Mandarin Duck Bowl of the Ming Dynasty in the Sagya Monastery

Mandarin duck bowl painted with clouds and dragons, mandarin ducks, and river lotuses.

Sagya Monastery, built in 1073 in the Zongqu River Valley, is a famous monastery of the Sagya Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Gonggar Gyancain (1182-1251), the fourth forefather of the Sagya Sect, was held as the Sagya Pandit (great scholar of the Sagya Sect) as he was steeped in the Pancavidya (Five Studies).

On the invitation of the Mongolian Prince Gotan

The outer side of mandarin duck bowlmarked with words reading:"Made in the Year Under the Reign of Emperor Xuande of the Great Ming.

The inner side of the bowl with patterns of Tibetan words.

in 1244, he went to present-day Wuwei to lecture on Buddhism. There, he reached agreement with the Mongolian prince for Tibet to be part of the Yuan Dynasty.

Sagya was the mainstay of Tibetan Buddhism before the Gelug Sect emerged. Pagba, nephew of Sagya Pandit, became the fifth forefather of the Sagya Sect. In 1260, Kublai Khan, the forefather of the Yuan Dynasty, granted him the official title of "State Tutor and turned the 13 wanhu (10,000-household offices) in the U-Tsang area over to him to administer. This marked the beginning of the temporal land religious administration in Tibet.

When the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) replaced the Yuan Dynasty, important people with the Sagya Sect continued to receive honorific titles and grants from the new Central Government. Shown here is one of the grants received from the Ming court.

The bowl is 9.6 cm high and has a diameter at the bowl mouth of 19 cm and bottom of 7.9 cm. It is truly representative of painted ceramics made during the Ming Dynasty.

Prior to 1982, such painted ceramics were referred to in literature, but none had ever been found in China. However, the bowl was found in the Sagya Monastery in 1984, and was shown in Beijing in 1999 to the astonishment of the public

The bowl is painted with the pattern of dragons in clouds at its mouth and mandarin ducks and river lotuses at its middle, with the two patterns separated by two blue lines.

Its inner side is painted with the Tibetan words reading "being auspicious during the day, at night, at noon, and day and night.

Its outer side is painted with red, yellow, green and purple colors in relief.

The head and wings of the mandarin duck are rimmed with blue lines and then glazed.

In 1988, ceramic segments of a mandarin duck were unearthed in Jingdezhen, the center of the ceramic industry during the Ming Dynasty. It is very similar to what we see in the Sagya Monastery.