Samantabhadra: The Primordial Buddha of the Nyingma Tradition
If you search for Samantabhadra, you will quickly run into a puzzle: the name belongs to two quite different figures in Buddhism. One is a great bodhisattva of practice and meditation, revered across East Asia as Puxian or Fugen. The other is the Adi-Buddha, the primordial or original Buddha of Tibet's Nyingma school. Both turn up in Himalayan art, and knowing which one you are looking at changes how you read the painting.
The bodhisattva Samantabhadra
According to Wikipedia, Samantabhadra, whose name means "Universal Worthy" or "All Good", is a great bodhisattva associated with practice and meditation. Together with Shakyamuni Buddha and the bodhisattva Manjushri he forms the Shakyamuni Triad in Mahayana Buddhism. He is the patron of the Lotus Sutra, and in the Avatamsaka Sutra he makes ten great vows that became the basis of a bodhisattva's path, beginning with paying homage to all the buddhas and making ample offerings to them. In China he is known as Puxian and linked with action and practice; in Japan he is Fugen, venerated in the Tendai and Shingon traditions.
The primordial Buddha Samantabhadra
In the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and in the Bon tradition, the same name belongs to something else entirely: the Adi-Buddha, the primordial or original Buddha. Wikipedia's article on the Adi-Buddha explains that the term refers to the most fundamental, supreme Buddha in the cosmos, also called the Dharmakaya Buddha, and that in the Nyingma school this figure is called Samantabhadra, or Kuntu Zangpo in Tibetan. Wikipedia is careful to note he is not to be confused with the bodhisattva of the same name.
Nyingma art often depicts this Samantabhadra as a naked blue Buddha. According to the Wikipedia article, the Kunjed Gyalpo Tantra calls him the "All-Creating King", and the scholar Namkhai Norbu explains that this does not mean a being who creates the universe; rather, all things arise from "the state of consciousness Samantabhadra, the state of Dharmakaya." In this reading, which Namkhai Norbu describes as mainly a metaphor, Samantabhadra stands for our own true condition: a nature that has always been pure. Wikipedia also notes that Samantabhadra is considered the source of all Dzogchen teachings, and the article quotes Longchenpa calling Samantabhadra one of the most common Dzogchen names for the state of original buddhahood.
Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri
Wikipedia's article on the bodhisattva notes that in the Nyingma school the Adi-Buddha Samantabhadra is often portrayed in indivisible union, yab-yum, with his consort Samantabhadri. The pairing expresses a unity the tradition frames as inseparable: the store's own listings describe it as the union of awareness and compassion, and as the feminine attribute of wisdom joined to compassion and skilful means. That is the store's description of its own pieces; the union itself is the standard iconography of this figure.
Two Samantabhadras, one shop
So how do you tell the two apart in practice? Wikipedia notes that the bodhisattva is rarely depicted alone, usually appearing at the right side of Shakyamuni in a triad, mounted on a six-tusked white elephant. The primordial Buddha, by contrast, is the unadorned meditating figure of Nyingma art, often blue and often in union with Samantabhadri. The pieces at Durbar Square belong to the second type.
The store's Samantabhadra Buddha Thangka is a handpainted gold-ground thangka: the figure sits in vajra posture with hands resting in the meditation gesture, embracing Samantabhadri in yab-yum, exactly as the listing describes. The same subject appears in two handmade metal statues, a copper Samantabhadra Buddha and a gold-plated version, whose listings describe the same union. You can find them in the thangka collection and the handmade statues collection.
