-2-7) attributed to Sogdian artisans by virtue of the distinctive Sogdian technique of gilded-foil cladding rather than mercury gilding, excavated at the principal Tibetan tomb in Dulan, Qinghai, attributed to the eighth century: Tong Tao 仝涛, Qing Zang Gaoyuan Sichou Zhu Lu de Kaogu Xue Yanjiu青藏高原丝绸之路的考古学 研究 [Archeological Study on the Silk Roads of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau](Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2021).
13
Amy Heller, “The Silver Jug of the Lhasa Jokhang: Some Observations on Silver Objects and Costumes from the Tibetan Empire (7th–9th Century),” Silk Road Art and Archaeology 29, no. 3 (2003): 213–38.
14
Jane Gaston Mahler, The Westerners among the Figurines of the Tang Dynasty of China, Serie Orientale Roma (Rome: Istituto Italiano per Il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1959), 71.
15
Amy Heller, “Observations on Painted Coffin Panels of the Tibetan Empire,” Zentralasiatische Studien 45 (2016): detail of painted coffin with dancer and lute player, 197, fig. 17.
16
Alfred Grunwëdel, Altebuddhische Kultstätten in Chinesisch-Turkistan (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1912).
Pritzker, David, and Wang Xu Dong 王旭东. 2020. Sizhou zhi lu de wenhua jiaoliu—Tubo shiqi yishu zhenpin zhan 丝绸之路上的文化交流—吐蕃时期艺术珍品展 /Cultural Exchange along the Silk Road: Masterpieces of the Tubo Period (7th–9th Century). Exhibition catalog. [In Chinese.] Beijing: Zhingguo Zangxue chubanshe. English edition forthcoming.
Huo, Wei. 2012. “A Study of Ancient Tibetan Gold and Silver Ware,” translated by Suzanne Cahill and Ye Wa. Chinese Archaeology 12, no. 1, 165–74. https://doi.org/10.1515/char-2012-0020
Buddhism is founded on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, who lived sometime between the sixth and fourteenth century BCE in northern India. Buddhists believe that sentient life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, but that if one achieves a state of awakening or nirvana, it is possible to escape this cycle. Buddhists refer to the Buddha’s teachings as the Dharma. There are many different traditions or denominations of Buddhism, including Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Scholars also discuss regional traditions, such as Indian Buddhism, Newar Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, and so on.
The kirtimukha is a symbolic element in South Asian art—a mask-like face of a fanged beast. Kirtimukhas are usually placed above other elements, such as upper portions of the carved portals, throne backs, or as a row adorning the upper portions of the painted walls.
“Silk Roads” is a term broadly used to describe the long-distance trade routes across Central Asia that connected the Indian Subcontinent with East Asia and the Mediterranean world. These trade routes were highly important in transmitting both art and ideas across the Asian continent, including the Buddhist religion. There were many “silk roads”—some crossed the deserts of Central Asia, other maritime routes also connected Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South, Southeast, and East Asia.
The Sogdians were a historic Central Asian people who originated in the region of present-day western Tajikistan and surrounding areas of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The Sogdians spoke a language related to Persian and were major players in the medieval Central Asian caravan trade, forming crucial contacts between Persia, China, and Tibet. They were important conduits of artistic traditions and material culture, including Sasanian metalwork and Central Asian silk weaving. After the Arab conquest of their homeland in the eighth century, the Sogdians mostly disappeared from history, although the Sogdian language is still spoken by a few thousand people in the mountains of Tajikistan.
In the early seventh century, a line of kings from the Yarlung Valley united disparate people on the Tibetan Plateau into a powerful, centralized state. With their capital at Lhasa, these kings proclaimed themselves emperors, or tsenpo. Their armies conquered much of the Himalayas, Central Asia, and western China. Tibetans developed a written script for the Tibetan language and Buddhism was adopted as a state religion. The conversion to Buddhism was contested by an indigenous group of ritualists called Bon, creating political turmoil. After the assassination of emperor Langdarma in 842, the Tibetan empire fragmented and collapsed. Nevertheless, the myths and memories of the empire continue to be a central part of Tibetan identity.
Turkic languages. The Old Uyghur Empire was a semi-nomadic Buddhist and Manichaean state that ruled in modern-day Mongolia between roughly the 740s and 840s CE. After the destruction of the Uyghur Empire by the Kyrgyz, many Uyghurs fled to the oasis city-states of eastern Central Asia, including Dunhuang. These Uyghurs played an important role in the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, when they provided scribes for the imperial administration. Much later, the word “Uyghur” came to refer to the Turkic-speaking Muslims who live in what is now Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the far northwest of China.
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