CIRCA: 1700’s / 18th C.
A stunning double (or ‘crossed’) vajra / dorje* meditation seating square from Ningxia with a forceful symbolic presence and a visual energy woven into the design that makes it appear to be emanating outwards in a burst-like fashion. Made sometime in the 1700’s / 18th century it has all natural dyes, cotton warp and wool left and size is 82cm x 72cm. True artistry has been shown here by the weaver in achieving a very pleasing, aesthetically balanced visual representation of this design, and while the use of wool for weft is almost never seen in later Ningxia carpets, it is sometimes found in rugs made there with an earlier provenance. A collectors piece with wear commensurate with age and long term use but still in good condition overall.
* In Buddhism a vajra (which is a Sanskrit word, or ‘dorje’ in Tibetan) is a sacred ceremonial or ritual ‘weapon’, mainly employed in the Vedic ritual for dispelling evil forces in Tantric Buddhism in Tibet. It is a powerful Buddhist protective symbol of the unbreakable force of the enlightened state that cannot be destroyed but itself destroys all evil. A single dorje is shaped like a type of double-ended club with ribbed spherical ends – as seen in the illustration above – whereas here the central motif shows two dorje’s crossed or ‘doubled’.