Framed tangka depicting Akshobya Buddha seated upon lotus base. In a peaceful demeanor, (painted with gold) he gazes forward with a smile. The right hand extended across the knee is in the mudra of earth witness with the fingers pressing against the ground and holding an utpala stem that supports a golden dorje. The left hand placed palm upward in the lap and supports a dark blue begging bowl topped by a white lotus bud. Wearing sambhogakaya vestments (the enjoyment body of a buddha) the hair is piled on the top of the head and a dot adorns the forehead between the eyebrows. Attired in various colorful silks and orange patchwork robes that cover both shoulders, but leaves the center of his chest bare. With the legs folded in vajra posture, he is seated atop a multi-colored lotus and blue elephant supported throne surrounded by a blue areola and red nimbus both ringed with gold and wishing jewels. Surmounting the nimbus is a red-rimmed white parasol flanked by apsaras bestowing gifts. Alongside the throne stand two crowned bodhisattvas with hands in the teaching mudra (vitarka) and wearing jewels and silks. Surrounding all of that are 188 Buddha figures. Golden in color, aligned in rows, each with one face and two hands, they perform the earth touching mudra with the right and the mudra meditation with the left, wearing red robes and seated in vajra posture surrounded by circles of light. This painting of Akshobhya belongs to a larger set containing the buddhas of all five families; Vairocana, Akshobhya, Amitabha, Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi. Occupying a central role in Vajrayana Buddhism, Akshobhya, by some accounts, is Lord of the 2nd of the Five Buddha Families of tantra and found throughout all four tantra classifications most notably in the anuttarayoga class, Akshobhya is also mentioned in several Mahayana sutras, the Vimalakirti Nirdesa being the most famous. It was in his pure land of Abhirati, attanable only by 8th level bodhisattvas, where the yogi Milarepa and the scholar Sakya Pandita obtained complete buddhahood.
