126 lojda, klimburg-salter and strinu
British Museum and the National Museum in New Delhi. Nicolas-Vandier was
the first to identify these banners as belonging to one variant of the Himalayan
style.9 Due to the fact that a variant of the Himalayan style also exists in the
art of Dunhuang with features deriving from Chinese art, it seems appropriate
to distinguish this former group with Tibetan inscriptions as belonging to the
Tibetan Himalayan Style group.
All banners of the Tibetan Himalayan Style group show standing bodhisatt-
vas on lotus pedestals. They are painted in vibrant colours in a simple, linear
and mostly two-dimensional figural style with straight, tubular legs and long
arms. The figures wear tight dhotīs and shawls, which are richly ornamented in
Indian patterns. The simply drawn faces have large, almond-shaped eyes and
long corkscrew curls fall to their shoulders. These features are all typical of the
Tibetan Himalayan Style. These features are also found in Tabo Phase I except
for those few figures, which are depicted with a slightly more elaborate mode
of representation. The deities wear similar jewellery, which consists of neck-
laces, bangles on the upper arms, bracelets and big earrings and are clearly
Indian in style. Jane C. Singer sees the banners as “candidates for the earliest
examples of Tibetan paintings: the Tibetan inscriptions, the strong Indic asso-
ciations, their relatively unsophisticated execution—as one would expect of a
painting tradition in its early stages—are all indications of origin.”10
Gropp’s theory, according to which these banners were in fact produced
in Khotan, has been sympathetically received.11 He compared the Dunhuang
banners to paintings from Balawaste in East Khotan, which show similar sty-
listic tendencies and a frontal depiction. The textile patterns of the dhotīs on
the paintings from Balawaste and Dunhuang include medallions or stripes
with additional small rhomboidal-jagged designs.12 Despite the many stylistic
similarities, there are differences. In the silk banners the bodhisattvas stand on
one lotus bud rather than on two as in Balawaste. Further evidence that these
Tibetan banners were imported to Dunhuang is the use of a different variety
of silk and weaving technique, which was woven in a narrower size than other
9 Nicolas-Vandier, Nicole, Bannières et Peintures de Touen-Houang conservées au Musée
Guimet. Mission Paul Pelliot 14, Catalogue Descriptif (Paris: Institute d’Asie, Collège de
France, 1974), xviii.
10 Singer, Jane C., “The Cultural Roots of Early Central Tibetan Painting,” in Sacred Visions:
Early Paintings from Central Tibet, Steven M. Kossak, and Jane C. Singer (New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), 5.
11 Gropp, Gerd, Archäologische Funde aus Khotan, Chinesisch-Ostturkestan (Bremen: Röver,
1974), 94.
12 See Gropp, Archäologische Funde, Abb. 47 B.3.8.