Wrathful Guardian with Four Arms

Viewing notes

A viewer's written impression — not a buyer review or first-hand record

This polychrome standing guardian has four arms and an orange-red body, glaring eyes and bared fangs — wrath in full display. His hair flames upward, a vertical eye opens in the middle of his forehead, and his bare chest is carved in hard ridges of muscle; gilded coloured sashes cross his torso, an armoured skirt of scale pattern covers his hips, and a golden bell hangs at his waist. His four arms open to either side: the upper pair raises a vajra implement and a small pagoda, the lower pair holds a three-pronged trident in one hand and a pink lotus bud in the other. His bare feet stand on a base of rolling clouds above a round plinth ringed with golden relief. A fierce face set against a tender lotus — hardness and softness meeting in a single figure. He belongs beside the door of a shrine or at the entrance of a space, a guardian who holds the threshold.