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Description:
Creator's Description: The influence of the brilliant scholar and painter Si tu paṇ chen chos kyi ’byung gnas reached far beyond the kingdom of Sde dge (Dege, 德格), extending even into Yunnan Province of southwestern China, where Si tu traveled three times, over a thirty-year period from 1729 to 1759. Almost from the moment that Si tu established his seat – Dpal spungs Monastery – until his death, he became increasingly involved and invested in ’Jang sa tham (Lijiang, 麗江). I will use several Tibetan sources to reconstruct Si tu’s engagement in ’Jang sa tham, foremost being Si tu paṇ chen’s own diaries. These Tibetan accounts will be corroborated and fleshed out using local Chinese records, such as contemporary gazetteers, royal genealogies, and temple records. Within both Tibetan and Chinese sources, one sees Si tu engaged in asserting his authority over monasteries in northern Yunnan, through his participation in their founding, consecration, ordination of monks, assignment of liturgies, and recognition of local incarnate lamas. Si tu also arrived during a critical period of transition for the area: the kingdom of ’Jang sa tham had just been abolished and Si tu cultivated the new imperial authority in the region, the Qing-appointed magistrates, as new local patrons. Visual evidence from the eighteenth century also suggests that the formerly vibrant local painting workshops ceased to exist, and the monasteries looked to Dpal spungs Monastery, with its prominent artistic traditions, as their new center. Using visual evidence gathered in situ during fieldwork, I will demonstrate ’Jang sa tham’s new incorporation into the Dpal spungs artistic orbit in surviving wall paintings, which I argue drew directly from Si tu commissions that art historians are only now able to reconstruct. (2013-07-01)
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